Mistakes Were Made

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These ubiquitous feats of mental gymnastics give rise to various appalling truths, one of which is best described by research psychologist John Kihlstrom: “The weakness of the relationship between accuracy and confidence is one of the best-documented phenomena in the 100-year history of eyewitness memory research.” I’ve read this book in about three days – and that despite also having about four other books on the go at the same time. This one pushed all the others I’ve started to the bottom of the list. Like I said, a lot of this book I found very challenging, but all of it very compelling. The cost that the reader pays for the afore mentioned rewards (enhanced self honesty, growth, insight etc), is the very experience of painful dissonance the book so expertly describes. As someone interested in the psychology of religion, it's always interesting to me how cognitive weaknesses play a role in establishing and maintaining religious beliefs. Some atheists are wont to believe that religion is a kind of mental illness, but this book (and others) make it clear that's really not so. The vast majority of religious people are cognitively normal. It's just that normal human cognition is very prone to making certain kinds of errors, and religious memes propagate very easily on this substrate. As an example, for a religious person to admit that there are no gods, they have to confront the enormous cognitive dissonance that they think of themselves as smart, well-educated, pragmatic - but have, for many years, been putting vast amounts of effort, emotion, thought, and perhaps money into something that hasn't the slightest basis in reality. For someone who was devoutly religious, this is the granddaddy of all cognitive dissonance. That so many people manage to confront this and deal with it is quite impressive. This is a circuitous way of saying that you can't help but recognize and feel the pain of the human condition when you read this fantastically well executed, educational and therapeutic book.

And at the end of the day, when the time comes for decent people to tell their story, self-justification is left holding the pen. Memory, say the authors, becomes our live-in historian - which is alarming given what psychologists now know about memory's shortcomings. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been guilty of self-justification and failure to admit their mistakes. In fact, the last president to clearly admit to a major mistake was John F. Kennedy. Really, are we convinced that no president since then has messed up? What was really interesting is that the two presidents to use the phrase "mistakes were made" the most, were none other than Richard Nixon (of course) and, wait for it, the beloved Ronald Reagan. What is so insidious about the phrase (which Clinton even joked about using it so much) is that it is a complete avoidance of responsibility. The overarching principles being examined are those of cognitive dissonance and self-justification. And, before you get all defensive (get it?), these are normal and necessary facets of a human mind-brain (as Krieger might call it).The title of the book gives the impression that it's a self-help book. It's more of a psychology book explaining how people can make mistakes, think they are right, and honestly believe that. A good example is false memories. How often have you said, "I could have sworn I did that." You see the event in your head, yet evidence shows it didn't happen. You rationalize it ("someone must have moved it") instead of accepting the most obvious answer ("I was mistaken in thinking that I did it"). Memories create our stories, but our stories also create our memories. Once we have a narrative, we shape our memories to fit into it and assemble as mosaic form .

I finished the book because I was hoping for advice on circumventing or fixing the effects of cognitive dissonance and self-justification when working with other people. Such advice was scant. Only the example of Apartheid was meaningful as a way to approach cognitive dissonance in others; it was about three paragraphs long. There are some tips for the reader on ways they can try to manage cognitive dissonance in themselves, but such tips are also few in number.

Children under five have trouble differentiating between things they have heard and things they have actually experienced; in adulthood, we tend to forget details as years go by, so we wind up with a related problem of being unable to distinguish reality from our fantasized or chosen narratives. This is most apparent when comparing relationship narratives between happy couples and divorcing couples. Ultimately, I think that Tavris's conclusions about self-justification are probably correct, but her argument was flawed. There were a number of things that put me off from this book. Here's my list of gripes: MRI scans confirm that when we are confronted with dissonant information, the reasoning areas of our brains all but shut down. And it's not only politicians who indulge in self-justification. For which of us, on buying the more expensive appliance, has not then spent weeks kidding ourselves the cheaper model would have been unreliable or downright dangerous? Cassie shrugged. Why play games? There were no stakes here. Erin was a hot stranger; she didn’t have the power to hurt Cassie. There was no reason to pretend she wanted to go slow. Plus: “It’s working, isn’t it?”

A review in O, The Oprah Magazine praised the book for "the scientific evidence it provides and the charm of its down-to-earth, commonsensical tone.” [3] PDF / EPUB File Name: Mistakes_were_made_-_Meryl_Wilsner.pdf, Mistakes_were_made_-_Meryl_Wilsner.epub When Cassie Klein goes to an off-campus bar to escape her school’s Family Weekend, she isn’t looking for a hookup―it just happens. Buying a drink for a stranger turns into what should be an uncomplicated, amazing one-night stand. But then the next morning rolls around and her friend drags her along to meet her mom―the hot, older woman Cassie slept with. Mistakes Were Made is an absolute delight, both undeniably sexy and incredibly sweet. The story overflows with warmth, friendship, and humor, and Wilsner skillfully ensures that even when Cassie and Erin make their mistakes—big ones—those mistakes are human and understandable. I was rooting for their happy ending the whole time, and when it arrived, I cried happy tears. I think readers will adore this story, and for good reason." - Olivia Dade, author of Spoiler Alert

Andreeva, Nellie (May 18, 2023). "Disney Removes Dozens Of Series From Disney+ & Hulu, Including 'Big Shot', 'Willow', 'Y' & 'Dollface' ". Deadline . Retrieved May 23, 2023. Parent blaming" - a convenient form of self-justification; it allows people to live with regrets or mistakes because all the mistakes were made "by them." From Meryl Wilsner, the acclaimed author of Something to Talk About, comes Mistakes Were Made, a sharp and sexy rom-com about a college senior who accidentally hooks up with her best friend’s mom. This was by far the best book I have read in quite a few years. Highly recommended. It was so informative and engaging that I think I wore out my welcome reading it out loud to anyone who was nearby.