I have been reading Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, a book about cognitive dissonance – the phenomenon that arises, with uncomfortable feelings, when two deeply held internal points of view come into conflict with one another. To avoid such feelings, we resort to self-justification.
The book contains a chapter on cognitive dissonance in marriage, which holds this process to be the main culprit in the outcome of relationships. “Misunderstandings, conflicts, personality differences and even angry quarrels are not the assassins of love – self-justification is,” the authors remark.
How does cognitive dissonance work? Let’s say partner A has a problem with partner B’s recklessness with money – as they understand it. Perhaps one of the things that attracted them originally was what they thought of as B’s “generosity and spontaneity”. In a relationship, however, the behaviour starts to look irresponsible. How does A resolve the fact that they made a misjudgment about B?
Retrospective self-justification applies to the whole spectrum of domestic behaviour from housework to childcare
One way is for A to accept that they made that misjudgment and that the responsibility is partly theirs. Another way is for A to carry on maintaining the “positive” dissonance, and convince themselves that B is wonderfully, joyfully open-handed even though the joint account is in the red again.
But the easiest way, as it avoids damaging their self-esteem, is for A to decide B has betrayed them and is a “bad person”. Such retrospective self-justification applies to the whole spectrum of domestic behaviour from housework to childcare. It’s not, “If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it”, rather, “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it.”
What is the “real” situation between a couple? With cognitive dissonance and another related psychological principle, confirmation bias, operating at all times – both affect any particular situation and the writing and rewriting of memory – it is difficult to know “the truth”. But often the price of that truth is the realisation that “I was (at least somewhat) wrong” – usually the most painful way of resolving dissonance, and thus the least palatable.
The longer cognitive dissonance worms its way into memory and our understanding of what has happened, the more powerful it becomes as a predictive factor for conflict, because then a relationship becomes more about what a person “is” as opposed to what they “do”. Any behaviour that contradicts that presupposition will be discounted and any evidence that confirms it will be exaggerated.
If you form an opinion early in your relationship about the other person, and then use every opportunity to screen out information that runs counter to that opinion, then you have a coherent worldview, but possibly an unreliable view of your partner, who – whether they actually improve or not – is trapped within your prejudices.
There is only one solution to this conundrum (one I failed to embody in either of my marriages, both now sadly ended) or rather, three solutions – humility, honesty and good faith.
Humility means the ability and courage to say “I may be wrong”, so that every time anything goes awry you don’t self-justify. Good faith is the default position that your partner means well, and is trying, even though they may be failing. Honesty is the hardest, given all the distorting filters our mind provides – but it is at least to be held as an ideal, as a hedge against the temptations of self-justification.
These stances have to be mutual for there to be any chance of success – if one side holds good faith and the other does not, or if one side is prideful and the other humble, that is a recipe for the continuation of self-justification on one side and accumulating resentment and frustration on both.
Self-justification, one-sided or mutual, is the course most frequently chosen. Other choices are possible. To make them constitutes the difference between a happy and an unhappy marriage.