Passing evidence upward lets officials feel responsibility has been discharged

Evidence

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, was under growing public pressure to resign for his failure to protect children against sexual molestation in his prior role as secretariat. Like Monsignor Lynn in Philadelphia, Cardinal Brady used displacement of responsibility as the principal mode of self-exoneration. Having passed the evidence of molestation on to his superiors, he felt that he had fulfilled his responsibility. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 501