Accountability

Definition

Accountability is the condition of having to answer, explain, or justify one's actions or beliefs to another. It often includes the possibility that you will be held responsible and punished if your acts cannot be justified, or rewarded if your actions are justified. Accountability is a composite of numerous factors: being held responsible for one's actions, presence of another, being identifiable as an actor, evaluation by an audience, and providing validation for one's behavior.

History and Modern Usage

The most salient component of accountability, the idea that we are responsible for our actions, is central to a long-standing debate among philosophers and psychologists: that of determinism versus free will. Determinism suggests that people act based on cause-and-effect relationships and therefore could not have acted any differently than what they actually did, whereas theories of free will suggest that people act of their own volition. Proponents of free will admit that genetics and environment influence decisions; nevertheless, decisions ultimately depend on individual choice. The distinction between the two perspectives lies in the degree of accountability to which people are held. Determinism does not give people the power of choice and therefore denies accountability. Supporters of free will, however, hold people accountable for their behavior in that people ultimately have some choice in what they do.

Many current psychological perspectives follow a deterministic line of thinking. Behavioral psychology explains all of human behavior as a response to expected consequences of environmental stimuli. Neuroscience examines human behavior from the perspective of brain activity and neurotransmitters. Cognitive psychologists liken the mind to a complex processor of information that receives input, processes that input in a systematic manner, and spits out behavior. Even social psychology focuses mainly on deterministic perspectives, rooting the cause of behavior in situational determinants. This focus on deterministic perspectives may be due to the cause and effect nature of science itself, making the study of free will almost impossible from a scientific standpoint. Nevertheless, this places the role of accountability at nil for most explanations of behavioral responses.

Despite the difficulties of studying accountability in its purest sense, recent social psychological research has focused on the effects of choice, control, responsibility, and accountability for one's actions. Evidence has shown that people feel responsible for their behavior, and that people often feel and act as if they may be held accountable for the things that they do. People like to have choices and react aversively when those choices are restricted. Also, accountability seems to be a necessary component to many emotions. It is hard to imagine a situation in which a person would feel [Page 4]pride, guilt, shame, or embarrassment for acts that he or she does not feel accountable for. Indeed, perceived accountability seems to have a large effect on the way people act.

Effects of Accountability

The mere presence of others is likely responsible for many of the effects of accountability. Human beings are the only animals that participate in complex societies and cultures. Much of our success as individuals hinges on our ability to play by society's rules. Thus, people display a strong need to belong and want to be evaluated positively by others in the group. Those who do so are more likely to reap the positive benefits inherent in group living. When others are in our presence, we have a sense that our behavior is being evaluated. This increases our sense of accountability and results in increased adherence to unspoken social rules and laws outlined by culture.

...