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Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson are the co-authors of Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), a book which explores the science of cognitive biases and discusses how the human brain is wired for self-justification. In this episode, Carol and Elliot discuss how our desire to reconcile mental conflicts adversely affects many aspects of society. The two give real-world examples to demonstrate the pitfalls in attempts to reduce mental conflict, or dissonance. The examples reveal that no one is immune to dissonance reduction behavior, how intellectual honesty can be trained and lastly, how to think critically in order to avoid engaging in harmful dissonant behaviors.

We discuss:

• Carol and Elliot\u2019s\xa0respective\xa0background,\xa0collaboration\xa0history, and\xa0their\xa0decision to write\xa0Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)\xa0[4:00];
• The theory of cognitive dissonance, and real examples of dissonance reduction in action [11:15];
• How Elliot advanced the theory of cognitive dissonance [23:00];
• The evolutionary reason for dissonance reduction, and cultural differences in what causes cognitive dissonance [30:30];
• The great danger of smart, powerful people engaging in dissonance reduction [35:15];
• Two case studies of cognitive dissonance in criminal justice [39:30];
• The McMartin preschool case study\u2014The danger in making judgements before knowing all the information\xa0[43:30];
• How ideology distorts science and public opinion [56:30];
• How time distorts memories [58:30];
• The downside of certainty [1:05:30];
• Are we all doomed to cognitive dissonance?\u2014How two people with similar beliefs can\xa0diverge\xa0[1:09:00];
• Cognitive dissonance in\xa0the police force\xa0[1:21:00];
• A\xa0toolkit for overcoming cognitive dissonance [1:27:30];
• Importance of separating identity from\xa0beliefs,\xa0thinking critically,\xa0&\xa0and the difficulty posed by political polarity\xa0[1:30:30];
• How to impart the lessons from their work\xa0into future generations [1:48:00]; and
• More.

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Show notes page for this episode: https://peterattiamd.com/caroltavris-elliotaronson/\xa0

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