NPR recently interviewed psychologist Elliot Aronson, co-author, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me).   Aronson worked closely with Leon Festinger back in the 1950’s “designing experiments to test and expand dissonance theory.”  Here is NPR’s plug for the interview:

We all have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong, but according to a new book about human psychology, it’s not entirely our fault. Social psychologist Elliot Aronson says our brains work hard to make us think we are doing the right thing, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I listened closely to the interview (you can listen on-line too by visiting the above link) because this was yet another serious attempt to apply psychology to a critical real-life situations.   Exhibit A during this interview was the President’s dysfunctional attitude toward to continued U.S. occupation of Iraq.  

According to Aronson, cognitive dissonance “is a drive, like hunger or thirst.”  It is directed toward the human need to define who we are in a good light in order to reduce dissonance, so that we can “sleep well at night.”  It is “a powerful and unconscious motor” that smoothes out our mental “rough edges.” 

We commonly refer to cognitive dissonance as “justification.” Regarding many simple mistakes, it’s no big deal to spin the incident in a way that deflects blame and embarrassment from one’s self.  If you spill wine on the carpet, you justify that that it was only white wine, or that the damage wasn’t noticeable, …