Turns out all my mistakes were forgivable

Mistakes Were Made

(but not by me) Why We justify Foolish Beliefs,

Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

CAROL TAVRIS and ELLIOT ARONSON

IT- ­

I !

I Mistakes Were Made

I I I I I I

I

(but not by me)

Why We Justify

Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions,

and Hurtful Acts

o o o

CAROL TAVRIS alld ELLIOT ARONSON

11 HARCOURT, INC. Il � o"'�� :""'" N: YO" S==- TO',"" london , I

--11

Copyright Q 2007 by Carol Tavri$ and E1li(K Aronson

All rightS I'C5Cr�. No pan of this publicuion may be reproduo:zd. or transmitted in any form or by any means. electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, m:ording, or;my information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission 10 make copies of ;my pan of the work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact Of mailed to the following address:

Permissions Dc:panmc:m, Harcourt, Inc., 62n Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Rorida 32887-6m.

www.Han;ourIBooks.com

"Frank arw:! Dcbra� extracl from Andrew ChrUIe:ruen and Ndl S. Jaco�n'i RrrondMbb Diffirmrn is " 2000 Guilford Press and is reprinted with permission of Guilford PteS$.

Library of Congress Cataloging.in.Publiation Dara Tavris, Carol.

Mistakes were made (bUl nOI by me); why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acu/Carol Tavri5 & Elliot Aronson.-l 5t ed.

p. cm. Includes bibliogtaphial references and index.

I. Cognitive di5S0�ncc:. 2. Sdf--decc:pdon. I. Aronson, FJliol. II. Tide:. BF337.C63T38 2007

153--dc22 2006026953 ISBN 978-{}..15-101098-1

Text set in Adobe Gararnond

Printed in the United Statl'S of Aml'ria First roition

ACE GIKJHFD B

To Ronan, my WOl1derful 0'

-Carol Tavris

o o o

To Vera, of course

-Elliot Aronson

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue,

and then, when we are fmally proved wrong, impudently twisting

the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible

to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is

that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality , usu­

ally on a battlefield.

A great nation is like a great man:

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admiued it, he correas it.

-George Orwell (1946)

He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent

reachers.

-Lao Tzu

CONTENTS

o o o

INTRODUCTION

Knaves, Foo/s, Villains, and Hypocrites:

How Do They Live with Themselves? . . . . . . . • . . . . • . . • . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER I

Cognitive Dissonance: The Engine of Self-jusri/ication . . . . . . • . 11

CHAPTER 2

Pride and Prejudice ... ana Orher Blind Spars . . . . . • • • . . . . . . 40

CHAPTER 3

Memory, [he Self-juscifying HislOrian . . . . . . • . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . 68

CHAPTER 4

Good Intentions, Bad Science:

The Closed Loop of Clinical Judgment . . . . . • . . . • . . . • . . . . . . . 97

CHAPTER 5

Law and Disorder . . . . . • . . • • . . • • . . . • . . . • . . • • . . . • . . . . . . 127

CHAPTER 6

Loue's Assassin: Self-justification it! Marriage, . . . . . . . • . . . . . 158

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER 7

Wounds, Rifts, and Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

CHAPTER 8

Lelfing Go ana' Owning Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . • . . . • . . . . . . 213

AFTERWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . . . 237

ENDNOTES . . • • • . . . . . . . . . . 239

INDEX . . . . . . • . . . . . • • • . . • • . . . . . . . • • • . • . • . . • . . . . . . 277

Mistakes Were Made

(bur not by me)

INTRODUCTION

o o o

Knaves, Fools, Villains, and Hypocrites:

How Do They Live with Themselves?

Mistakes were quite possibly made by the administrations in which I

served.

-Henry Kissinger, responding to charges [hat he committed

war crimes in his role in the United Stares' actions in

Vietnam, Cambodia, and Sourh America in the 1970$

If, in hindsight, we also discover that mistakes may have been

made . . . I am deeply sorry.

-Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, referring to the bishops

who failed to deal with child molesrers among the Catholic clergy

Mistakes were made in communicating to the public and CUS[Qrners

about the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns.

-McDonald's, apologizing to Hindus and other vegetarians

for failing to inform them that the �natural flavoring�

in their potatoes contained beefbyproducrs

2 CAROL TAVRIS lind ElLIOT ARONSON

This week's question: How can YOLI rell when.a presidential scandal is serious?

A. The president's poll numbers drop. B. The press goes after him. C. The opposition calls for his impeachmem. D. His own parry members turn on him. E. Or the White House says, "mistakes were made."

-Bill Schneider on CNN's Inside Politics

AS FALLWLE HUMAN BEINGS. all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for any actions that turn our to be harmful. immoral, or stupid. Most of us will never be in a position (0 make decisions affecting the lives and deaths of mil� lions of people, but whether the consequences of our mistakes are trivial or tragic, on a small scaJe or a national canvas, most of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, "I was wrong; I made a terrible mistake." The higher the stakes-emotional. financial, moral-the greater the difficulty.

It goes further man that: Most people. when direCtly confronted. by evidence that they are wrong. do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciowly. Even irre­ futable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self­ justification. When we began working on this book. the poster boy for "tenacious dinging to a discredited belief" was George W Bush. Bush was wrong in his claim mat Saddam Hussein had weapons of

mass destruction, he was wrong in daiming mat Saddam was linked wim AJ Qaeda. he was wrong in predicting that Iraqis would be dancing joyfully in the streets to receive the American soldiers, he was wrong in predicting that the conflict would be over quickly. he was wrong in his gross underestimate of the financial COSt of the war, and he was most famously wrong in his photo-op speech six weeks after the invasion began. when he announced {under a banner read-

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but not by me) 3

ing MISSION ACCOMPUSHED) that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

At mat time, the [\'/0 of us warched wim fascination as commenfa­

tors from the right and left began fantasizing in prim about what it

would be like to have a presidem who admitted mistakes. The conser­ vative columnist George Will and the liberal columnist Paul Krugman both called for Bush to admit he had been wrong, bur the presidem remained intransigent. In 2006, with Iraq sliding into civil war and sixteen American intelligence agencies having issued a report that rhe

occuparion ofiraq had increased islamic radicalism and the risk of ter­ rorism, Bush said to a delegation of conservative columnists, "I've never been more convinced mar the decisions I made are the right decisions.'" Of course, Bush had to justify the war his administration pursued in Iraq; he had too much invested in that course of action to do otherwise-thousands of deaths and, according to a conserva­ tive estimate from me American Enterprise Instirute in 2006, at leasr a trillion dollars. Accordingly, when he was proved wrong in his orig­

inal reasons for the war, he found new ones: getting rid of a "very bad guy," fighting rerroris[S, promoting peace in the MiddJe East, bringing democracy to Iraq, increasing the security of the United Srates, and finishing "the task [our troops] gave their lives for." In ocher words, we must continue the war because we began the war.

Politicians are the most visible of self-justifiers, which is why they provide such juicy examples. They have refined the art of speaking in the passive voice; when their backs are to the wall they will reluc­ tandy acknowledge error, bur not responsibility. Oh all right, mis­ takes were made, but not by me; by someone else, who shall remain nameless.l When Henry Kissinger said that the "administration" may have made mistakes, he was sidestepping the facr that as national se­ curity adviser and secretary of state (simulraneously) he, in effect, was the adminisrtarion. This self-jusrification allowed him to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with a straight face and a dear conscience.

