If you've ever been in an argument where you just knew you were in the right and the other person was wrong, you should read this book. If someone has ever told you that you made a mistake, but you had a perfectly good explanation for what you did, you should read this book.

The theory of cognitive dissonance is a very powerful tool for understanding how humans interact with each other. We justify our decisions to ourselves as the right ones, because we feel that we are good people, and good people don't make bad decisions. It's a cycle that starts with small steps that get incrementally bigger, until we're on polar opposite sides of an issue.

This book is packed with examples, ranging from innocent people being sent to jail, to lovers' quarrels, to nations at war, to pharmaceuticals that don't work, to why Japanese children perform better in math over American children (hint: it has to do with the difference between feeling like we made a miscalculation or an error, versus feeling like we are just not very smart).

I don't wanna give it all away, but there's fantastic wisdom throughout. Highly recommended!

A terrific book - the authors present a solid package: the mental and emotional processes involved in cognitive dissonance, and the processes that make it harder and harder to change our minds and public positions the more invested we are in the ones we've chosen; then examples in a number of fields of the ways it plays out, with the sometimes merely embarrassing and sometimes tragic results. The examples are spread among many areas of life and culture from personal relationships to criminal prosecutions to religion to politics to warfare. It's also often hilarious.
This book should be read not only by the president, all members of his cabinet, and all members of Congress, but also by every prosecutor, every general and admiral in the military, and every mental health professional.

Er, I liked this book.

But there were issues. The information was presented...exactly as it would have been, if the book were written by a couple of enthusiasts making exactly the same mistakes as are described in the book.

Examples:

The Milgram experiment gets mentioned a couple of times, completely uncritically. However, recently (since the book was published), many of the methods used in the study have been questioned. Did the Milgram experiment show what the results say they show? It's impossible to tell, because the researchers didn't stick to accepted procedure.

We know this now. And yet, in the book, the writers accept the study unquestioningly. In retrospect, it seems odd. Understandable...but exactly the kind of thing you would expect the writers of THIS book to avoid, to be more critical about.

Another one. The conclusion of the book ends up with a lot of advice unsupported by any studies or any outside evidence whatsoever--and comes out of the blue. The writers say that if someone you love has made the kind of mistake shown by the book (say, being swindled by a fake preacher), then it's best not to confront them by calling them stupid, but by appealing to the best in them. Okay so far.

Then they say, "Con artists take advantage of people's best qualities--their kindness, politeness, and their desire to honor their commitments, reciprocate a gift, or help a friend."

Nope.

Every other bit I've read about cons is that they take advantage of greed, cleverness, superiority, and arrogance. They set the mark up for a fall by making them feel like they're better, smarter, and quicker than everyone else.

It's a minor thing--or is it? The two items that I had any idea about ended up being based on incorrect assumptions. So now I don't know how to feel about this book. An enjoyable read, but I feel weird about giving it more than three stars.

Great book - but then I have to say that, don't I? I couldn't possibly admit to being mistaken! Seriously, this is a fascinating and informative book about cognitive dissonance and our resulting struggles to admit our mistakes. Understanding how this works in ourselves and others is vital and this book tells why.

Great examples, wish there was more about how to take action / combat biases

Blinks:
1. Instead of admitting our mistakes, we tend to justify them.
2. We justify our mistakes by looking at situations in a biased, narrow-minded manner.
3. Far from an objective record of the truth, our memory is fabricated and adjusted to suit our needs.
4. Self-justification of mistakes hinders scientific advancements, especially in the field of medicine.
5. The criminal justice system also makes mistakes due to the self-justification of its actions.
6. Self-justification and blame can damage or even ruin relationships.
7. Even governments resort to self-justification, and this can lead to escalating conflicts.
8. Only by admitting our mistakes can we grow professionally and personally.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who wants insight into human nature. Namely, it goes into why people refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes, and why they may not even realize they're to blame. The subject held a lot of interest for me, but I can see its appealing to all kinds of readers.

Cognitive dissonance is explained in the first chapter, and it forms the basis for the self-justification discussed throughout this book. Cognitive dissonance occurs when two conflicting thoughts are present in a person's mind, such as, "I'm a good person," and "I did a terrible thing." The mind seeks to reconcile dissonance to reduce stress, which often means softening or throwing out contrary evidence.

The book goes on to tie this into what we think of others in general, memory, scientific exploration, the justice system, troubled marriages, politics, alien abductions, recovered memories, and family feuds. The same line of thinking that makes people blame the victim is the same that makes people cling to party lines even when they're indistinct, and dismiss an idea in a meeting from a co-worker we don't like.

One of the most interesting things I learned from the book is the psychology behind why people are more apt to blame a victim the more helpless that victim is. We're less likely to sympathize with the person we've bullied the more helpless our victim is. Cognitive dissonance asks us to come up with a reason why that smaller, helpless person deserved it, and cements it harder the more guilty we'd feel to learn we were wrong.

Another fascinating chapter discusses alien abduction and recovered memory, and how these events are explained through cognitive dissonance. It was sickening to hear how therapists, convinced they're right, have been planting traumatic memories into their patients and convincing them they're real. The alien abduction explanation was a bit more lighthearted.

The book does not take into account how mental illness affects these processes, though it does briefly touch on how a negative self-image affects cognitive dissonance. A person with a negative view of him- or herself will find no contradiction with the bad things they did, only the good. The introduction describes a situation where a person might obsess on mistakes to the point of paralysis, which sounds like textbook anxiety or depression. Mental illness is an outlier, I suppose, and the authors wanted to discuss how this works in a healthy mind.

The book was published in 2007, which means that a lot of its political discussion centers around the Bush administration and the War on Terror. I'd be interested to read an addendum discussing the most recent election. More specifically, there have been some surveys of the public, putting the opposite party's views into the mouth of the candidate the person supports. When people think their candidate supports it, they support it, but, even if they agree with it, they don't support it if the other guy does. It proves a lot of the points in the book, but I'd like to see it pulled apart and expanded on.

All-in-all, this was a fascinating subject, written in an accessible way. I didn't find the jargon difficult to wrap my mind around, though I can't say whether that's because it was written in a simpler way, or because I studied psychology in college. In any case, I feel enlightened, and less apt to dig my heels in when I make a mistake, in the future.

I listened to an audio edition of this book, narrated by Marsha Mercant and Joe Barrett. Ms. Mercant did the majority of the reading, with Mr. Barrett reading sections involving transcripts of conversations and some quotes. Some of the pronunciations sounded strange to me, but I can't say it's because they were wrong. I'm more apt to believe the narrators were correct.

Cognitive dissonance!

Solid concepts and some fairly horrific and memorable examples. Could have been 25% shorter.