Does blame always shift? A critical commentary

Abstract

The manuscript is a critical commentary on the article ‘Does blame always shift? Examining the impact of workplace safety communication language on post-accident blame attributions for multiple entities’. In this commentary, I find that the reasoning provided for the non-shifting of blame across entities in the causal chain is not adequate. I use a zero-sum game analogy for blame attributions to provide evidence for this inadequacy. In this commentary, I further point out that the focal article does not account for the similarities and dissimilarities between the people making the attributions and the people against whom attributions are being made.