We look at the behavior of politicians with amusement or alarm

4 CAROL TAVRIS and elliOT ARONSON

or horror, bU[, psychologically, what they do is no different in kind,

though certainly in consequence, from what most of us have done at one time or another in our private lives. We stay in an unhappy rela� cionship or merely one that is going nowhere because, after all, we in� vested so much time in making it work. We sray in a deadening job way [00 long because we look for all the reasons [0 juS[ify staying and are unable to dearly assess the benefits of leaving. We buy a lemon of a car because it looks gorgeous, spend thousands of dollars to keep the damn thing funning, and then we spend even more to justify that in� vestment. We self· righteously create a rift with a friend or relative over some real or imagined slight, yet see ourselves as me pursuers of peace-if only the other side would apologize and make amends.

Self-justification is not the same thing as lying or making excuses. Obviously, people will lie or invent fanciful stories to duck the fury of a lover. pacem. or employer; to keep from being sued or sem to prison; to avoid losing face; to avoid losing a job; to stay in power. Bur mere is a big difference between what a guilty man says to the

public to convince chern of something he knows is untrue ("I did not have sex with mat woman"; "I am not a crook"). and the process of

persuading himself [har he did a good thing. In the former situation, he is lying and knows he is lying to save his own skin. In rhe larter, he is lying to himself. That is why self-jusrificarion is more powerful and more dangerous than the explicit lie. It allows people to con­ vince themselves that what they did was the best thing mey could have done. In fact. come to think of it. it was the right thing. "There was nothing else I could have done." "Actually. it was a brilliant so­ lution to the problem." "} was doing the best for the nation. n uThose bastards deserved what they gOt." ''I'm entitled."

Self-justification not only minimizes our mistakes and bad deci­ sions; it is also the reason that everyone can see a hypocrite in action

except me hypocrite. It allows us to create a distinction between our moral lapses and someone else's, and to blur me discrepancy between our actions and our moral convictions. Aldous Huxley was right when

MISTAKES WERE MADE (bue no! by me) 5

he said, "There is probably no such thing as a conscious hypocrite." Ie

seems unlikely that Newt Gingrich said {Q himself, "My, what a hyp� ocrite I am. There I was, all riled. up about Bill Clinton's sexual affair, while I was having an extramarital affair of my own right here in town." Similarly, the prominent evangelist Ted. Haggard seemed obliv� ious to the hypocrisy of publicly fulminating against homosexuaIiry

while enjoying his own sexual relationship with a male prostitute. In the same way, we each draw our own moral lines and justify

mem. For example, have you ever done a litcle finessing of expenses on income taxes? That probably compensates for the legitimate ex­

penses you forgot about, and besides, you'd be a fool not to, consid­ ering that everybody else does. Did you fail to report some extra cash income? You're entitled, given all the money mat me government wastes on pork-barrel projects and programs you detest. Have you been writing personal e-mails and surfing the Net at your office when you should have been tending to business? Those are perks of the job, and besides, it's your own prmcst against mose stupid company rules,

and besides, your boss doesn't appreciate all me extra work you do. Gordon Marino, a professor of philosophy and ethics, was staying

in a hotel when his pen slipped out of his jacket and left an ink spot

on me silk bedspread. He decided he would teli me manager, but he was tired and did nm want to pay for the damage. That evening he went out with some friends and asked meir advice. "One of them told me to stop with the moral fanaticism," Marino said. "He argued, The management expectS such accidentS and builds their COSt into

the price of the rooms.' It did not take long to persuade me that there was no need to trouble me manager. I reasoned that if I had spilled this ink in a family-owned bed-and-breakfast, then I would have im­

mediately reported the accident, but that (his was a chain hotel, and yadda yadda yadda went the hoodwinking process. I did leave a note at me front desk about the spot when I checked out."3

But, you say, all chose justifications are true! Hotel room charges do include the costs of repairs caused. by clumsy guests! The government

6 CAROL TAVRIS �"d ELLIOT ARONSON

does waste money! My company probably wouldn't mind if I spend a lin:le time on e-mail and I do get my work done (eventually)! Whether those daims are true or false is irrelevant. When we cross these lines, we are juscifying behavior that we know is wrong pre­ cisely so that we can continue (0 see ourselves as honest people and not criminals or thieves. Whether the behavior in question is a small thing like spilling ink on a hotel bedspread, or a big thing like em­ bezuemem, the mechanism of self-justification is the same.

Now, berween the conscious lie ro fool others and unconscious self­ justification to fool ourselves lies a fascinating gray area, patrolled by that unreliable, self-serving historian-memory. Memories are often pruned and shaped by an ego-enhancing bias that blurs the edges of past events, softens culpability. and distorts what really happened. When researchers ask husbands and wives what percentage of the housework they do. the wives say, "Are you kidding? I do almost every� thing, at least 90 percent." And the husbands say, "I do a lot, actually, about 40 percent." Although the specific numbers differ from couple to couple. the total always exceeds 100 percent by a large margin.4 It's tempting [Q conclude that one spouse is lying, but it is more likely that each is remembering in a way (hat enhances his or her contribution.

Over time, as the self-serving distortions of memory kick in and we forget or disrort past events, we may come ro believe our own lies, little by litcle. We know we did something wrong. bue gradually we begin to think it wasn't all our fault, and after all the situation was complex.

We start underestimating our own responsibility, whittling away at it until it is a mere shadow of its former hulking self Before long, we have persuaded ourselves, believing privately what we originally said publicly. John Dean, Richard Nixon's White House counsel, the man who blew the whiscle on the conspiracy to cover up the iUega] activi� ties of the Watergate scandal, explained how this process works:

Interviewer: You mean those who made up the srories were believing their own lies?

I MISTAKES WERE MADE (but not by me) 7 !

Dean: That's right. If you said it often enough, it would be� come rrue. When the press learned of the wire taps on news­ men and White House staffers, for example, and Aat denials failed. it was claimed that this was a national-security matter. I'm sure many people believed that me taps were for national security; they weren't. That was concocted as a justification after [he fact. But when they said it, you understand. they really beliroedir,s

Like Nixon, Lyndon Johnson was a master of self-jusdfication. According to his biographer Roben Caro, when Johnson came to be­ lieve in something, he would believe in it "totally, with absolute con­

viction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter." George Reedy. one of Johnson's aides, said that he "had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who

brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It

was not an act .... He had a fantastic capacity [0 persuade himself thar me 'truth' which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of ene­ mies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality. "6 Although Johnson's supporters found this to be a ramet charming as­ pect of the man's character, it might well have been one of the major reasons that Johnson could not extricate the coumry from the quag­ mire of Vietnam. A president who justifies his actions only to the public might be induced to change them. A president who has jus­ tified his actions to himself, believing mat he has the troth, becomes impervious to self-correction.

o o o

The Dinka and Nuer tribes of the Sudan have a curious tradition. They extract (he permanenr from teeth of their children-as many

8 CAROL TAVRIS lIud ELLIOT ARONSON

as six bottom teem and two top teeth-which produces a sunken

chin, a collapsed lower lip. and speech impediments. This practice

apparently began during a period when tetanus (lockjaw, which

causes me jaws [0 clench together) was widespread. Villagers began

pulling oU[ their front teeth and those of their children to make it

possible to drink liquids through the gap. The lockjaw epidemic is

long past, yet the Dinka and Nuee are still pulling our their children's front teeth.7 How come?

