Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

[fxm]

When dealing believers of woo-woo, skeptics often ask themselves (and each other), "how can people believe that stuff?" and "why is it so hard to persuade these people they're wrong, when we have the facts right here?" For compelling answers to these questions, read this book.

Tavris and Aronson have written a very accessible introduction to cognitive dissonance, which is the tension that occurs when a person tries to hold two inconsistent "cognitions" (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, or opinions). Dissonance is an uncomfortable state, the more so when one of the cognitions is an important element of one's identity. The mind works to reduce dissonance, and it tends to do so in a way that preserves one's own concept of who one is.

The authors review the research and provide numerous real-world examples of how cognitive dissonance and self-justification can lead people into harmless self-delusions, and, usually one small step at a time, to incredible atrocities. They also describe how we can distort our memories, or create false memories, in the service of our self-justification, again with several examples.

The first three chapters provide the background on dissonance theory, blind spots, and our malleable memory. These are followed by chapters with examples of dissonance at work in science and medicine, the justice system, love and marriage, and disputes and wars. The final chapter contains suggestions for dealing with dissonance and admitting to our mistakes. All of the chapters contain copious endnotes with pointers to sources.

I was surprised to see how much scientific research there has been on dissonance theory. My view of psychology had been shaped by the pop-psych fads I've seen over the years, which always led me to believe that it was almost wholly non-scientific. It was refreshing to see I was wrong about that.

Overall, I found the book fascinating, if a bit disturbing at times. While it can be entertaining to read stories of others' self-deceptions, anyone with an ounce of introspection will probably see themselves in at least some of the examples. And some of the examples are downright scary, such as how police and district attorneys can ignore disconfirming evidence once they've decided on their prime suspect. My only quibble with the book is that the authors seemed to be picking on the Bush administration, and Republicans generally, a bit too frequently, giving the appearance of there being some political agenda in the book. But given that the references are to current events, fresh in the mind of anyone reading the book, I'll give them a pass on that.

I strongly recommend this book as a valuable addition to any skeptic's arsenal of tools for understanding and combatting irrational thinking.

Of course, I could be giving this book a positive review merely to justify to myself that the $25 I spent on it was worth it. :)

<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thejamesrandi-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0151010986&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=C10808&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr&nou=1" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

[Jason Smith]

Good review of an excellent book.

The scariest chapter, the one about law enforcement, deserves to be read by all (U.S.) citizens. In a nutshell, once the law enforcement machine has decided they've found the guilty party, seemingly no amount of evidence will dissuade them from their conclusion. Widely used interrogation techniques can be used to extract confessions from the evidence. If they can get a confession, they stop searching. After all why would an innocent person confess? DNA evidence -- why bother with that when the guy confessed?! Couple cognitive dissonance with the reflexive defensiveness that law enforcement always seems to have, and you have a recipe for an unwavering position immune to evidence and reason. Lives get ruined because of this, making cognitive dissonance a more significant issue than my refusal to admit to having a bald spot.

[Cincinnatus]

Nice

[jenspen]

I felt I would become a nobler and wiser person after reading the book. Lent it to a friend who is a Jungian therapist but she wasn't much impressed. I think the Australian
PM, Kevin Rudd must have read it and admitting mistakes has really worked for him. Recommended.

[GreyICE]

I'll have to pick this one up.

[andyandy]

I'm currently halfway through this book, and have to say it's one of the most interesting books I've read for a long time. It is absolutely jampacked full of references to psychology studies and examples from history which are illustrative of human nature. It should be of particular interest to those who are fans of Michael Shearmer and the sceptical community.

The core of the book centres around the idea of cognitive dissonance, where the brain has to reconcile two contrasting viewpoints. For example the self belief that " I am rational and intelligent" with the action " I am slowly killing myself by smoking". The dissonance could be resolved by concluding that actually I am neither rational nor especially intelligent, but of course no one wants to conclude that! So instead I look for levers to reduce the gap in the other direction. Smoking helps me to relax, and stress is a big killer, smoking helps me to keep my weight down and obesity is a big health problem. And so on......

that idea in itself is not especially remarkable, but what is remarkable is the wealth of studies that investigate the impact of cognitive dissonance upon our day-to-day lives. Like for example how students who are made to conduct a rigorous initiation event prior to assessing the quality and usefulness of a recorded debate are far more likely to rate the debate as interesting and informative rather than students who are not required to go through such an initiation. The cognitive dissonance here is between the gap "I'm a rational and intelligent person" and "I've put myself through all this hard work to listen to this debate". Rather than conclude that we have wasted our time, which calls into question our intelligence, we instead resolve the dissonance by subconsciously overrating the usefulness or importance of what we have just listened to.

Buy this book! It is truly brilliant :)

[Tanstaafl]

I appreciate the reviews. Mrs. Tan gave me this book a while back, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. It'll now get much higher priority! :)

[canadarocks]

I very much enjoyed this book. It is full of "slippery slope"-type examples of how people can self-delude themselves into rationalizing mistakes. We can all be prone to this and we need to learn to recognize when we begin sliding down...