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

Understanding without vengeance, reparation without retaliation, are possible only if we are willing to stop justifying our own position.

A man travels many miles to consult the wisest guru in the land. When he arrives, he asks the great man: “O wise guru, what is the secret of a happy life?” “Good judgment,” says the guru. “But, O wise guru,” says the man, “how do I achieve good judgment?” “Bad judgment,” says the guru.

heart of dissonance and its innermost irony: the mind wants to protect itself from the pain of dissonance with the balm of self-justification, but the soul wants to confess.

Is the brain designed to defend our beliefs and convictions? Fine—the brain also wants us to stock up on sugar, but most of us learn to eat vegetables. Is the brain designed to make us flare in anger when we think we are being attacked? Fine—but most of us learn to count to ten and find alternatives to beating the other guy with a cudgel. An appreciation of how dissonance works, in ourselves and others, gives us some ways to override our wiring.

Imagine, for a moment, how you would feel if your partner, your grown child, or your parent said: “I want to take responsibility for that mistake I made; we have been quarreling about it all this time, and now I realize that you were right, and I was wrong.”

If the person who admits mistakes or harm is a business or political leader, you will probably feel reassured that you are in the capable hands of someone big enough to do the right thing, which is to learn from the wrong thing.

a wise man once said, ‘An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.’ . . . Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive.” The final responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was, he said, “mine, and mine alone.” As a result of that admission, Kennedy’s popularity soared. That story sure feels like ancient history, doesn’t it? Imagine a president apologizing and gaining respect and admiration for doing so! The legal scholar Cass Sunstein found in his studies that for many people today, “apologies are for losers.” They can backfire, because if you don’t like the person apologizing, you take his or her words as evidence of weakness or incompetence.5 Moreover, given a national climate in which offenders must admit wrongdoing, express remorse, and promise repentance or they’ll lose their jobs, their roles in a show, or their academic careers, apologies themselves have become polarized and politicized. When are they important, and when not? And for what behavior should they be offered? Many people are as dismayed by forced apologies for actions they personally find unobjectionable as

a wise man once said, ‘An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.’

Whatever the error, sin, or mistake, apologies fail when listeners know that the speaker has to say something to reassure the public but the statement feels formulaic and obligatory (which it often is, having been generated by a press agent or someone in human resources).

Most of us are not impressed when leaders offer the form of an apology without its essence, saying essentially, “I didn’t do anything wrong myself, but it happened on my watch, so, well, I guess I’ll take responsibility.”

“Why can’t they just tell me the truth and apologize?”

“Being assured that it won’t happen again is very important to patients, more so than many caregivers seem to appreciate,” says Lucian Leape, a physician and professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It gives meaning to patients’ suffering.”9

The disclosure of fallibility humanizes doctors and builds trust, Friedman concluded. “In the end, most patients will forgive their doctor for an error of the head, but rarely for one of the heart.”

difficult it is to say, “Boy, did I mess up,” without the protective postscript of self-justification

There are plenty of good reasons for admitting mistakes, starting with the simple fact that you will probably be found out anyway—by your family, your company, your colleagues, your enemies, your biographer.

There are plenty of good reasons for admitting mistakes, starting with the simple fact that you will probably be found out anyway—by your family, your company, your colleagues, your enemies, your biographer. But there are more positive reasons for owning up. Other people will like you more. Someone else may be able to pick up your fumble and run with it; your error might inspire someone else’s solution. Children will realize that everyone screws up on occasion and that even adults have to say “I’m sorry.”

There are plenty of good reasons for admitting mistakes, starting with the simple fact that you will probably be found out anyway—by your family, your company, your colleagues, your enemies, your biographer. But there are more positive reasons for owning up. Other people will like you more. Someone else may be able to pick up your fumble and run with it; your error might inspire someone else’s solution. Children will realize that everyone screws up on occasion and that even adults have to say “I’m sorry.” And if you can admit a mistake when it is the size of an acorn, it will be easier to repair than if you wait until it becomes the size of a tree, with deep, wide-ranging roots.

Errors are inherent in baseball, as they are in medicine, business, science, law, love, and life. But before we can deal with them, we must first acknowledge that we have made them.

If letting go of self-justification and admitting mistakes is so beneficial to the mind and to relationships, why aren’t more of us doing it?

If letting go of self-justification and admitting mistakes is so beneficial to the mind and to relationships, why aren’t more of us doing it? If we are so grateful to others when they do it, why don’t we do it more often?