The American way of blame

By Martin E.P. Seligman
APA President

In the last year there has been a cascade of multiple murders in school by American boys. In the 1950s there were none. What changed, and do these changes give us some clues about how to end this nightmare?

The outer world of boys has, of course, changed, but their inner world has changed as well?in an astonishing and dismaying way. The outer changes are better known, but they bear repeating: easy access to guns, contagion fostered by the media and the waning of parental supervision.

The psychological changes are even more frightening. Traditional American child-rearing in individual responsibility has been replaced by a self-esteem movement. This movement tells parents and educators that their first duty is to make kids feel good about themselves. Kids are taught mantras like 'I am special,' and they believe them. Low self-esteem is seen as the cause of teen-age pregnancy, depression, suicide, drug abuse and violence, and so teaching self-esteem is supposed to be a vaccine.

A recipe for violence

Unfortunately it turns out that hit men, genocidal maniacs, gang leaders and violent kids often have high self-esteem, not low self-esteem. A recipe for their violence is a mean streak combined with an unwarranted sense of self-worth. When such a boy comes across a girl or parents or schoolmates who communicate to him that he is not all that worthy, he lashes out.

To top it off, our kids are imbued with victimology, which today has become the American way of blame. It is too routine for adults and their kids to explain all their problems as victimization. When a boy in trouble sees himself as a victim, this festers into seething anger. With easy availability of guns, it can explode as murder.

The tabloid reporting of mass murder feeds into this state of the child?s mind and so is contagious. Murder is reported on the front page and leads the nightly news in gory color and audible sobbing. The airing of the shattered emotions of the victims? families and friends is only marginally newsworthy, yet it goes on for days, and has a galvanizing effect on the potential copycat.

All this occurs against a background of kids watching several hours of TV daily with about one murder per hour. When killing becomes routine entertainment, the inhibitions against killing melt. For the child who feels victimized by other kids and his parents and his schoolteachers, being able to fantasize so concretely about wreaking this vengeance is empowering and delicious. These outer and inner changes suggest a short-term stop gap and long-term solution. Every secondary school should consider installing metal detectors right away. When a weapon is found on any student, the right move is not just to expel, but to talk. A psychologist may be able to see the difference between a schoolyard bully and a potential killer.

What?s required to stop it

In the long run, we need much more than metal detectors. There are more competent experts than I am to spell out how to limit access to guns, how to change the reporting of mass murder and how to persuade parents to spend more time with their kids. What I believe needs changing is the way kids think about their troubles. Baseless self-esteem is easily shattered by the usual setbacks of growing up; when, in a boy with a mean streak, it combines with blaming parents, peers and the schools?blaming anyone but himself?it can become violent. We need to teach our children warranted self-esteem and realistic optimism?based on the skills of doing well in the world, on doing well with others and on personal responsibility. These research-based programs improve the ways that all kids think about their troubles, manage emotions, solve problems and communicate with others. But when it comes to aggression, counseling?which focuses only on the child?has limits. Programs involving the family and the school do much better. Whole communities suffer the consequences of schoolyard violence, and whole communities are required to stop it.

A version of this column by Martin E.P. Seligman and Roger Weissberg appeared in the May 27 USA Today.