Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)

Zusammenfassung von Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)

Name: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Rating: 4.4 (48 reviews)
Author: Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

4.4 (48 Bewertungen)

15 Min.

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Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
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What’s in it for me? Learn to admit your mistakes and then learn from them.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve made a mistake you need to tell others about? If so, in the moment you realized, you’d have to fess up to your mistake, you probably felt your chest tighten up and a lump rise in your throat. This is natural, as nobody likes admitting mistakes. But if you did admit your mistake, you probably felt liberated and could find ways to learn from it.

These blinks explore the human tendency to avoid admitting our mistakes by finding self-justifications for them.

You’ll discover why your brain is willing to jump through any number of hoops, even fabricating memories to protect you from having to admit a mistake.

You’ll also find out how refraining from admitting your mistakes can lead to broken marriages, misdiagnosed illnesses and even wrongful criminal convictions.

Finally, you’ll learn why admitting your mistakes can be a good thing, and how it can even get you promoted.

Instead of admitting our mistakes, we tend to justify them.

Everyone has done things they shouldn’t have. For example, have you ever munched down an entire family-sized pack of potato chips in one go? Chances are pretty good you have.

But, if you’re like most people, you probably told yourself that, actually, it was okay because, say, you’d had a hard week and fully deserved that little indulgence.

Most people do the same: they seek justifications for actions they know were wrong. That’s because they want to reduce feeling cognitive dissonance, or the unpleasant feeling of having two conflicting ideas in our heads.

In this case, if you consider yourself someone who adheres to a healthy diet, your overindulgence creates cognitive dissonance. To resolve the dissonance, you come up with a so-called self-justification (e.g., the rough work week) for your actions.

Another example of cognitive dissonance would be someone who bemoans the dangers of smoking while continuing to smoke themselves. To resolve the cognitive dissonance of the conflicting views and behavior, this person will probably come up with a self-justification like, “I really don’t smoke that much so the health effects are negligible.”

Unfortunately, these kinds of self-justifications can make us cling to our beliefs even more vehemently – not change our behavior.

For example, after making a mistake, we may find a self-justification for it rather than dealing with it head on and trying to understand why it happened.

One example can be seen in the invasion of Iraq. Even though the weapons of mass destruction that served as the justification of war were ultimately not found in Iraq, and the invasion of the country resulted in an increase of Islamic radicalism that the war was meant to diminish, U.S. president George W. Bush was still convinced that he had made the right decision to go to war. Undoubtedly, this was a way of resolving his cognitive dissonance.

We justify our mistakes by looking at situations in a biased, narrow-minded manner.

As we’ve seen, everyone can come up with justifications for their mistakes to avoid cognitive dissonance.

So how do we do convince ourselves our justification is right?

Far from an objective record of the truth, our memory is fabricated and adjusted to suit our needs.

When asked about a prior event, most people are confident that their memory is an accurate representation of what happened. In fact, it’s often not true.

First of all, we tend to bias our memories to better suit our current situation, for example, to justify our behavior or our beliefs.

Self-justification of mistakes hinders scientific advancements, especially in the field of medicine.

Have you ever been to the doctor’s office to get a diagnosis for something that’s been bothering you and then, at the last minute, just as you’re leaving the office, the doctor exclaims, “No, wait! I made a mistake – that’s the wrong diagnosis!”

Probably not. Because, hopefully, you’ve had good doctors, but also because even the best doctors are reluctant to admit their mistakes.

The criminal justice system also makes mistakes due to the self-justification of its actions.

Would you be worried if you were arrested for a crime you didn’t commit? Probably. But your worries might be tempered by the fact that you, like most people, trust that the criminal justice system seeks the truth and works in a legally and morally justifiable way.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case, as sometimes people’s tendency towards self-justification can lead the justice system to bury the truth just to have the appearance of running smoothly and being error-free.

Self-justifications and blame can damage or even ruin relationships.

Our desire to avoid cognitive dissonance by finding self-justifications for our mistakes can undermine our relationships.

That’s because one common way of avoiding cognitive dissonance is by shifting blame for mistakes onto our partners. Naturally, this engenders conflicts between us and our partners, and conflicts have in turn been shown to increase the likelihood of a break-up. This was evidenced by a study of couples that indicated that once the ratio of time in a relationship spent on good terms versus arguing goes below five to one, the relationship was unlikely to last.

Even governments resort to self-justification, and this can lead to escalating conflicts.

It turns out that, just like individuals, governments are also reluctant to admit their mistakes. Instead, they seek self-justifications for their actions. This is especially true in a crisis situation.

In a crisis, e.g., when under the threat of war, governments often create self-justifications for their erroneous actions by blaming their enemies for having “started it.”

Only by admitting our mistakes can we grow professionally and personally.

Most people have difficulties admitting when they’ve made a mistake – it’s only natural. But, as we’ve seen, this tendency can be destructive, so here are a few tips on how to start admitting mistakes.

First of all, understand that admitting mistakes is not a sign of stupidity or weakness, but a great way to learn from them and resolve cognitive dissonance.

Final Summary

The key message in these blinks:

Not admitting your mistakes and instead finding convoluted self-justifications for them can severely damage not only your personal and professional life, but society as a whole.

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Worum geht es in Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)?

Through studies and anecdotes, these blinks explain why, when we make mistakes, we often come up with self-justifications instead of admitting the mistakes to ourselves. It also shows how detrimental these self-justifications can be to personal relationships, medicinal care, the justice system and even international relations.

Wer Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) lesen sollte

Police officers, lawyers, judges, doctors, nurses, scientists and politicians
Anyone who wants to know why they don’t admit their own mistakes and how they can learn to admit them so as to reap the benefits
Anyone who wants to have healthier relationships, both romantic and otherwise

Über den Autor

Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson are social psychologists and lecturers. Carol Tavris has authored or co-authored several books, including Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion and The Mismeasure of Women. Elliot Aronson has also authored and co-authored books such as The Social Animal and Nobody Left to Hate.

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