Excuses and excuse-makers
Every work team has one. An employee who can always be counted on to offer an excuse why his or her project wasn’t completed on time. Or why he couldn’t arrive on time for that important meeting. Or why she can’t possibly attend the company retreat.
The GO train was running late. My mother-in-law needed a ride to the dentist. The electricity in my apartment was shut off last night. My brother arrived here last night from Romania and I had to pick him up at the airport. Bell Canada said it would be here between nine and noon. My bird died. My street was piled up with snow. My cousin just won a trip and wants to take me along. My cat died.
It’s no different in academia.
Just like an employer, I can usually predict which students will leave e-mails, voice mails or come by my office to offer an excuse as to why they’re unable to meet a critical deadline. These Calamity Janes and Johns quite often are beset by multiple events that prevent them from succeeding.
My printer broke down. My apartment’s flooded. I have to take my landlord to court. I’m fighting a parking ticket. My computer broke down. I lost my USB key with all my notes. The security guard wouldn’t let me in the student lab. I’m suffering from food poisoning (that’s a really popular one!)
Student excuses are fodder for all kinds of jokes. They’ve almost spawned an industry with academics trading notes about variations on “my grandmother died.” With some students, it gets to the point where you ask: “just how many grandparents do you have?”
As in the workplace, professors and students engage in a little dance. The student knows the professor really isn’t buying the excuse and the professor wants to give the student the benefit of the doubt. So they dance the familiar dance. For the student, it’s a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes an excuse works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I really value honesty. I respect students who tell me straight up:
- I missed my deadline because I didn’t plan
- I slept in when I should have been up and printing that assignment
- I totally forgot
- A bunch of us were out clubbing last night; I left it too late to finish.
I admired the student who told me this week–when I asked her why she booked a shift as a volunteer at a local event at the very same time when she should have been in class:
- ” I wasn’t thinking.”
Good for her. She chose not to offer an excuse.
So, what’s the psychology behind excuse-making?
It’s a defense mechanism. We all want to feel good about ourselves, and attributing mistakes to external forces like chance, helps protect our self esteem. Conversely, when something goes well we like to take credit - building our self esteem.
Sometimes we acknowledge to ourselves why we didn’t get something done on time, but are embarrassed, or don’t expect a positive reaction if we tell the truth to somebody else. It could be because we made a dumb decision to drink too much the night before or because of a stigma surrounding certain personal issues. We’ll blame something else, or give a vague “excuse” because some past experience taught us to feel shame for whatever the real reason was.
I’ll make a confession: Today, I planned to get work done early - instead I caught up on sleep and played some Nintendo DS for a while before I finally got myself up. I’m behind on my plans, but I’ll just have to make up for it later.
Rick Weiss — March 16, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
What a great response; thanks, Rick. Attributing a lack of planning to external forces is often habit-forming, especially if students have had success with it as university and high school students. If it’s working, why change? many ask.
Christine Smith — March 16, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
I think the psychology behind excuses is to avoid consequences for poor decision making or laziness. Most people will do anything they can to avoid paying the price when they know they consciously made a bad decision.
However, like the student who responded, “I wasn’t thinking,” I find that when someone has made a genuine unconscious mistake, they will own up to it and won’t make excuses. They know they made a mistake and are willing to take the consequences for this mistake. It is then that I find that the person who has the responsibility of providing the consequences will actually be more likely to have mercy because they can see you are honest and trust that you know what you did wrong and it won’t happen again.
It is when the excuses come up all the time that the person who are providing with the excuses becomes less understanding and less willing to forgive.
My advice is to just be honest; it’s much easier than trying to remember which excuses you’ve already used and how many more grandparent funerals you could possibly attend before someone catches on.
Shauna Turpie — March 18, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Owning up (as you suggest) is about taking responsibility and being honest about yourself.
However, who hasn’t made an excuse? Take an invitation to a social event you really don’t feel like attending. When that happens to me, I reply: “I have plans that evening.”
That’s the truth. I plan to stay home and relax. So, it’s not an excuse.
Christine Smith — March 20, 2008 @ 11:53 am