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

by Carol Tavris

When we cross these lines, we are justifying behavior that we know is wrong precisely so that we can continue to see ourselves as honest people and not criminals or thieves.

the dissonance created when loyalty to the party means supporting a dangerous party leader.

Understanding is the first step toward finding solutions that will lead

to change and redemption.

Neuroscientists have shown that these biases in thinking are built into the way brains process information—all

the reasoning areas of the brain virtually shut down when participants were confronted with dissonant information,

and the emotion circuits of the brain were activated when consonance was restored.

explains why it is so difficult for scientists and health experts to persuade people who are ideologically or politically committed to a belief—such as “climate change is a hoax”—to change their minds even when overwhelming evidence dictates that they should.

Once we are invested in a belief and have justified its wisdom, changing our minds is literally hard work.

The more costly a decision in terms of time, money, effort, or inconvenience and the more irrevocable its consequences, the greater the dissonance and

the greater the need to reduce it by overemphasizing the good things about the choice made.

Behavioral economists have shown how reluctant people are to accept these sunk costs—investments

Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression.

dissonance theory also shows us how a person’s generous actions can create a spiral

benevolence and compassion, a “virtuous circle.”

dissonance theory predicts that the more self-confident and famous experts are, the less likely they will be to admit mistakes.

Our convictions about who we are carry us through the day, and we are constantly interpreting the things that happen to us through the filter of those core beliefs.

An appreciation of the power of self-justification helps us understand why people who have low self-esteem or who simply believe that they are incompetent in some domain are not totally overjoyed when they do something well; on the contrary, they often feel like frauds.

Self-justification, therefore, will protect high self-esteem to avoid dissonance, but it will also protect low self-esteem if that is a default self-perception.

It’s the people who almost decide to live in glass houses who throw the first stones.

The metaphor of the pyramid applies to most important decisions involving moral choices or life options.

The first steps along the path are morally ambiguous, and the right decision is not always clear. We make an early, apparently inconsequential decision, and then we justify it to reduce the ambiguity of the choice. This starts a process of entrapment—action, justification, further action—that increases our intensity and commitment and may end up taking us far from our original intentions or principles.

The Milgram experiment shows us how ordinary people can end up doing immoral and harmful things through a chain reaction of behavior and subsequent self-justification.

A richer understanding of how and why our minds work as they do is the first step toward breaking the self-justification habit. And that, in turn, requires us to be more mindful of our behavior and the reasons for our choices. It takes time, self-reflection, and willingness.

our efforts at self-justification are all designed to serve our need to feel good about what we have done, what we believe, and who we are.

dissonance theory is a theory of blind spots—of how and why people unintentionally blind themselves so that they fail to notice vital events and information that might make them question their behavior or

their convictions.

“naive realism,”

We believe our own judgments are less biased and more independent than those of others partly because we rely on introspection to tell us what we are thinking and feeling, but we have no way of knowing what others are truly thinking.6 And when we look into our souls and hearts, the need to avoid dissonance assures us that we have only the best and most honorable of motives.

All of us are as unaware of our blind spots as fish are unaware of the water they swim in, but those who swim in the waters of privilege have a particular motivation to remain oblivious.

Privilege is their blind spot.7 It is invisible and they don’t think twice about it; they justify their social position as something they are entitled to.

Introspection alone will not help our vision,

Blind spots enhance our pride and activate our prejudices.

makes them even more vulnerable to being hooked.

being given a gift evokes an implicit desire to reciprocate.

once reciprocity kicks in, self-justification will follow:

Once you take the gift, no matter how small, the process starts.

Your behavior changes, but, thanks to blind spots and self-justification, your view of your intellectual and professional integrity remains the same.

Thanks to our ego-preserving blind spots, we cannot possibly have a prejudice,

Prejudices emerge from the disposition of the human mind to perceive and process information in categories.

Cognitive psychologists view stereotypes as energy-saving devices that allow us to make efficient decisions on the basis of past experiences;

We wisely rely on stereotypes and the quick information they give us to avoid danger, approach possible new friends, choose one school or job over another, or decide that that person across this crowded room will be the love of our lives.

The downside is that stereotypes flatten out differences within the category we are looking at and exaggerate differences between categories.

Us is the most fundamental social category in the brain’s organizing system, and the concept is hardwired. Even the plural pronouns us and them are powerful emotional

“Us-ness” can be manufactured in a minute in the laboratory,

when we are angry, anxious, or threatened, our blind spots are automatically activated.

The very act of thinking that they are not as smart or reasonable as we are makes us feel closer to others who are like us. But, just as crucially, it allows us to justify how we treat them.

the theory of cognitive dissonance shows that the path between attitudes and action runs in both directions.

unworthy, unteachable, incompetent, inherently math-challenged, immoral, sinful, stupid, or even subhuman, we avoid feeling guilty or unethical about how we treat them. And we certainly avoid feeling that we are prejudiced.

A stereotype might bend or even shatter under the weight of disconfirming information, but the hallmark of prejudice is that it is impervious to reason, experience, and counterexample.