Excessive Options and Excuses

Résumé du livre

In both studies, participants with more options made more excuses for failure than participants with fewer options. These excuses ranged from relatively legitimate to relatively illegitimate, suggesting that participants with too many options disengaged their general perceptions of responsibility over their decision, and that led them to take multiple routes of excuse making even when some were not warranted. In Study 2, participants who were provided with an excuse for failure on the first task also made more excuses after the second task despite the excuse not being relevant to the second task. This effect again suggested that making excuses in one context can lead to more excuses in another, irrelevant context--a metaphorical "culture of excuses." Finally, structural equation modeling in Study 2 showed that making excuses may actually hurt affect immediately after those excuses are used but improve affect in the long run. In general, this research suggests that trends in excuse making in western culture may be in part due to pervasive information overload resulting from an overabundance of options in everyday decision making, and a more pro-excuse culture may perpetuate this effect