Self-Justification

The most insidious form of deception is self-deception. When an individual deceives others (as in a political speech), that deception may temporarily affect the attitudes and behavior of the audience. But if the deceiver then needs to justify what he has done and succeeds in deceiving himself, the effects on his attitudes and behavior are often profound and long-lasting.

Scientific research on self-justification and self-deception began in earnest in 1950, when Leon Festinger invented the theory of cognitive dissonance. Basically, cognitive dissonance occurs when an individual holds two cognitions (ideas, beliefs, attitudes) contradicting each other. Dissonance produces mental discomfort, from minor pangs to deep anguish. People do not rest easily until they reduce this discomfort, usually by modifying one cognition to make it more consistent with the other.

[Page 842]As a student working in Festinger's lab, Elliot Aronson made an important discovery: cognitive dissonance causes most pain, and therefore the most permanent changes, when one of the cognitions is about the way individuals see themselves and the other is about an action they perform or a statement they make that runs counter to that self-concept. Elaborating on that insight, Aronson suggested that because most people consider themselves to be relatively smart, moral, and competent, when they do something that makes them feel stupid, immoral, or incompetent, they experience the greatest pain of dissonance. Because it is virtually unthinkable for people to change their beliefs in the kind of persons they are (“I guess I am a stupid, immoral slob after all!”), they strive, instead, to invent a story that justifies the action that threatened their self-concept.

There are a great many ways for individuals to justify their actions, but they usually involve constructing a story that enhances the value of the action they have taken, that diminishes the importance of the unethical behavior in which they have engaged, or that dehumanizes the person they have harmed. Fifty years of research has supported these ideas.