123
" Many judges, jurors, and police officers prefer certainties to science. Law professor D. Michael Risinger and attorney Jeffrey L. Loop have lamented “the general failure of the law to reflect virtually any of the insights of modern research on the characteristics of human perception, cognition, memory, inference or decision under uncertainty, either in the structure of the rules of evidence themselves, or the ways in which judges are trained or instructed to administer them. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
125
" Most people who get caught in a lie, mistake, or hypocritical dance feel sharp dissonance and are motivated to squirm out of it with a flurry of self-justifications. But Trump has always been unfazed precisely because he feels no dissonance when caught. Feeling dissonance requires the ability to feel shame, guilt, empathy, and remorse, and he lacks that capacity. The only justifications he feels the need to make are claims that he can do anything he wants because he is “a very stable genius” and knows more than anyone about everything. He can never learn from his mistakes because he convinces himself that he never makes any—he cuts dissonance off at the pass, never allowing it into his brain. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
129
" Many subjects harshly devalue the victim as a consequence of acting against him. Such comments as, ‘He was so stupid and stubborn he deserved to get shocked,’ were common. Once having acted against the victim, these subjects found it necessary to view him as an unworthy individual, whose punishment was made inevitable by his own deficiencies of intellect and character.”13 The implications of these studies are ominous, for they show that people do not perform acts of cruelty and come out unscathed. Success at dehumanizing the victim virtually guarantees a continuation or even an escalation of the cruelty: It sets up an endless chain of violence, followed by self-justification (in the form of dehumanizing and blaming the victim), followed by still more violence and dehumanization. Combine self-justifying perpetrators and victims who are helpless, and you have a recipe for the escalation of brutality. This brutality is not confined to brutes—that is, sadists or psychopaths. It can be, and usually is, committed by ordinary individuals, people who have children and lovers, “civilized” people who enjoy music and food and making love and gossiping as much as anyone else. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
133
" The American criminal justice system’s unwillingness to admit fallibility compounds the injustices it creates. Many states do absolutely nothing for people who have been exonerated. They provide no compensation for the many years of life and earnings lost. They do not even offer an official apology. Cruelly, they often do not expunge the exonerated person’s record, making it difficult for the person to get an apartment or a job. From the viewpoint of dissonance theory, we can see why the victims of wrongful convictions are treated so harshly. That harshness is in direct proportion to the system’s inflexibility. If you know that errors are inevitable, you will not be surprised when they happen and you will have contingencies in place to remedy them. But if you refuse to admit to yourself or the world that mistakes do happen, then the exoneration of those who have been wrongfully imprisoned is stark, humiliating evidence of how wrong you are. Apologize to them? Give them money? Don’t be absurd. They got off on a technicality. Oh, the technicality was DNA? Well, they were guilty of something else. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
134
" In our favorite version of an ancient Buddhist parable, several monks are returning to their monastery after a long pilgrimage. Over high mountains and across low valleys they trek, honoring their vow of silence outside the monastery. One day they come to a raging river where a beautiful young woman stands. She approaches the eldest monk and says, “Forgive me, Roshi, but would you be so kind as to carry me across the river? I cannot swim, and if I remain here or attempt to cross on my own, I shall surely perish.” The old monk smiles at her warmly and says, “Of course I will help you.” With that, he picks her up and carries her across the river. On the other side, he gently sets her down. She thanks him, departs, and the monks continue their wordless journey. After five more days of arduous travel, the monks arrive at their monastery, and the moment they do, they turn on the elder in a fury. “How could you do that?” they admonish him. “You broke your vows! You not only spoke to that woman, you touched her! You not only touched her, you picked her up!” The elder replies, “I only carried her across the river. You have been carrying her for five days. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
137
" Prejudices emerge from the disposition of the human mind to perceive and process information in categories. Categories is a nicer, more neutral word than stereotypes, but it’s the same thing. Cognitive psychologists view stereotypes as energy-saving devices that allow us to make efficient decisions on the basis of past experiences; they help us quickly process new information, retrieve memories, understand real differences between groups, and predict, often with considerable accuracy, how others will behave or think. "
― Carol Tavris , Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts