J. Kehoe 2008-11-21

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

The book is interesting. The subject of the book is our "blind spots." Unfortunately, the authors seem to have a few blind spots of their own, which is not surprising. Unfortunately, it makes the book annoying to those of us who don't buy into the liberal political view. Specifically, almost every time the authors pick a public figure as an example of bad behavior, they almost invariably pick a conservative or republican. Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Antonin Scalia, etc etc. Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton get mentioned, but in a much softer light. It seems that liberals just don't make as many mistakes as us conservatives. I expected better, especially since the authors spend a lot of time talking about the importance of unbiased psychological experiments.

E. A. Johnson 2008-11-19

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I was truly enjoying it and so was someone else at work because the darn thing went missing! I'm ordering another.

Ramsey 2008-11-13

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I'll confess, I've had moments in my life where I thought that the woman I had fallen hopelessly in love with was part of a foretold prophecy and the fact she had rejected me was sure evidence that she was a recovering sex addict having intercourse with any third rate bass player who would cross her path on a Tuesday night at the Whiskey, and that syphilis was sure to follow. To say I was raised to have strong opinions is a gross understatement.

However, admitting mistakes for those strong opinions was somehow left out of the guidebook. Is someone slow to get the point? They're obviously a moron!! Did someone forget to clean up dog pee? There are sure signs of narcissist personality disorder!! My family does not "suffer fools gladly".

Thankfully, we are not the exception to the rule, as is the case in point of the book "Mistakes were Made (but not by me): why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and other hurtful acts" by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson. This book analyzes the strong currents that occurred from Self Justification and Confirmation bias.

This is not a self help book! Self help's focus is on construction, this book's purpose is on observation, and more akin to books like Blink, Predictable Irrationality and The Tipping Point. In fact, if you have read Blink, and enjoyed the correlation between divorce and contempt, this book explores that theme from a self justification point of view. Themes such as clinical psychology, the justice system, and international policy; social and marital situations are discussed with these issues in mind. The book can be found in the general psychology section of the bookstore and I think that is quite appropriate.

I think one of the first things this book has showed me is that we as Americans are horrified of making mistakes. The main difference between the educational systems that surpass the U.S is that their process views mistakes as a natural part of expression, while the American grading system views mistakes as something unpleasant and to be avoided. This can lead to adults who mistake strong feelings for intelligence. I can say I happened to be one of those people.

The final chapter gently strews some ideas about what to do with self justification. Its main focus is trying to get people to separate the relationship with the person from the mistake made. To identify their personal feelings and isolate them from the problem at hand. To take out the "yes, but" out of the explanation of a mistake.

In the spirit of this book, I will gladly admit some mistakes I have made. I blogged and left comments that hurt other people's feelings. Whether I was wrong or right doesn't excuse the fact that I hurt somebody. The easier response of saying "I don't care" was taken and that too is regretful. From those actions there where a couple of relationships which had the opportunity to be deepened and that they were missed is regrettable.

TAA DAA!!!

See! Easy Piezy! If you are looking for a good nonfiction read, and willing to look at yourself with a sense of humor if you identify with any of the examples, check it out~!

C'mon everybody! Let's sing the song to reading rainbow!!!

I CAN GO ANYWHERE~!!!......

Corin Goodwin 2008-09-01

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

I'm not usually a big fan of 'self-help' books, but I was caught by the title and couldn't resist. What a terrific book! Well written and accessible, the authors do a very good job of making their many points about the mechanisms of self-justification (and why we should all care) without sounding accusatory or offending the reader. I highly recommend this book to pretty much anyone and everyone.

plhgg 2008-08-31

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

This fine book has extensive and substantive footnotes, but the lousy Kindle software doesn't have live links to the footnotes, which makes it MUCH more difficult to move back and forth between the text and the footnotes. The only hope is to add a bookmark to the page you are on, and then move to the footnote section, which starts at location 3638 -- leave a bookmark at the last footnote you looked at, and then when you want to look at the next footnote, you can go back to that bookmark. Then, every now and then, delete the previous bookmarks for the earlier pages/footnotes.