In 1847. Igoac Semmelweiss famously exhoned his fellow physi� cians to wash their hands before delivering babies. He realized that

they must have acquired some kind of "morbid poison" on their

hands from doing autopsies on women who had died of childbed fever. then transferred the poison to women in labor. (He didn't know

the exact mechanism, but he had the right idea.) Semmelweiss or· dered his own medical students to wash their hands in a chlorine an­

tiseptic solution, and death rates from childbed fever dropped rapidly

thereafter. Yet his colleagues refused to accep{ Semmelweiss's conctete

evidence, the lower death rate among his own patients.' Why didn't

they embrace Semmelweiss's discovery immediately, thanking him ef­

fusively for finding the reason for so many unnecessary deaths? After World War II. Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia Farnham

published the bestseller Madan WOman: The Lost Sa. in which mey claimed that a woman who achieves in "male spheres of action" may seem to be successful in the "big league," but she pays a big price:

"sacrifice of her most fundamental instinctual strivings. She is not.

in sober reality, temperamentally suited to this sort of rough and tumble competition, and it damages her, particularly in her own

feelings." And it makes her frigid. besides: "ChaHenging men on every hand. refusing any longer to play even a rdatively submissive

role, multitudes of women found their capacity for sexual gratifica­

tion dwindling."9 In the ensuing decade, Dr. Farnham. who earned

her MD from the University of Minnesota and did postgraduate

work at Harvard Medical School. made a career OUt of telling women

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but Ilot by me) 9

noc ro have careers. Wasn'c she worried about becoming frigid and damaging her fundamental instinctual strivings?

The sheriff's department in Kern County, California, arrested a retired high-school principal, Patrick Dunn, on suspicion of the murder of his wife. They interviewed twO people who raid conflict­ ing stories. One was a woman who had no criminal record and no personal incentive to lie about the suspect, and who had calendars and her boss ro back up her account of events. The other was a ca­ reer criminal facing six years in prison, who had offered ro incrim­ inate Dunn as part of a deal with prosecutors, and who offered nothing ro suppon his srory except his word for it. The detectives had to choose between believing the woman (and in Dunn's inno­ cence), or the criminal (and in Dunn's guilt). They chose ro believe the criminal.1O Why?

By understanding the inner workings of self-justification, we can answer these questions and make sense of dozens of other things that people do that would ocherwise seem unfathomable or crazy. We can answer the question so many people ask when mey look at ruthless dictators, greedy corporate CEOs, religious zealots who murder in the name of God, priests who molest children, or people who cheat their siblings out of a family inheritance: How in the world can they Iiv�with themselves? The answer is: exactly the way the rest of us do.

Self-justification has COStS and benefits. By itself, it's not necessar­ ily a bad thing. It lets us sleep at night. Withom it, we would pro­ long the awful pangs of embarrassment. We would tonure ourselves wirh regret over the road not taken or over how badly we navigated the road we did take. We would agonize in the aftermath of almost every decision: Did we do the right rhing, marry the right person, buy the right house, choose the best car, enter the right career? Yet mindless self-justificarion, like quicksand, can draw us deeper into disaster. It blocks our abiHty ro even see our errors, let alone correct them. It distorts reality, keeping us from getting all the information we need and assessing issues clearly. It prolongs and widens rifts between

/0 CAROL TAVRIS lind ElLIOT ARONSON

lovers, friends, and nations. It keeps us from letting go of unhealthy habits. It permits the guilty to avoid taking responsibility for their

deeds. And it keeps many professionals from changing ourdated at­

titudes and procedures that can be harmful to the public. None of us can live without making blunders. But we do have the

ability (0 say: "This is not working Out here. This is not making sense." To err is human, but humans then have a choice between cov­ ering up or fessi ng up. The choice we make is crucial to what we do

next. We are forever being told that we should learn from OUf mis­

takes. but how can we learn unless we nrSt admit thar we made any?

To do that, we have co recognize the siren song of self-justification. In the next chapter, we will discuss cognitive dissonance, the hard­

wired psychological mechanism that creates self-justification and pro­ tects our certainties, self-esteem, and tribal affiliations. tn the chapters

that follow. we will elaborate on the most harmful consequences of self-justification: how it exacerbates prejudice and corruption, dis­

tortS memory. turns professional confidence into arrogance. creates

and perpetuates injustice, warps love, and generates feuds and rifts.

The good news is that by understanding how this mechanism works, we can defeat me wiring. Accordingly. in the final chapter. we will step back and see what solutions emerge for ourselves as individ­

uals. for our relationships, for society. Understanding is the first step

toward finding solutions that will lead to change and redemption.

That is why we wrote this book.

C H APTER 1

o o o

Cognitive Dissonance:

The Engine of Self-justification

Press release dare: November " 1993

WE DIDN'T MAKE A MISTAKE when we wrote in our previous releases

that New York would be destroyed on September 4 and October 14,

1993. We didn't make a mistake, not even a teeny eeny one!

Press release date: April 4, 1994

All the dates we have given in our past releases arc correct dares

given by God as contained in Holy Scriptures. Nor one of these dates

was wrong ... Ezekiel gives a total of 430 days for the siege of the

city . . . rwhichl brings us exactly to May2, 1994. By now, all rhe people have been forewarned. We have done our job. ...

We are rhe only ones in the entire world guiding the people to

their safety, security, and salvation!

We have a 100 percent track record!'

12 CAROL TAVRIS lIud ELLIOT ARONSON

ITS FASCINATING. A"ID SOMeTIMES funny, to read dooms­ day predictions. but it's even more fascinating to watch what hap­ pens to the reasoning of true believers when the prediction Rops and the world keeps muddling along. Notice that hardly anyone ever says, "1 blew it! I can't believe how stupid I was to believe mat non­ sense"? On the contrary, mOSt of the time they become even morc deeply convinced of their powers of prediction. The people who believe mat the Bible's hook of Revelation or the writings of the sixteenth-century self-proclaimed prophet Nostradamus have pre­ dicted every disaster from the bubonic plague to 9/11 cling to their convictions, unfazed by me small problem that their vague and murky pre

Half a century ago, a young social psychologiS[ named Leon Fes­ tinget and twO associates infiluared a group of people who believed the world would end on December 21.1 They wanted to know what would happen to the group when (they hoped!) the propheey failed. The group's leader, whom the researchers called Marian Keech, prom­ ised that the Faithful would be picked up by a Hying saucer and ele­ vated to safety at midnight on December 20. Many of her followers quit their jobs, gave away their homes, and dispersed their savings, waiting for the end. Who needs money in outer space? Others waited in fear or resignation in their homes. (Mrs. Keech's own husband, a nonbeliever, went [Q bed early and slept soundly through the night as his wife and her followers prayed in the living room.) Festinger made his own prediction: The believers who had not made a strong com­ mitment [Q the prophecy-who awaited the end of the world by memselves at home, hoping they weren't going to die at midnight­ would quiedy lose their faith in Mrs. Keech. But those who had given away their possessions and were waiting with the others for the space­ ship would increase their belief in her mystical abilities. In Fact, they would now do everything they could to get others to join them.

At midnight, with no sign of a spaceship in the yard, the group felt a little nervous. By 2 A.M., they were getting seriously worried.

MISTAKES WERE MADE (bur nOl by me) 13

Ar 4:45 A.M., Mrs. Keech had a new vision: The world had been spared, she said, because of the impressive faith of her lircie band.

"And mighty is the word of God," she told her followers, "and by his word have ye been saved-for from the mouth of death have ye been delivered and at no time has there been such a force loosed upon [he Earth. Not since the beginning of rime upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room."

The group's mood shifted from despair to exhilararion. Many of (he group's members, who had nor felt the need to proselytize before December 21, began calling rhe press to report the miracle, and soon they were ou( on the streets. buttonholing passersby, trying to convert them. Mrs. Keech's prediction had failed, but nor Leon Fesringer's .

