Wrong! It’s Hard To Say I’m Sorry
Why
is it difficult for some people to admit they are wrong, let alone
apologise, even though they know they are wrong, or proven wrong?
In
my attempt of trying to understand this particular person who has caused a
major headache for the past two days, because I couldn’t put myself in
her shoes, I went around in the virtual world trying to find some
answers. And I guess I did.
We all have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong, 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.
The
engine that drives self-justification, the energy that produces the
need to justify our actions and decisions — especially the wrong ones —
is an unpleasant feeling that called "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive
dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds
two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are
psychologically inconsistent, such as "Smoking is a dumb thing to do
because it could kill me" and "I smoke two packs a day."Dissonance is disquieting because
