Auteur
CAROL TAVRIS is a social psychologist, lecturer, and writer whose books include Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written on psychological topics for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, and many other publications. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. She lives in Los Angeles. ELLIOT ARONSON is one of the most distinguished social psychologists in the world. His books include The Social Animal and The Jigsaw Classroom. Chosen by his peers as one of the hundred most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the only psychologist to have won all three of the American Psychological Association’s top awards—for writing, teaching, and research. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Texte du rabat
"Entertaining, illuminating and--when you recognize yourself in the stories it tells--mortifying." -- Wall Street Journal "Every page sparkles with sharp insight and keen observation. Mistakes were made--but not in this book!" -- Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness Why is it so hard to say "I made a mistake"--and really believe it? When we make mistakes, cling to outdated attitudes, or mistreat other people, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so, unconsciously, we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right--a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-justification--how it works, the damage it can cause, and how we can overcome it. This updated edition features new examples and concludes with an extended discussion of how we can live with dissonance, learn from it, and perhaps, eventually, forgive ourselves. "A revelatory study of how lovers, lawyers, doctors, politicians--and all of us--pull the wool over our own eyes . . . Reading it, we recognize the behavior of our leaders, our loved ones, and--if we're honest--ourselves, and some of the more perplexing mysteries of human nature begin to seem a little clearer." -- Francine Prose, O, The Oprah Magazine

Résumé
Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. This updated edition concludes with an extended discussion of how we can live with dissonance, learn from it, and perhaps, eventually, forgive ourselves.

Why is it so hard to say I made a mistake—and really believe it?

When we make mistakes, cling to outdated attitudes, or mistreat other people, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so, unconsciously, we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-justification—how it works, the damage it can cause, and how we can overcome it.

Entertaining, illuminating and—when you recognize yourself in the stories it tells—mortifying.—Wall Street Journal

Every page sparkles with sharp insight and keen observation. Mistakes were made—but not in this book!—Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness

Échantillon de lecture
Introduction
 
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 that he committed war crimes in his role in the United States’ actions in Vietnam, Cambodia, and South America in the 1970s)

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 molesters among the Catholic clergy)

We know mistakes were made.
— Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (referring to enormous bonuses paid to the company’s executives after the government bailout had kept them from bankruptcy)

Mistakes were made in communicating to the public and customers about the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns.
— McDonald’s (apologizing to vegetarians for failing to inform them that the “natural flavoring” in its potatoes contained beef byproducts)

This week’s question: How can you tell 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 impeachment.
        D.   His own party members turn on him.
        E.   Or the White House says, “Mistakes were made.”
— Bill Schneider, CNN’s Inside Politics

As fallible human beings, all of us share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid taking responsibility for actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid. Most of us will never be in a position to make decisions affecting the lives and deaths of millions of people, but whether the consequences of our mistakes are trivial or tragic, on a small scale 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 than that. Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or plan of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Politicians, of course, offer the most visible and, often, most tragic examples of this practice. We began writing the first edition of this book during the presidency of George W. Bush, a man whose mental armor of self-justification could not be pierced by even the most irrefutable evidence. Bush was wrong in his claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; he was wrong in stating that Saddam was linked with al-Qaeda; he was wrong in his prediction that Iraqis would be dancing joyfully in the streets at the arrival of American soldiers; he was wrong in his assurance that the conflict would be over quickly; he was wrong in his gross underestimate of the human and financial costs of the war; and he was most famously wrong in his speech six weeks after the invasion began when he announced (under a banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

Commentators from the right and left began calling on Bush to admit he had been mistaken, but Bush merely found new justifications for the war: he was getting rid of a “very bad guy,” fighting terrorists, promoting peace in the Middle East, bringing democracy to Iraq, increasing American security, and finishing “the task [our troops] gave their lives…