Product Review
With research that took years, renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so 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.
As Francine Prose O Magazine sums it, "A revelatory study of how lovers, lawyers, doctors, politicians--and all of us--pull the wool over our own eyes. The politician who cant apologize, the torturer who feels no guilt, the co-worker wholl say anything to win an argument--in case youve ever wondered how such people can sleep at night, a new book by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson supplies some intriguing and useful insights. Thanks, in part, to the scientific evidence it provides and the charm of its down-to-earth, commonsensical tone, Mistakes Were Made is convincing. Reading it, we recognize the behavior of our leaders, our loved ones, and--if were honest--ourselves, and some of the more perplexing mysteries of human nature begin to seem a little clearer. By the books end, were far more attuned to the ways in which we avoid admitting our missteps, and intensely aware of how much our own (and everyones) lives would improve if we--and those who govern and lead us--understood the power and value of simply saying, ''I made a mistake. Im sorry.''
|
