Generally, of course, we want other people to think well of us, we want others to see us as good people. As people who know how to behave appropriately. But being human, we all occasionally behaved inappropriately, do something we shouldn't do. And when that happens, we often come up with explanations for our inappropriate behavior. So that others won’t think we are foolish or rude or irresponsible.
Let’s look at a couple of different ways people explain or account for inappropriate behavior. One way to account for inappropriate behavior is to attribute it to something beyond our control, this type of explanation is called an excuse. With excuses, we acknowledged that our behavior with inappropriate, but claimed that we didn't intend to behave that way, that our inappropriate behavior was due to events or circumstances beyond our control. As a professor, I hear excuses all the time, for example, when students arelate to class, a classic excuse is that they overslept, because their alarm clock didn't go off. They didn’t mean to come to class late, but something beyond their control, went wrong with their alarm clock and that's why they didn't wake up on time and were late.
Another way, we sometimes explain inappropriate behavior, so that others don't think badly of us, is by utilizing what's called a justification. When we use a justification, we explain that we intentionally did something that would normally be inappropriate, but that was okay this time because we had a good reason for behaving the way we did. I also often hear justifications, when students explain why they missed class, for example, they say they missed the class because they had a very important job interview at same time as the class. So, they chose to miss the class, but they justify itby explaining that they had to go to an important job interview.
