Organizations hide harm by denying consequences, then by denying responsibility for them.

Evidence

At this point, it must be extraordinarily tempting to “cover up” the evidence if it is possible to do so. Several mechanisms are available for doing so, depending on who has become aware of what. If the negative consequences are known only within the organization, then their existence can be minimized or denied. Apparently executives in cigarette companies to this day deny that cigarettes cause cancer. Thus the person denies the negativity of the consequences, or the responsibility for those consequences, and in so doing denies guilt, both to himself and to others. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4012

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the tobacco industry’s decades of denial and the broader pattern of organized denial documented in Oreskes and Conway’s Merchants of Doubt for climate change and other industries. — connects to: Divine legitimization of group advantage removes accountability for causing harm.; Desire to punish offenders should amplify the denial of their agency.; Organizations deny environmental change to protect their established roles and resources. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 71