After you’ve flubbed a big client presentation, do you tell yourself, that, um, that client was too much trouble and your company will be better off if it drops the account? That little lie is self-justification, a trick our brains use to justify misbehavior, say social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, authors of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts.

QAre our brains actually wired for self-justification?

AYes. We all want to believe that we’re competent, smart, good people. Therefore, when we do anything that contradicts that belief, like goof up or cut a moral corner, we’re aware of a gap between our self-image and our own behavior. That “cognitive dissonance” feels uncomfortable, so we instinctively minimize it by justifying what we do to preserve our good opinion of ourselves. We persuade ourselves that our choice was really right.

QWhat’s wrong with making yourself feel better about a bad decision?

ASelf-justification can prevent us from realizing when we’re clinging to a belief or practice that’s flat-out wrong and may keep us from admitting that a mistake is disastrous—and fixing it.

QHow do we keep self-justification in check?

AWe can learn to control this tendency. If we can accept that we can be good, kind, smart people, yet even so will still drop the ball on occasion, we can learn from our blunders and avoid them. The first step is to be aware of how this process works: why and when we will be inclined to justify rather than learn from mistakes. — Katie Brophy