MISTAKES WERE MADE (BUT NOT BY ME)
Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
Harcourt Books, 2007
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Clinicians will learn how the brain is wired for self-justification and how this mechanism impedes the ability to correct mistakes, self-defeating behavior, and unvalidated practices.
Why are some public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell? Based on years of research, the authors show that when we make mistakes, we tend to create fictions that absolve us of responsibility and restore our belief that we are smart, moral, and right— beliefs that often keep us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Tavris and Aronson show how this works, the harms caused, and, more importantly, how to overcome it.
Carol Tavris, Ph.D., is a social psychologist who lectures and writes on many aspects of psychology. She is the author of several books including Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, The Mismeasure of Woman and co-author of two leading psychology textbooks.
Elliot Aronson is Professor Emeritus at University of California at Santa Cruz and Visiting Professor, Stanford University. His numerous publications include The Social Animal and Nobody Left to Hate (on the Columbine murders). He was chosen by his peers as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century.
10 CE Credits; 304 pages
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