• • •

The engine rhar drives self-jusrificarion. the energy rhat produces the need {Q justify our actions and decisions-especially me wrong ones-is an unpleasant feeling thar Festinger called "cognitive disso­ nance." Cognitive dissonance is a stare of tension that occurs when­ ever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) [har are psychologically inconsistent, such as "Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kil1 me" and "I smoke two packs a day." Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs {o deep anguish; people don't rest easy until they find a way to re­

duce it. In this example. the moS( direct way for a smoker to reduce dissonance is by quitting. But if she has cried to quit and failed, now she must reduce dissonance by convincing herself that smoking isn't really so harmful. or that smoking is worth the risk because it helps her relax or prevents her from gaining weight (and after all, obesity is a health risk, too), and so on. Most smokers manage to reduce dissonance in many such ingenious. if self-deluding, ways.

Dissonance is disquieting because to hold twO ideas that con­ tradict each other is to flirt wirh absurdity and, as Albert Camus observed. we humans are creatures who spend our lives crying to

CAROL TAVRIS and ELLIOT ARONSON

convince ourselves that our existence is nO{ absurd. At the hean of it, Festinger's theory is about how people strive to make sense our of

contradictory ideas and lead lives that are, at least in their own

minds, consistent and meaningful. The theory inspired more man 3,000 experiments that, taken together. have transformed psycholo­ gists' understanding of how the human mind works. Cognitive dis­ sonance has even escaped academia and entered popular culcure. The term is everywhere. The twO of us have heard it in TV newscasts, po­ litical columns, magazine articles, bumper srickers, even on a soap opera. AJex Trebek used it on Jeopardy, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and President Bartlet on The west Wlng. Almough the expres­ sion has been thrown around a lot, few people fully understand its meaning or appreciate its enormous motivational power.

In 1956, one of us (Elliot) arrived at Stanford University as a graduate student in psychology. Festinger had arrived that same year as a young professor, and they immediately began working together,

designing experiments to test and expand dissonance theory.3 T heir

thinking challenged many notions that were gospel in psychology and among the general public. such as the behaviorist's view that people do things primarily for the rewards they bring, the econo­ mist's view that human beings generally make rational decisions. and me psychoanalyst's view that acting aggressively gets rid of ag­

gressive impulses. Consider how dissonance theory challenged behaviorism. At the

time, most scientific psychologists were convinced that people's ac­ tions are governed by reward and punishment. It is cerrainiy true that if you feed a rat at the end of a maze, he will learn the maze faster than if you don't feed him; if you give your dog a biscuit when she gives you her paw. she will learn that nick faster than if you sit around hoping she wiU do it on her own. Conversely, if you punish

your pup when you carch her peeing on the carpet, she will soon stop doing it. Behaviorists funher argued that anything that was

merely associared with reward would become more attractive-your

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but 1'101 by me) 15

puppy will like you because you give her biscuits-and anything as­ sociated with pain would become noxious and undesirable.

Behavioral laws do apply to human beings. too, of course; no one

would stay in a boring job wimout pay, and if you give your toddler a cookie to stop him from having a rantrum, you have taught him ro have another tantrum when he wants a cookie. Bm, for better or worse, the human mind is more complex than the brain of a rat or a puppy. A dog may appear conttite for having been caught peeing on the carpet, but she will not try to think up justifications for her mis­ behavior. Humans think; and because we think, dissonance theory demonstrated that our behavior transcends the effects of rewards and punishments and often contradicts memo

For example, Elliot predicted that if people go through a great deal of pain, discomfort, effort, or embarrassment to get something, they will be happier with that "something" than if it came to them easily. For behaviorists, (his was a preposterous prediction. Why would people like anything associated with pain? But for Elliot, the

answer was obvious: self-justification. The cognition that I am a sen­ sible, competent person is dissonant with the cognition that I went through a painful procedure [0 achieve something-say, joining a group that curned om to be boring and worthless. Therefore. I would distort my perceptions of the group in a positive direction, rrying to find good things about them and ignoring the downside.

It might seem that the easiest way to test this hypothesis would be to rate a number of college fraternities on the basis of how severe their initiations are, and then interview members and ask them how much they like their fraternity. If the members of severe-initiation fraterni­ ties like their frat brmhers more than do members of mild-initiation

fraternities, does this prove that severity produces the liking? It does not. It may be just (he reverse. If the members of a fraternity regard themselves as being a highly desirable, elite group, they may require

a severe initiation to prevent the riffraff from joining. Only those who are highly attracted to the severe-initiation group to begin with

-

16 CAROL TAVRIS II"d ELLIOT ARONSON

would be willing to go through the iniriation to get into it. Those who are not excited by a particular fraternity but just want to be in one, any one, will choose fraternities that require mild initiacions.

That is why if is essential to conduct a controlled experiment. The beauty of an experiment is the random assignment of people to conditions. Regardless of a person's degree of inreresr ar the outset in joining the group. each participant would be randomly assigned (0 either the severe-initiation or the mild·iniriarion condition. If people who go through a cough rime [Q get ima a group later find that group to he more atcracrive than those who get in with no effort, then we

know that it was the effof[ that caused it, not differences in initial levels of interest.

And so Elliot and his colleague Judson Mills conducted just such an experiment.· Stanford students were invited to join a group that would be discussing the psychology of sex, bur before they could qualify for admission. they would first have to pass an entrance re­

quirement. Some of me students were randomly assigned to a severely

embarrassing initiation procedure: They had to recite. out loud to the experimenter. lurid, sexually explicit passages from Lady Chatlerlty} Lover and other racy novels. (For conventional 19505 students. this was a painfully embarrassing thing to do.) Others were randomly as­ signed to a mildly embarrassing initiation procedure: reading aloud sexual words from the dictionary.

After the initiation. each of the students listened to an identical rape

recording of a discussion allegedly being held by the group of people they had just joined. Actually. the audiotape was prepared in advance so that the discussion was as boring and worthless as it could be. The ruscussants talked haltingly, with long pauses, about the secondary sex characteristics of birds-changes in plumage during courtship, that sort of thing. The taped discussants hemmed and hawed. frequently interrupted one another, and left sentences unfinished.

Finally, the students rated the discussion on a number of dimen­ sions. Those who had undergone only a mild initiation saw the dis-

MISTAKES WERE MADE (bul AO( by me) 17

cussion for what it was, worthless and dull, and they correctly rated me group members as being unappealing and boring. One guy on the tape, stammering and mutrering, admitted that he hadn't done the required reading on the courtship practices of some rare bird, and the mild­ iniciation listeners were annoyed by him. What an irresponsible idiot! He rudn'[ even do the basic reading! He let the group down! Who'd wane to be in a group wim him? But those who had gone through a severe initiation rated the discussion as imeresting and exciting and me group members as attractive and sharp. They forgave the irrespon­ sible idiot. His candor was refreshing! Who wouldn't want to be in a group with such an honest guy? It was hard to believe that they were listening to the same rape recording. Such is the power of dissonance.

This experimenc has been replicated several times by other scien­ tists who have used a variety of initiation techniques, from electric shock to excessive physical exertion.' The results are always me same: Severe initiations increase a member's liking for the group. These findings do not mean that people enjoy painful experiences, such as filling Out their income-tax forms, or that people enjoy things be­ cause they are associated with pain. Whar they do show is mat if a person voluntarily goes through a difficult or a painful experience in order to attain some goal or object, that goal or object becomes more amacrive. If, on your way to join a discussion group, a flowerpot fell from the open window of an apartment building and hit you on the head, you would not like thar discussion group any better. But if you volunteered to get hit on the head by a flowerpot to become a mem­ ber of the group, you would definitely like the group more.

