[passmeby]

Hello. I'm trying to do some reading on a few psychological issues/tendencies but I am having a very hard time trying to find what I'm looking for because I do not know the exact terminology. My Google searches are largely fruitless! Hoping someone can help...

There are two (closey related to each other, which explains a lot) people in my life who display an EXTREME "need"/compulsion to point fingers, blame, weave lies to be perceived as innocent, and NEVER admit fault to any degree for ANYTHING EVER, and NEVER apologize, at the expense of others as well. When I say EXTREME, I mean EXTREME. Far beyond any general minor tendency or human nature.

I can cite specific things or expand if needed for clarification, but for now I'll keep it somewhat brief.

This is beyond a general tendency or the natural urge inside all of us to be as innocent as possible, it's human... but with these particular people it's a raging compulsion that occurs every day, every hour, every moment. They go to any length and without regard to anyone else's person/property/honor. Literally EVERYTHING has to be blamed on someone. Even a weight problem that one of these people has. A weight problem, for God's sake, how can that possibly be blamed on anoher party? Yet they do it. They are upset over their weight but blame EVERYTHING except themselves... they eat garbage food and tons of it and do not exercise one iota. They blame their weight on a persons cooking tasting good, if they were served a large plate of food, they blame a person FOR cooking a meal (it tasted good and I ate a lot)... and FOR NOT coooking a meal (I was FORCED to eat fast food because someone didn't cook for me)-darned if you do, darned if you don't ALL THE TIME (with these people, it is literally like that, you CANNOT make the right decision, no matter what you do you're wrong or you're to bl;ame for SOMETHING)... and other such absurd excuses... and they don't exercise because they constantly want to buy the newest fad workout (thousands have been spent on exercise/diet stuff already, but it's never good enough, or the next new thing is going to be "it", everything else hasn't worked so far for one excuse or another). So they'll completely blame lack of ANY physical activity on not having the next fad of costly equipment or the new workout DVD's or whatever, or "I'll start on my birthday", "I'll start on New Years" or whenever... in other words, perpetual excuses.

That was meant to be a small sample of what I'm dealing with here, it's literally an every-day (at least) occurrence. I literally mean that these people do this behavior ALL the time, not a day goes by without it happening to any degree. SO I'm absolutely convinced it's a sickness and a VERY strong compulsion, by far not just normal human nature.

I have actually confronted BOTH these people about this issue before. They WILL not speak of it, will not admit to it, will not discuss it-NOTHING. So, I have gone that route head-on with no success.

What I'm asking here is what psychological umbrella this goes under so that I can read up on it and better understand it. I know I cannot change another person, all I can do is change myself to better deal with this. What helps me personally to deal with things is a better understanding of the issue at hand, so this is going to be my approach at this point. I can't think of anything else I can do...

Comments welcome too (esp on how to deal, and WHY people do this, or just to relate), but really do need to find the correct terminology! Thanks in advance for any help.

[passmeby]

Ah Ha, I think I got it, is it "externalizing"? I think it is.

Comments still absolutely welcome! Thanks.

Edit: upon discovering "externalization", I also found "Attribution Theory" and "Self-Serving Bias", in case anyone else has this same question!