Buret McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

Personal responsibility, the ability to own up to once mistakes is a foundational element

of character.

It's also the only way we can grow and get better, but as anyone with any experience

being human well understands, man, it can sure be hard to do.

My guest today explains why and how you can yet rise to meet this important challenge.

His name is Elliot Errinson, he's a social psychologist and the co-author of Mistakes

were made, but not by me.

While we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts.

Elliot first explains how and why we engage in self-justification to avoid facing our

mistakes, and how this process is driven by the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance.

We then discuss how once you make a decision in a certain direction, go to bed, become

more entrenched in your attitude about it and more likely to continue down that same path,

and how this phenomenon represents what Elliot calls the pyramid of choice.

We then are in a conversation with how we can learn to approach the mistakes of others

with more generosity and our own mistakes with more honesty.

After the show is over, check out our show notes at aawm.iaslashmistakes.

Elliot Errinson, welcome to the show.

Thank you, good to be here.

So you are one of the authors of a book called Mistakes Were Made, but not by me, why we

justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts.

It's all about why it's so hard to admit that we're wrong, we've made a mistake.

...