Believing Is Seeing

I will look at any additional evidence to confirm the opinion to which I have already come.

-Lord Molson, British politidan (1903-199\)

18 CAROL TAVRIS !Hld elliOT ARONSON

Dissonance clteory also exploded the self-fl.atrering idea that we humans, being Homo sapims, process information logically. On the contrary: If the new information is consonant with our beliefs, we think it is well founded and useful: "Just what I always said!" But if the new information is dissonant, then we consider it biased or fool­ ish: "What a dumb argumend" So powerful is the need for conso­ nance that when people are forced [0 look at disconfirming evidence, they will find a way to criticize. distort. or dismiss it so chat they can maintain or even strengthen their existing belief. This men[3] con­ tortion is called the "confirmation bias. "6 Lenny Bruce, the legendary American humorist and social commentator, described it vividly as he watched the famous 1960 confrontation between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, in the nation's very first televised presidential debate:

I would be with a bunch of Kennedy fans watching the debate and

their comment would be. "He's really slaughtering Nixon." Then

we would all go to another apartment, and the Nixon fans would say, "How do you like the shellacking he gave Kennedy?" And then

I reaJized that each group loved their candidate so that a guy would

have to be this blatant-he would have (0 look into the camera and

say: "I am a thief, a crook, do you hear me, I am the worst choice you could ever make for the Presidency!" And even men his follow­

ing would say. "Now there's an honest man for you. It takes a big guy to admit that. There's the kind of guy we need for President."1

In 2003, after it had become abundantly clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Americans who had suppOrted the war and President Bush's reason for launching it were thrown into dissonance: We believed the president, and we (and he) were wrong. How to resolve this? For Democrats who had thought Saddam Hus­ sein had WMDs, the resolution was relatively easy: The Republicans were wrong again; the president lied. or at least was too eager to lis-

M I STAKES WERE M A D E (but not by me) 19

ten [Q faulty information; how foolish of me to believe him. For Re­ publicans, however, the dissonance was sharper. More than haJf of them resolved it by refusing to accept the evidence, telling a Knowlp

edge Networks poll that they believed the weapons had been found. The survey's director said, "For some Americans, their desire to sup­ port the war may be leading them to screen out information that weapons of mass destruction have not been found. Given the inren­ sive news coverage and high levels of public attention to the (opic, this level of misinformation suggests that some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." You ber.'

Neuroscienrists have recently shown that these biases in thinking are built into the very way the brain processes information-all brains, regardless of their owners' political affiliation. For example, in a study of people who were being monitored by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while they were trying to process dissonant or con­ sonant information about George Bush or John Kerry, Drew Westen and his colleagues found that the reasoning areas of the brain virtu­

ally shut down when participanrs were confronred with dissonant in­ formation, and the emotion circuits of the brain lit up happily when consonance was restored.' These mechanisms provide a neurological basis for the observation that once our minds are made up, it is hard to change them.

Indeed, even reading information that goes against your point of view can make you aJl the more convinced you are right. In one ex­ periment, researchers selected people who either favored or opposed capital punishment and asked them [Q read twO scholarly, well­ documented articles on the emotionaJly charged issue of whether the death penaJty deters violent crimes. One article concluded that it did; {he other that it didn't. If the readers were processing informa­ tion rationally, they would ac least realize thac me issue is more com­ plex than they had previously believed and would therefore move a bit closer to each other in their beliefs about capical punishment as a deterrence. But dissonance theory predicts that the readers would

20 CAROL TAVRIS (lI!d ELLIOT ARONSON

find a way ro distort the twO anicles. They would find reasons to clasp the confirming article fO their bosoms, hailing it as a higWy competent piece of work. And they would be supercritical of the dis­ confirming mide. finding minor Raws and magnifying them into major reasons why they need. not be influenced by it. This is precisely what happened. Not only did each side discredit me other's argu­ ments; each side became even more committed to its own.1Q

The confirmation bias even sees to it that no evidence-the ab­ sence of evidence-is evidence for what we believe. When the FBI and orner investigators Failed to find any evidence whatsoever for the belief that the nation had been infiirrared by Satanic cults that were ritually slaughtering babies. believers in these cults were unfazed. The absence of evidence. they said, was confirmation of how clever and evil the cult leaders were: They were eating those babies, bones and all. Ir's not JUSt fringe cultists and proponents of pop psychology who fall prey to this reasoning. When Franklin D. Roosevelt made the terrible decision to uproot thousands of Japanese Americans and put them in incarceration camps for the duration of World War II, he did so emirely on the basis of rumors that Japanese Americans were planning to sabotage the war effort. There was no proof then or later to suppOrt this rumor. Indeed. the Army's West Coast com­ mander, General John DeWitt, admitted that they had no evidence of sabotage or treason against a single Japanese-American citizen. "The very fact that no sabotage has taken place," he said, "is a dis­ turbing and confirming indication mat such action wi/l be taken."u

Ingrid's Choice. N ick's Mercedes, and El l iot's Canoe

Dissonance theory came to explain far more than the reasonable no­ tion that people are unreasonable at processing information. It also showed why they cominue to be biased after they have made impor-

MISTAKES WERE M A D E (but n.Ot by me) 21

tant decisions.12 Social psychologist Dan Gilbert, in his illuminating book Stumbling on Happintss, asks us to consider what would have happened at the end of Casablanca if Ingrid Bergman did not patri­ otically rejoin her Nazi-fighting husband but instead remained with

Humphrey Bogart in Morocco. L.I Would she, as Bogan tells her in a hean-wrenching speech, have regretted it-"maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life"? Or did she forever regret leaving Bogart? Gilber[ marshals a wealth of data to show chat the answer to both questions is no, that either decision

would have made her happy in the long run. Bogart was eloquent bur wrong, and dissonance theory telis us why: lngrid would have found reasons to justify eicher choice, along with reasons to be glad she did not make the orher.

Once we make a decision, we have all kinds of tools at our dis� posal to bolster it. When our frugal, unflashy friend Nick traded in his eight�year�old Honda Civic on a sudden impulse and bought a new. fully loaded Mercedes. he began behaving oddly (for Nick). He

started criticizing his friends' cars, saying things like "Isn't it about time you traded in that wreck? Don't you think you deserve the plea� sure of driving a well�engineered machine?" and "You know, it's

really unsafe to drive little cars. If you got in an accident, you could be killed. Isn't your life worth an extra few thousand dollars? You have no idea how much peace of mind it brings me to know that my family is safe because I'm driving a solid automobile."

It's possible chat Nick simply got bitten by the safety bug and decided, coolly and rationally, char it would be wonderful if every­ one drove a great car like the Mercedes. But we don't think so. His behavior. both in spending all that money on a luxury car and in nagging his friends to do the same, was so uncharacteristic that we suspected that he was reducing me dissonance he must have felt over impulsively spending a big chunk of his life's savings on what he would once have referred ro as "just a car." Besides, he was doing this JUSt when his kids were about to go ro college, an event mat would

22 CAROL TAVRIS lind ELLIOT ARONSON

pur a strain on his hank accounr. So Nick began marshalling argu� menrs to justify his decision: "The Mercedes is a wonderful ma­ chine; I've worked hard all my life and I deserve it; besides. it's so safe." And if he could persuade his cheapskate friends to buy one toO, he would feel doubly justified. Like Mrs. Keech's converts, he began to proselytize.

