Mistakes Were Made Summary

Introduction The novel, Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts, by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson is about how humans naturally attempt to use cognitive dissonance to justify their acts and beliefs. I selected the book to review because the title interested me. I wondered how people could justify actions such as lying to the nation and even terrorism. I was also interested in learning about how criminals could do such horrible acts and still be able to sleep at night without having to worry or stress about what they had done. I have seen many instances when people argue and never make up. The reason behind that is that they’re both either afraid of what the other would say or they both think that themselves is correct. This mindset leads to a lack of communication and a

I feel that I learned more than I expected, the book explained a question that people ask themselves in times of crisis. Why? People would often look at a horrible act and ask themselves why someone would what they did. Cognitive dissonance explains how people would self-justify themselves to feel less guilty over the things that they did. The book answered my main questions that I had such as why people do what they do even when it’s morally wrong. For people who are curious to read the book, I would suggest to them that they should go into the book with an open mind. If they don’t have that, then they will deny the book and find it boring or something that doesn’t make sense. To properly read the book, I would suggest annotating the book while reading, highlighting important parts that speak to them most. The book in all is extremely eye opening and I would suggest scanning through the introduction to see if the book is of interest towards the individual. The book delves deep into the question why and helps to understand people’s actions in a clearer