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

by Carol Tavris

Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent with each other,

The results are always the same: severe initiations increase a member’s liking for the group.

People become more certain they are right about something they just did if they can’t undo it.

Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression.

How do you get an honest man to lose his ethical compass? You get him to take one step at a time, and self-justification will do the rest.

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.

“naive realism,” the inescapable conviction that we perceive objects and events clearly, “as they really are.”

Prejudices emerge from the disposition of the human mind to perceive and process information in categories. Categories is a nicer, more neutral word than stereotypes, but it’s the same thing.

Memories create our stories, but our stories also create our memories. Once we have a narrative, we shape our memories to fit into it.

the more you imagine something, the more confident you become that it really happened—and the more likely you are to inflate it into an actual memory, adding details as you go.

During the deepest stage of sleep, when dreaming is most likely to occur, part of the brain shuts down body movements so you won’t go hurling yourself around the bed as you dream of chasing tigers. If you awaken from this stage before your body does, you will actually be momentarily paralyzed; if your brain is still generating dream images, you will, for a few seconds, have a waking dream. That’s why those figures on the bed are dreamlike, nightmarish—you are dreaming, but with your eyes open.

self-justification is the prime suspect in the murder of a marriage.

The pain of living with horrors you have committed but cannot morally accept is searing, which is why most people will reach for any justification available to assuage the dissonance.

that is how the moral conscience of a nation deteriorates.

For as a wise man once said, ‘An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct

prosecutors generally have immunity from civil suits and are subject to almost no judicial review.

let go of the need to be right.

Demagogues, by definition, need adoring crowds, and they create them by using the timeless method of arousing fear.

The guiding metaphor of this book has been the pyramid of choice: As soon as people make a decision, whether reasoned or impulsive, they will change their attitudes to conform to that choice and start minimizing or dismissing any information suggesting they chose the wrong option.