Comment by theteapot
4 years ago
> Essentially, people (and AFAIK, all primates) have a built in behavioural system to take excess credit for wins and minimize blame for losses.
Where did you get this from? Seems like a cynical view. I think it's just one end of a spectrum. I've definitely worked with people like this, but I also some that do the opposite - wins are for the team, failures are on them.
It applies at the team level as well. Those team players you know probably sing the victories of the team just a little more loudly than they televise their own failures.
It isn’t really that Machiavellian. At any operational level, humans and human organizations give more attention to their own successes than failures.
I initially came across it in somebody's review of The Red Queen but idk who. The book isn't exactly a must-read, though.
I was skeptical at first but I keep seeing the behaviour around me.
Taking credit for unearned wins while sloughing off deserved blame isn't general to hominids; the name for that pathology is narcissism. I'm not saying you're wrong to diagnose certain persons or organizations with that, but "cynical" is right.
You misunderstand. I'm not talking about manufacturing unearned credit or totally eliminating earned blame, I'm talking about distorting existing, deserved credit/blame to be moderately larger/smaller.
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