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

by Carol Tavris

When people have had a religious conversion, survived a disaster, suffered through cancer, or recovered from an addiction, they often feel transformed; the former self is “not me.” For people who have experienced such transformations, memory helps resolve the inconsistency between their past and current selves by literally changing their perspectives. When people recall actions that are dissonant with their current view of themselves—for example, when religious people are asked to remember times they did not attend religious services when they felt they should have, or when antireligious people remember attending services—they visualize the memory from a third-person perspective, as if they were impartial observers. But when they remember actions that are consonant with their current identities, they tell a first-person story, as if they were looking at their former selves through their own eyes.