Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts

About Carol TavrisElliot Aronson

Dr. Carol Tavris's work as a writer teacher and lecturer has been devoted to educating the public about psychological science. She has spoken to students psychologists mediators lawyers judges physicians business executives and general audiences on among other topics self-justification; science and pseudoscience in psychology; gender and sexuality; critical thinking; and anger. In the legal arena she has given many addresses and workshops to attorneys and judges on the difference between testimony based on good psychological science and that based on pseudoscience and subjective clinical opinion. Elliot Aronson is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He has long-standing research interests in social influence and attitude change cognitive dissonance research methodology and interpersonal attraction. Professor Aronson's experiments are aimed both at testing theory and at improving the human condition by influencing people to change dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours. In 1999 he won the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award making him the only psychologist to have won APA's highest awards in all three major academic categories: distinguished writing (1973) distinguished teaching (1980) and distinguished research (1999).