Nick's need to reduce dissonance (like Ingrid's) was increased by me irrevocability of his decision; he could not unmake that decision without losing a lot of money. Some scientific evidence for che power of irrevocability comes from a clever study of the mental maneuvec­ ings of gamblers at a racetrack. The racetrack is an ideal place to study irrevocability because once you've placed your bet, you can't go back and tell the nice man behind the window you've changed your mind. In this srudy, the researchers simply imercepted people who were standing in line to place two-dollar bets and other people who had just left the window. The investigacors asked everyone how cer­ tain they were that their horses would win. The bettors who had placed their betS were far more certain about their choice than were the folks waiting in line.14 But, of course, nothing had changed ex­ cept the finality of placing the bet. People become more certain they are right about something they just did if they can't undo it.

You can see one immediate benefit of understanding how disso* oance works: Don't listen co Nick. The more costly a decision, in terms of time, money, effort, or inconvenience, and the more irrev* ocable its consequences, the greater the dissonance and the greater the need co reduce it by overemphasiz.ing the good things about the choice made. Therefore, when you are about to make a big purchase or an importam decision-which car or computer to buy. whether to undergo plastic surgery, or whether to sign up for a cosdy self-help program-don't ask someone who has just done it. That person will be highly motivated to convince you that it is the right thing to do. Ask people who have spem twelve years and $50,000 00 a particu* lar therapy if it helped, and most will say, "Dr. Weltschmerz. is won*

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but nOt by me) 23

derful! J would nroer have found true love [got a new job 1 [lost weight] ifit hadn't been for him." After all mat time and money, they aren't likely to say, "Yeah, J saw Dr. Weltschmen for twelve years, and boy, was it ever a waste." If you want advice on what product to buy, ask someone who is still garhering information and is srill open­ minded. And if you want to know whether a program will help you, don't rely on testimonials: Get the data from controlled experiments.

Self-justification is complicated enough when jt follows our con­ scious choices; at least we know we can expeCt it. But it also occurs

in the aftermath of things we do for unconscious reasons, when we haven't a due about why we hold some belief or cling to some cus­ tom but are (00 proud to admit it. For example, in the introduction we described the custom of the Dinka and Nuer tribes of the Sudan. who exuact several of the permanent front teeth of their children­ a painful procedure, done with a fish hook. Anthropologists suggest that this tradition originated during an epidemic of lockjaw; missing front teeth would enable sufferers to get some nourishment. But if

that were the reason, why in the world would the villagers continue

this custom once the danger had passed? A practice that makes no sense at all to outsiders makes perfect

sense when seen through the lens of dissonance theory. During the epidemic, the villagers would have begun extracting the front teeth of all meir children, so that if any later contracted tetanus, the adults would be able to feed them. But this is a painful thing to do to chil­ dren, especially since only some would become affiicted. To further justify their actions, to themselves and their children, the villagers would need to bolster the decision by adding benefits to the proce­ dure after the fact. For example, they might convince themselves that pulling teeth has aesthetic value-say, that sunken-chin look is really quite attractive-and they might even turn the surgical ordeal into a rite of passage into adulthood. And. indeed, that is just what hap­ pened. "The [Qorhless look is beautiful," the villagers say. "People who have all their teeth are ugly: They look like cannibals who

24 CAROL TAVRIS lind ELLIOT ARONSON

would eat a person. A full set of teeth makes a man look like a don­ key." The toothless look has other aesthetic advantages: "We like the hissing sound it creates when we speak." And adults reassure fright­

ened children by saying, "This ritual is a sign of maturity."'s The original medical justification for the practice is long gone. The psy­ chological self-justification remains.

People wane (0 believe that, as smart and rational individuals. they know why they made the choices they did, so they are not al­

ways happy when you tell chern the actual reason for their actions. ElI.ior learned this firsthand after that initiation experiment. "After

each participam had finished, It he recalls, "I explained [he scudy in detail and went over the theory carefully. Although everyone who went through the severe initiation said that they found the hypoth­ esis intriguing and that they could see how mOSt people would be af­ fected in the way I predicted, they all took pains to assure me that their preference for the group had nothing to do with the severity of

the inidation. They each claimed that they liked the group because

mat's the way they really felt. Yet almost all of them liked the group more than any of the people in the mild-initiation condition did."

No one is immune to the need to reduce dissonance, even those who know the theory inside out. Elliot cells this story: "When I was a young professor at the University of Minnesota, my wife and I tired of renting apartments; so, in December, we set out £0 buy our

first home. We could find only twO reasonable houses in our price range. One was older, charming, and within walking distance from

the campus. I liked it a lot, primarily because it meant that I could have my students over for research meetings, serve beer, and play the role of the hip professor. But that house was in an industrial area, without a lor of space for our children to play. The other choice was a tract house, newer but £Otally without distinction. It was in the

suburbs, a thiny-minute drive from campus but only a mile from a lake. After goi ng back and forth on mat decision for a few weeks, we

decided on the house in the suburbs.

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but not by me) 25

"Shortly after moving in, I noeiced an ad in [he newspaper for a

used canoe and immediareiy boughr ir as a surprise for my wife and

kids. When I drove home on a freezing, bleak January day with the canoe lashed to rhe roof of my car, my wife took one look and burst into laughter. 'What's so funny?' I asked. She said, 'Ask Leon Fes­ tinger!' Of course! I had felr so much dissonance abour buying the house in me suburbs mat I needed to do something righr away to justify mat purchase. I somehow managed to forget that it was the middJe of winter and mat, in Minneapolis, i[ would be months be­ fore the frozen lake would thaw am enough for rhe canoe to be us­ able. But, in a sense, without my quire realizing it, I used that canoe anyway. All wimer, even as it sar in the garage, its presence made me feel bener abom our decision."

Spirals of Violence -and Vi rUie

Feeling Stressed? One Internet source teaches you how to make your own little Damn It Doll, which "can be rhrown. jabbed, sromped and even strangled rill all the frusrration leaves you." A little poem

goes wim it:

When you want to kick the desk or rhrow the phone and shout

Here's a little damnir doll you cannot do witham. JUSt grasp it firmly by the legs. and find a place to slam it. And as you whack its stuffing out, yell, "damnit, damnir,

damnit!"

The Damn Ir Doll reflects one of rhe most entrenched convictions

in our culture. fostered by the psychoanalytic belief in the benefirs of catharsis: rhat expressing anger or behaving aggressively gets rid of anger. Throw that doll, hit a punching bag, shout at your spouse;

26 CAROL TAVRIS Qnd EllIOT ARONSON

you'll feel bettcr afterward. Actually, decades of experimental re­ search have found exacdy the opposite: that when people vent their feelings aggressively they often fed worse, pump up their blood pres­ sure, and make themselves even angrier.16

Venting is especially likely to backfire if a person commies an aggressive act against anomer person directly, which is exactly what cognitive dissonance theory would predict. When you do anything that harms someone else-get them in trouble. verbaHy abuse them, or punch them our-a powerful new factor comes into play: the need to justify what you did. Take a boy who goes aJong with a group of his fellow seventh graders who are taunting and bullying a weaker kid who did them no harm. The hoy likes being part of the gang but his heart really isn't in me bullying. Later, he feels some dissonance about what he did. "How can a decent kid like me," he wonders, "have done such a cruel thing to a nice, in nocent little kid like him?" To reduce dissonance, he will try to convince himself that the victim is neither nice nor innocem: "He is such a nerd and cry�

baby. Besides, he would have done the same to me if he had the chance.» Once the boy starts down the path of blaming the victim, he becomes more likely (0 beat up on the victim with even greater ferocity (he next chance he gets. Justifying his first hurrful act sets the stage for more aggression. That's why the catharsis hypothesis is wrong.

The first experiment that demonstrated this actually came as a complete surprise to the investigawr. Michael Kahn, then a graduate student in clinical psychology at Harvard, designed an ingenious experiment that he was sure would demonstrate the benefits of catharsis. Posing as a medical technician, Kahn took polygraph and blood pressure measurements from college students, one at a time, allegedly as parr of a medical experiment. As he was taking these measurements, Kahn feigned annoyance and made some insulting remarks to the students (having to do with their mothers). The Stu� dents got angry; their blood pressure soared. In the experimental

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but not by me) 27

condition, the students were allowed to vent their anger by inform� ing Kahn's supervisor of his insules; thus, they believed they were get­ ting him into big trouble. In the control condition, ehe students did

nOt get a chance [0 express their anger. Kahn, a good Freudian, was astonished by the results: Catharsis

was a [Otal Aop. The people who were allowed to express their anger about Kahn fele far greater animosity toward him than did those who were not given that opportunity. In addition, expressing their anger increased their already heightened blood pressure; ehe high blood pressure of those who were not allowed to express their anger soon returned to normal.17 Seeking an explanation for this unex­

pecred pacrern, Kahn discovered dissonance theory, which was JUSt gening attention at the time, and realized it could beautifully ac­ count for his results, Because the students thought they had gorren

him into serious trouble, they had to justify their action by convinc­ ing themselves that he deserved it, thus increasing their anger against him-and their blood pressure.

Children learn to justify their aggressive actions early: They hit a younger sibling, who starts [0 cry, and immediately claim, "But he started it! He deserved it!" Most parents find these childish self­ justifications to be of no great consequence, and usually they aren't. But ie is sobering (0 realize that the same mechanism underlies the behavior of gangs who bully weaker children, employers who mis­ treat workers, lovers who abuse each other, police officers who con­ tinue beating a suspeCt who has surrendered, tyrancs who imprison and torture ethnic minorities, and soldiers who commit atrocities against civilians. In all these cases, a vicious circle is created: Aggres­ sion begets self-justification, which begets more aggression. Fyodor Doseoevsky understood perfectly how this process works. In The Brothers Karamazov, he has Fyodor Paviovitch, the brothers' scoundrel of a father, recall "how he had once in the past been asked, 'Why do you hate so and so, so much?' And he had answered them, with his shameless impudence, 'I'll tell you. He has done me no

28 CAIWL TAVRIS and ElLIOT ARONSON

harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him.'"

Fortunately, dissonance theory also shows us how a person's gen­

erous actions can create a spiral of benevolence and compassion, a "virruous cirde." When people do a good deed, panicularly when

they do it on a whim or by chance. they will come to see the benefi­ ciary of their generosity in a warmer light. Their cognition mar they wem out of cheir way to do a favor for this person is dissonant with any negative feelings they might have had about him. In effect, after doing the favor, they ask themselves: "Why would I do something nice for a jerk? Therefore. he's not as big a jerk as r thought he was­

as a manee of fact. he is a pretty nice guy who deserves a break." Several experiments have supported this prediction. In one, col­

lege scudents participated in a contest where they won a substantial

sum of money. Afterward, the experimenter approached one third of them and explained that he was using his own funds for the experi­ ment and was running shan, which meant he might be forced to

close down the experiment prematurely. He asked, "As a special favor to me, would you mind returning the money you won?" (They all agreed.) A second group was also asked to return the money, but this rime it was the departmental secretary who made the request, ex­ plaining that the psychology department's research fund was run­

ning low. (They still all agreed.) The remaining participants were not asked to return their winnings at all. Finally, everyone filled out a

questionnaire thar included an opportunity to rate the experimenter. Participants who had been cajoled into doing a special favor for him liked him the best; they convinced themselves he was a particularly

nne, deserving fellow. The others thought he was preay nice but not anywhere near as wonderful as the people who had done him a per­ sonal favor believed. II

Although scientific research on the virtuous circle is new, the general idea may have been discovered in the eighteenth century by

Benjamin Franklin, a serious student of human nature as well as

MISTAKES WERE MADE (bllt not by me) 29

science and politics. While serving in the Pennsylvania legislamre,

Franklin was disturbed by the opposition and animosity of a fellow legislator. So he set out to win him over. He didn't do it, he wrote,

by "paying any servile respect to him"-that is, by doing the other

man a favor-but by inducing his target to do a favor for him­ loaning him a rare book from his library:

He sem it immediately and I relUrned it in about a week with an·

other nOtc, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next

met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done be·

fore), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readi·

ness to serve me on all occasions, SO that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance

of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another

(han he whom you yoursdfhave obliged.""

o o o

Dissonance is bothersome under any circumstance, but it is most

painful to people when an important element of their self-concept is threatened-typicaJly when they do something that is inconsistent with their view of themselves,lO If an athlete or celebrity you admire

is accused of rape, child molestation, or murder. you will feel a pang of dissonance. The more you identify with this person, the greater

the dissonance. because more of yourself would be involved. Bur you

would feel a much more devastating rush of dissonance if you re·

garded yourself as a person of high integrity and you did something

criminaL After all, you can always change your allegiance to a celebrity

and find another hero. But if you violated your own values, you

would feel much greater dissonance because. at the end of the day,

you have to go on living with yourself.

Because most people have a reasonably positive self·concept. be· lieving themselves to be competent, moral, and smart, their efforts

30 CAROL TAVRIS lind ELLIOT ARONSON

at reducing dissonance will be designed to preserve their positive self_irnages.21 When Mrs. Keech's doomsday predictions failed, for example, imagine the excruciating dissonance her commined follow­ ers felt: "I am a smart person" clashed with '" just did an incredibly stupid thing: I gave away my house and possessions and quit my job because I believed a crazy woman," To reduce that dissonance, her followers could either have modified their opinion of their intelli­ gence or justified the "incredibly stupid" thing they did. It's nOt a close COntest; i['s justification by three lengths. Mrs. Keech's true be­ lievers saved their self-esteem by deciding they hadn't done anything stupid; in fact, they had been really smart to join this group because their faith saved the world from descruction. In fact, if everyone else were smarr, they would join, (00. Where's that busy streer corner?

None of us is off the hook on this one. We might feel amused at them, those foolish people who believe fervently in doomsday pre­ dictions; bur, as political scientist Philip Tetlock shows in his book Expert Political Judgmmt: How Good Is It? How Can W( Know? even professional "experts" who are in the business of economic and po­ litical forecasting are usually no more accurate than us umrained folks-or than Mrs. Keech, for that matter.12 Hundreds of studies have shown that predictions based on an experr's "personal experi­ ence" or "years of training" are rarely better than chance. in comraS[ to predictions based on actuarial data. But when experrs are wrong, the cemerpiece of their professional idemiry is threatened. There­ fore, as dissonance theory would predict. rhe more self-confident and famous they are, the less likely they will be to admit mistakes. And that is just what Tetlock found. Experrs reduce the dissonance caused by their failed forecascs by coming up with explanations of why they would have been right "if only"-if only that improbable calamity had not imervened; if only the timing of events had been different; if only blah blah blah.

