Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

by Carol Tavris

Actually, decades of experimental research have found exactly the opposite: when people vent their feelings aggressively, they often feel worse, pump up their blood pressure, and make themselves even angrier.21

Kahn, a good Freudian, was astonished by the results: Catharsis was a total flop in terms of making people feel better. The people who were allowed to express their anger about Kahn felt far greater animosity toward him than those who were not given that opportunity. In addition, although everyone’s blood pressure went up during the experiment, subjects who expressed their anger showed even greater elevations; the blood pressure of those who were not allowed to express their anger soon returned to normal.22 Seeking an explanation for this unexpected pattern, Kahn discovered dissonance theory, which was just getting attention at the time, and realized it could beautifully account for his results. Because the students thought they had gotten the technician in serious trouble, they had to justify their actions by convincing themselves that he deserved it, thus increasing their anger—and their blood pressure.

The children who had been allowed to choose to be generous to the sad doggie shared more with Ellie than the children who had been instructed to share. In other words, once children saw themselves as generous kids, they continued to behave generously.24

They would know that cognitive and behavioral methods are the psychological treatments of choice for panic attacks, depression, eating disorders, insomnia, chronic anger, and other emotional disorders. These methods are often as effective or more effective than medication.

If you are going to use hypnosis, you had better know that while hypnosis can help clients learn to relax, manage pain, and quit smoking, you should never use it to help your client retrieve memories, because your willing, suggestible client will often make up a memory that is unreliable.

Successful partners extend to each other the same self-forgiving ways of thinking we extend to ourselves: They forgive each other’s missteps as being due to the situation but give each other credit for the thoughtful and loving things they do. If one partner does something thoughtless or is in a crabby mood, the other tends to write it off as a result of events that aren’t the partner’s fault: “Poor guy, he is under a lot of stress”; “I can understand why she snapped at me; she’s been living with back pain for days.” But if one does something especially nice, the other credits the partner’s inherent good nature and sweet personality: “My honey brought me flowers for no reason at all,” a wife might say; “he is the dearest guy.”

Social psychologist June Tangney has found that being criticized for who you are rather than for what you did evokes a deep sense of shame and helplessness; it makes a person want to hide, disappear.

Gottman finds, is when the “magic ratio” dips below five to one: Successful couples have a ratio of five times as many positive interactions (such as expressions of love, affection, and humor) to negative ones (such as expressions of annoyance and complaints).

When the ratio is five to one or better, any dissonance that arises is generally reduced in a positive direction. Social psychologist Ayala Pines, in a study of burnout in marriage, reported how a happily married woman she called Ellen reduced the dissonance caused by her husband’s failure to give her a birthday present. “I wish he would have given me something—anything—I told him that, like I am telling him all of my thoughts and feelings,” Ellen said to Pines. “And as I was doing that I was thinking to myself how wonderful it is that I can express openly all of my feelings, even the negative ones . . . The left over negative feelings I just sent down with the water under the bridge.”

the couples who grow together over the years have figured out a way to live with a minimum of self-justification, which is another way of saying that they are able to put empathy for the partner ahead of defending their own territory. Successful, stable couples are able to listen to each other’s criticisms, concerns, and suggestions undefensively. In our terms, they are able to yield, just enough, on the self-justifying excuse “That’s the kind of person I am.” They reduce the dissonance caused by small irritations by overlooking them, and they reduce the dissonance caused by their mistakes and major problems by solving them.

A man travels many miles to consult the wisest guru in the land. When he arrives, he asks the great man: “O wise guru, what is the secret of a happy life?” “Good judgment,” says the guru. “But, O wise guru,” says the man, “how do I achieve good judgment?” “Bad judgment,” says the guru.

“But in any classic play, act two is where the action is,” said Elliot. “In life as in a play, you can’t leap from act one to act three. We skip act two at our peril, for that’s when we go through the turmoil of confronting our demons—the selfishness, immorality, murderous thoughts, disastrous choices—so that when we enter act three, we have learned something. Fitzgerald was telling us that Americans are inclined to bypass act two; they don’t want to go through the pain that self-discovery requires.”

Political scientist Greg Weiner observed that Trump’s “most strenuous apologists have long swept all [complaints against him] away with the breezy assurance that he should be taken ‘seriously, not literally,’” because he gives them policies they want, and that serves the greater national good or their religious agenda.