This is a difficult piece to write, because the subject it’s really about — the psychology of blame and personal accountability — is easy to discuss in the abstract and genuinely hard to apply to someone you love. If you’re reading this, you probably have someone in your life who is struggling, who seems to attribute that struggle consistently to other people, external circumstances, or bad luck — and who resists, sometimes fiercely, any suggestion that their own choices might be part of the picture.
The title is deliberately provocative. The word “chunky” stands in for any struggle — health, weight, career, money, relationships. What this piece is really about is the psychology of externalising blame, why it happens, what it costs the person doing it, and how to navigate a close relationship with someone who seems unable to take responsibility for their own life.
1. External Locus of Control
Psychologist Julian Rotter introduced the concept of locus of control in 1954 to describe where people perceive the source of control over events in their lives. People with an internal locus of control believe their outcomes are primarily determined by their own choices and actions. People with an external locus of control believe their outcomes are primarily determined by external forces — other people, luck, circumstance, systems.
Neither is entirely accurate; both internal and external forces shape our lives. But people with a strongly external locus of control tend to attribute setbacks to everything except their own decisions, which makes it genuinely difficult to change course — because changing course requires believing that your choices make a difference. Research by Dr. Herbert Lefcourt at the University of Waterloo found that external locus of control was associated with lower achievement motivation, poorer health outcomes, and greater psychological distress over time. The belief that nothing you do matters tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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2. Shame Avoidance
Blame-externalising is often, at its root, a form of shame management. If I caused this, then I am in some way deficient — and that conclusion is unbearable. Externalising the blame protects the self-image from that conclusion: it wasn’t my fault, therefore there’s nothing wrong with me. Research by Dr. June Price Tangney at George Mason University found that shame-prone individuals were significantly more likely to externalise blame and less likely to take responsibility for their failures, compared to guilt-prone individuals. The distinction matters: guilt says “I did something bad”; shame says “I am bad.” Guilt motivates change; shame motivates self-protection.
3. Learned Helplessness
Dr. Martin Seligman’s concept of learned helplessness describes a psychological state that develops when a person has experienced repeated situations in which their efforts appeared to make no difference to the outcome. They learn, in effect, that trying doesn’t help — and stop trying. This pattern can develop through repeated early experiences of powerlessness, through significant adversity or trauma, or through a run of genuinely difficult circumstances that have felt uncontrollable.
Someone who has experienced this may genuinely not believe their choices can change their situation, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. The blame externalisation is not always cynical or manipulative — it can reflect a deeply held, if inaccurate, belief about how much agency they actually have. This is worth understanding before you get frustrated, because the solution is not simply telling them to try harder.
4. Defensive Self-Narratives
We all construct narratives about our lives that protect our sense of being a reasonable, fundamentally good person. For some people, that narrative requires a villain — the family member who held them back, the partner who didn’t support them, the industry that didn’t recognise their talent, the body that betrayed them. The villain explains why things haven’t worked out in a way that preserves self-esteem. Dismantling the narrative is threatening, because it removes the explanatory structure that the person has organised their sense of self around.
5. Modelled Behaviour
How we handle difficulty, failure, and setback is substantially shaped by what we observed growing up. If you grew up in a family where problems were consistently attributed to external causes — the system, other people, bad luck — and where personal accountability was rarely modelled, blame externalisation is simply the pattern you learned. It doesn’t make it right, but it makes it understandable, and it suggests that change — while possible — requires unlearning deeply ingrained patterns rather than simply deciding to do differently.
6. Genuine Systemic Disadvantage
This is the complicating factor that any honest analysis of blame and accountability has to include: some people really are facing significant external barriers. Structural racism, financial disadvantage, health disparities, lack of access to opportunity — these are real, they are documented, and they do constrain people’s options in ways that personal effort alone cannot overcome. Telling someone who is genuinely systemically disadvantaged that their circumstances are primarily the result of their own choices is inaccurate and unkind.
The nuance is in recognising that both things can be true: real external barriers can exist and personal choices can still matter within those barriers. The most useful conversations acknowledge both without using one to erase the other. How to hold this is genuinely difficult, particularly in a close family relationship. What tends to help is approaching from curiosity and care rather than from a position of knowing the answer, and focusing on what is within the person’s control rather than what isn’t. Being someone others can be genuinely honest with starts with how you show up — and the power of authentic, vulnerable communication in close relationships is what makes these hard conversations possible at all. If you’re reflecting on your own patterns too, exploring whether you might sometimes be the common denominator is a useful companion to this kind of thinking.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I support someone who externalises blame without enabling it?
Validation first, challenge second — and only challenge when the relationship is strong enough to hold it. Start by genuinely acknowledging what’s hard and unfair before you offer any alternative perspective. If you lead with “yes, but have you thought about your role in this?”, most people shut down immediately. If you lead with “that sounds genuinely difficult — can I ask what you think you might be able to do differently?”, the same person is much more likely to engage. You can acknowledge someone’s pain and their external constraints while gently holding space for their own agency.
Is it ever appropriate to say nothing rather than challenge someone’s blame?
Yes — often. Not every conversation is the right one, and not every relationship is the right one to have it in. If someone is in the middle of a crisis, if the relationship doesn’t yet have the trust for honesty, or if the person hasn’t asked for your perspective, saying nothing and simply offering presence is frequently the most useful thing. The right time for honest conversation tends to be when things are calmer, when trust has been established, and when the person is asking genuine questions rather than seeking validation.
Can a person genuinely change an externalising pattern?
Yes — and research on locus of control shows it’s malleable, not fixed. Therapy — particularly CBT and schema therapy — can be very effective at helping people identify and shift deeply ingrained externalising patterns. But the change requires the person’s own motivation; it can’t be imposed from outside. The most useful thing you can do as a family member or close friend is to model accountability in your own life, maintain your relationship with them as a person, and be honest when they ask rather than when they don’t.
Further Reading & Sources
Rubie Le’Faine is the founder of Rubie Rubie and a writer specialising in emotional well-being, self-identity, and the psychology of modern relationships. She holds a Level 3 Certificate in Counselling Skills and has spent over eight years studying attachment theory, cognitive behavioural principles, and human development — first through formal study, then through lived experience that no course can replicate. After navigating a significant relationship breakdown, an identity rebuild, and the complex terrain of rediscovering herself in her 30s, Rubie began writing to make sense of what she had learned and to offer honest, human guidance to others going through the same. She founded Rubie Rubie in 2022 as a space for women seeking real answers, not platitudes. Based in Surrey, UK, her writing is grounded in research, shaped by experience, and centred entirely on the reader’s genuine wellbeing.
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