What does associational guilt have to do with your day-to-day life? You might be surprised. Just like The Budget Socialite, you could be living a high class lifestyle on a low class budget. She may have taught you that you can have champagne tastes and catfish income. What she didn’t teach you is that law guilty by association could be creeping up in your day-to-day life. You could be one bad decision away from paying for others’ mistakes, just because of who you do business with.
Basically, associational guilt states that if you associate yourself with a group that has a bad reputation, then you too are guilty by association. You will quickly and easily find yourself facing legal action simply because of your association. For example, if you share the same accountant that your friend next door has and her accountant steals money from her, don’t be surprised when your name pops up in the investigation. Did you do anything to warrant being accused of this crime? Probably not, but associational guilt states that that doesn’t matter. Because you chose to associate yourself with the alleged criminal, you too are now criminal.
This is an important lesson to remember when dealing with people in everyday life. Someone might seem like a great person, but if they have a criminal background or have a reputation of doing bad things, you want to distance yourself from that person. What could seem like a harmless brunch between friends could potentially turn into a nightmare because of one simple association. When you’re living on a budget, a simple mistake in your social circle could have dire financial consequences.
If you grab lunch once a week with your coworker who then begins to get sued for sexual harassment, you might suddenly find yourself in the middle of a lawsuit as well. Let’s say the same is true for an old boyfriend who ends up robbing a bank. Names can be changed, but associational guilt will still cause problems for you when you associate yourself with people with bad reputations.
Some tips to avoid associational guilt: Your social circle is something you can control, and you should make sure to only associate yourself with people who are good influences on your life – both personally and financially. Be discerning in the people you choose to spend time with. This idea can also be applied to your online social circle – do you know every account you follow on Twitter, or are you merely following for the sake of checking updates? If you don’t know that person’s character, then you may end up associating with a person who would be guilty by association. As you can see, associational guilt in everyday life is a real threat, especially for those who are living on a budget or are living paycheck to paycheck. Being careful about what you post online, who you associate with, and where you go to do business are all things that will help you to protect you against associate guilt.
It might feel really good to eat at the restaurant that your favorite blogger just opened, but what if it turns out that that blogger stole from someone and is now on a list of criminals to look out for? You could be held legally responsible for the actions of someone that you only went to lunch with once. This might not seem realistic for you right now, or it may be hard to imagine, but it’s important to keep it in the back of your mind when you live a lifestyle that has a lot of risk.
Take these tips on make responsible decisions in your day-to-day life to avoid associational guilt. For more information on the implications of associational guilt, you can visit this Wikipedia page.