Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)

Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts

By: Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson

Narrated by: Marsha Mercant, Joe Barrett

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell? Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception - how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.

©2008 Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"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 we're honest—ourselves, and some of the more perplexing mysteries of human nature begin to seem a little clearer." (Francine Prose, O, The Oprah Magazine)

"By turns entertaining, illuminating and—when you recognize yourself in the stories it tells—mortifying." ( The Wall Street Journal)

A must-read.

This is one of the books that must be read and reread throughout our lifetime.

This book reveals, as did the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman that we're humans with flaws, blind spots, biases and we fail a lot. Period. But we need to be aware of how much we self-justify our mistakes.

Here's a condensed list of what you can expect from the book:
1. We always try to justify our acts to reduce dissonance - the feeling that you have two conflict ideas inside you and that makes you feel uncomfortable;
2. We're always biased. But knowing that changes everything. It's just like driving. Drivers will always have blind spots, but the good ones are aware that we have them and take care when changing lanes to avoid hitting a car or something. Be aware of your blind spots;
3. We're biased even when we know in theory that we can be biased in that specific situation;
4. We group things into stereotypes and we tend to separate the world into us versus them (and we do this quite quickly);
5. When you're so convinced about something, it's hard to make you come out of it. It demands a lot from you. You need to build up a lot of courage to assume an error but do it anyway. You'll be respected and honored.

This book is a must-read for anyone who makes mistakes. If you don't feel like you're this kind of person, there's definitely a mistake.

insightful

an insightful read. i felt the examples were many, maybe a chapter too much. would've enjoyed more from chapter 9 with more useful tips.

Most influential book I've read this year<br />

I loved so much of this book. It's not very often that something influences you in a way to question every thought and intention of yourself and those around you. Some parts were a little slow or hard to understand at first but it all built up to clear understanding and totally worth the setup. I really appreciated that this wasn't just educational & interesting also life changing.

Great analysis of Cognitive Dissonance

What did you like best about Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)? What did you like least?

It's not really a self help book, more of an analysis of how cognitive dissonance affects us on the personal, relationship, and political level. It's mildly interesting to me, the non-psychiatrist or psychologist.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

"Makes sense to me"

Which character – as performed by Marsha Mercant and Joe Barrett – was your favorite?

Didn't really have a favorite character

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

...It'd be a documentary and probably not.

Any additional comments?

Worthy read if you want to understand why people are contradictory and how they justify themselves

Enlightening

You might learn something about yourself. If you don't, listen to it again. Human nature is fascinating.

Democrats=good. Republicans=bad.

You know what never gets old? Elitists Monday-morning quarterbacking Bush's decision to invade Iraq. And of course, there's that Ronald Reagan guy, let's not forget to point out his transgressions.

On the positive side if you can give the authors the benefit of the doubt and look past their thinly-veiled partisanship you will find a far better than average summary of the topic of cognitive dissonance and how it affects us. What I liked about this book is that the pause it gives me when attempting to render judgment is not a deal breaker. The author does not want the reader to be plagued by indecision. But they do want people to be aware of the larger picture in any disagreements.

Almost scary insightful

loved this book. Great analysis of how cognitive dissonance blinds us in important decision and what to do about.

Humbling

Know thyself because we are all irrational hypocrites. A bit painful at first having to self examine but like the message from this book says, the ego wants to keep building on cognitive dissonance and the soul just wants to be free. We all make mistakes, I hope we get to the point in our emotional evolution as a society where we recognize that an error is not a mistake, a mistake is refusing to acknowledge our errors and continuing with the delusion that we didn’t do anything wrong and we are not to blame. This is truly about extreme ownership, highly recommend this to everyone looking to improve themselves and be honest. It’s not a passive book, you should be ready to do some soul searching.

Great book

I liked the book at lot. Very informative and interesting. Will try to find another book like this one.

Great book

This was an awesome audiobook, i really enjoyed listening too. I hope there are more.
Narrating was very very superb.