Dissonance reduction operates like a thermostat, keeping our self-esteem bubbling along on high. That is why we are usually obliv-

MIST .... KES WERE M .... D E (but not by me) 31

ious to the self�justifications, the little lies [0 ourselves that prevem

us from even acknowledging that we made mistakes or foolish deci� sions. But dissonance theory applies to people with low self�esteem,

too, to people who consider themselves (Q be schnooks. crooks. or

incompetems. They are not surprised when their behavior confirms their negative self�image. When they make a wrongheaded predic� tion or go through a severe initiation (Q get into a dull group. they merely say, "Yup. I screwed up again; that's just like me." A used�car salesman who knows that he is dishonest does not feel dissonance when he conceals the dismal repair record of the car he is trying CO

unload; a woman who believes she is unlovable does not feel disso­ nance when men reject her; a con man does not experience disso­ nance when he cheats an old man out of his life's savings.

Our convictions about who we are carry us through che day, and we are constantly imerpreting the things that happen to us through

the filter of those core beliefs. When they are violated. even by a good experience, it causes us discomfort. An appreciation of the

power of self-justificarjon helps us understand, therefore, why people who have low self-esteem, or who simply believe chat they are in­

competem in some domain, are not totally overjoyed when they do something well; why, on the contrary, they often feel like frauds. If the woman who believes she is unlovable meets a terrific guy who

starts pursuing her seriously, she will feel momemarily pleased, but that pleasure is likely to be tarnished by a rush of dissonance: "What does he see in me?" Her resolution is unlikely to be "How nice; I must be more appealing than I thought I was." More likely, it will be "As soon as he discovers the real me, he'll dump me." She will pay a high psychological price to have that consonance restored.

Indeed, several experiments find that mOSt people who have low self-esteem or a low estimate of their abilities do feel uncomfortable

with their dissonant successes and dismiss them as accidents or anom� a1ies.:tl This is why they seem so stubborn to friends and family members who try to cheer them up. "Look, you JUSt won the Pulitzer

32 CAROL TAVRIS and ELLIOT ARONSON

Prize for literature! Doesn't that mean you're good?" "Yeah, ie's nice, but just a Auke. I'll never be able to write another word, you'll see." Self-justification, therefore. is nO[ only about protecting high self­ esteem; it's also about protecting low self-esteem if that is how a per­ son sees himself.

The Pyramid of Choice

Imagine two young men who are identical in terms of attitudes, abil­ ities, and psychological heaJrh. They are reasonably honest and have the same middling attitude toward. say, cheating: They think it is not a good thing to do, but there are worse crimes in the world. Now they are both in the midst of taking an exam that will determine whether they will get into graduate school. They each draw a blank on a crucial essay question. Failure looms . . . at which point each

one gets an easy opportunity [Q cheat, by reading another studem's answers. The two young men struggle with the temptation. After a long momem of anguish, one yields and the other resists. Their de­ cisions are a hair's breadth apart; it could easily have gone {he other way for each of them. Each gains something importam. but at a cOSt: One gives up imegrity for a good grade, the other gives up a good grade to preserve his integrity.

Now me question is: How do they feel about cheating a week

later? Each student has had ample time to justify the course of action he [Ook. The one who yielded to temptation will decide that chear­ ing is nor so great a crime. He will say to himself: "Hey, everyone cheats. It's no big deal. And I really needed [0 do this for my furure career." But the one who resisted rhe remprarion will decide rhat cheating is far more immoral man he originally rhought: "In fact. people who chear are disgracefuL In faa. people who cheat should be permanendy expelled from school. We have [Q make an example

of them."

MISTAKES WERE MADE (bul nOI by me) 33

By the time the srudems are mrough wim their increasingly in­ cense levels of self-justification, two mings have happened: One, mey are now very far apart from one another; and twO, they have inter­ nalized their beliefs and are convinced mat mey have always felt that way.l4 It is as if mey had started off at the tOP of a pyramid, a mil­ limeter apart; but by the time they have finished justifying their individual actions, they have slid to the bottom and now stand at op­ posite corners of its base. The one who didn't cheat considers the other to be totally immoral, and che one who cheated thinks the other is hopelessly puritanical. This process illustrates how people who have been sorely tempted, hattled temptation, and almost given in [0 it-hut resisted at the eleventh how-come to dislike, even despise. those who did not succeed in the same effort. 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 deci­ sions involving moral choices or life options. Instead of cheating on an exam, for example. now substitute: deciding to begin a casual af­ fair (or nor), sample an illegal drug (or not), take steroids [0 improve your athletic ability (or not), stay in a troubled marriage (or not). name names ro the Howe Un-American Activities Committee (or not), lie to prorect your employer and job (or not), have children (or not), pursue a demanding career (or stay home wich me kids). When the person ar the top of the pyramid is uncertain, when there are benefits and costs of bath choices, then he or she will feel a particu­ lar urgency to jwtify the choice made. But by the time the person is at rhe bottom of me pyramid, ambivalence will have morphed into certainty. and he or she will be miles away from anyone who took a diffetent route.

This process blurs the distinction mar people like to draw be­ tween "us good guys" and "chose bad guys." Often. standing at the top of the pyramid, we are faced not with a black-and-white, gol no-go decision. but with a gray choice whose consequences are shrouded. The first steps along the path are morally ambiguous. and

34 CAROL TAVRIS lind ELLIOT ARONSON

the right decision is not always clear. We make an early, apparently inconsequencial decision, and then we justify it to reduce the ambi· guity of the choice. This stares a process of entrapment-action, justification, further action-that increases our intensity and com· mitmenr, and may end up taking us far from our original intentions or principles.

It certainly worked that way for Jeb Stuart Magruder, Richard Nixon's special assistant, who was a key player in the plot to burglar· ize the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Water­ gate complex, concealed the White House's involvement, and lied under oath to protect himself and others responsible. When Ma­ gruder was first hired, Nixon's adviser Bob Haldeman did not tell him that perjury, cheating. and breaking the law were pan of the job description. If he had, Magruder almost certainly would have re­ fused. How, then, did he end up as a central player in the Watergate scandal? It is easy, in hindsight, to say "He should have known" or "He should have drawn me line the first time they asked him to do something illegal."

In his autobiography, Magruder describes his first meeting with Bob Haldeman at San Clemente. Haldeman flattered and charmed him. "Here you're working for something more than just to make money for your company," Haldeman told him. "You're working to solve the problems of the country and the world. Jeb, I sat with the President on the night the first astronauts stepped onto the moon . . . I'm pan of hisrory being made." At the end of a day of meetings, Haldeman and Magruder left the compound to go to the president's house. Haldeman was enraged that his golf cart was not right there awaiting him, and he gave his assistant a "brmal chewing out," threatening to fire the guy if he couldn't do his job. Magruder couldn't believe what he was hearing, especially since it was a beau­ tiful evening and a short walk to their destination. At first Magruder thought Haldeman's tirade was rude and excessive. But before long, wanting the job as much as he did, Magruder was justifying Halde-

MISTAKES WERE MADE (but nol by me) 35

man's behavior: "In JUSt a few hours at San Clemente I had been struck by the sheer perfection of life there . . . Afrer you have been spoiled like that for a while, something as minor as a missing golf cart can seem a major affront. "lS

And so, before dinner and even before having been offered a job, Magruder is hooked. Ie is a tiny first step, but he is on the road to Watergate. Once in the White House, he went along with all of the small ethical compromises that just about all politicians justify in the goal of serving their party. Then, when Magruder and others were working to reelect Nixon, G. Gordon Liddy entered the picture, hired by Attorney General John Mitchell to be Magruder's general counsel. Liddy was a wild card, a James Bond wannabe. His first plan to ensure Nixon's reelection was to spend one million dollars to hire "mugging squads" that would rough up demonstrators; kidnap ac­ tivists who might disrupt the Republican convention; sabotage the Democratic convention; use "high-class" prostitutes to entice and then blackmail leading Democrats; break into Democratic offices;