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Self-justification
Self-justification describes how, when a person encounters cognitive dissonance, or a situation in which a person's behavior is inconsistent with their beliefs (hypocrisy), that person tends to Rationalization (psychology), justify the behavior and deny any negative feedback associated with the behavior. Cognitive dissonance The need to justify our actions and decisions, especially the ones inconsistent with our beliefs, comes from the unpleasant feeling called cognitive dissonance.Festinger, L. (1957). ''A theory of cognitive dissonance''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two inconsistent cognitions. For example, "Smoking will shorten my life, and I wish to live for as long as possible," and yet "I smoke three packs a day." Dissonance is bothersome in any circumstance but it is especially painful when an important element of self-concept is threatened. For instance, if the smoker considered h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some change in their cognitions or actions to cause greater alignment between them so as to reduce this dissonance. Relevant items of cognition include peoples' actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, Value (ethics), values, and things in the Natural environment, environment. Cognitive dissonance exists without signs but surfaces through psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of conflicting things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people automatically try to resolve the conflict, usually by reframing a side to make the combination congruent. Discomfort is triggered by beliefs clashing with new information or by having to conceptually re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the practice of feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. The word "hypocrisy" entered the English language ''c.'' 1200 with the meaning "the sin of pretending to virtue or goodness". Today, "hypocrisy" often refers to advocating behaviors that one does not practice. However, the term can also refer to other forms of pretense, such as engaging in pious or moral behaviors out of a desire for praise rather than out of genuinely pious or moral motivations. Definitions of hypocrisy vary. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one's own expressed moral rules and principles. According to British political philosopher David Runciman, "other kinds of hypocritical deception include claims to knowledge that one lacks, claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold". American political journalist Michael Gerson says that political hypocrisy is "th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationalization (psychology)
Rationalization is a defense mechanism (ego defense) in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. It is an attempt to find reasons for behaviors, especially one's own. Rationalizations are used to defend against feelings of guilt, maintain self-respect, and protect oneself from criticism. Rationalization happens in two steps: # A decision, action, judgement is made for a given reason, or no (known) reason at all. # A rationalization is performed, constructing a seemingly good or logical reason, as an attempt to justify the act after the fact (for oneself or others). Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognition
Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, imagination, intelligence, the formation of knowledge, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and computation, problem-solving and decision-making, comprehension and production of language. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge to discover new knowledge. Cognitive processes are analyzed from very different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, musicology, anesthesia, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, education, philosophy, anthropology, biology, systemics, logic, and computer science. These and other approaches to the analysis of cognition (such as embodied cognition) are synthesized in the developing field of cognitive science, a progressively autonomou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-concept
In the psychology of self, one's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question ''"Who am I?".'' The self-concept is distinguishable from self-awareness, which is the extent to which self-knowledge (psychology), self-knowledge is defined, consistent, and currently applicable to one's Attitude (psychology), attitudes and dispositions. Self-concept also differs from self-esteem: self-concept is a cognitive or descriptive component of one's self (e.g. "I am a fast runner"), while self-esteem is evaluative and opinionated (e.g. "I feel good about being a fast runner"). Self-concept is made up of one's self-schemas, and interacts with self-esteem, self-knowledge, and the social self to form the self as a whole. It includes the past, present, and future selves, where future selves (or possible selves) represent individuals' ideas of w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trivialising
Minimisation or minimization is an action where an individual intentionally downplays a situation or a thing. Minimisation, or downplaying the significance of an event or emotion, is a common strategy in dealing with feelings of guilt. Understatements Understatement is a form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. A related term is euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression. Self-esteem/depression Redefining events to downplay their significance can be an effective way of preserving one's self-esteem. One of the problems of depression (found in those with clinical, bipolar, and chronic depressive mood disorders, as well as cyclothymia) is the tendency to do the reverse: minimising the positive, discounting praise, and dismissing one's own accomplishments. On the other hand, one technique used by Alfred Adler to combat neurosis was to minimise the excessive significance the neurot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denial
Denial, in colloquial English usage, has at least three meanings: * the assertion that any particular statement or allegation, whose truth is uncertain, is not true; * the refusal of a request; and * the assertion that a true statement is false. In psychology, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. In psychoanalytic theory, denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The concept of denial is important in twelve-step programs, where the abandonment or reversal of denial that substance dependence is problematic forms the basis of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth, and tenth steps. People who are exhibiting symptoms of a serious medical condition sometimes deny or ignore those symptoms because the idea of having a serious health problem is uncomfortable or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Making Excuses
Rationalization is a defense mechanism (ego defense) in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. It is an attempt to find reasons for behaviors, especially one's own. Rationalizations are used to defend against feelings of guilt, maintain self-respect, and protect oneself from criticism. Rationalization happens in two steps: # A decision, action, judgement is made for a given reason, or no (known) reason at all. # A rationalization is performed, constructing a seemingly good or logical reason, as an attempt to justify the act after the fact (for oneself or others). Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rationali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-control
Self-control is an aspect of inhibitory control, one of the core executive functions. Executive functions are cognitive processes that are necessary for regulating one's behavior in order to achieve specific goals. Defined more independently, self-control is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. Thought to be like a muscle, acts of self-control expend a limited resource. In the short term, overuse of self-control leads to the depletion of that resource. However, in the long term, the use of self-control can strengthen and improve the ability to control oneself over time. Self-control is also a key concept in the general theory of crime, a major theory in criminology. The theory was developed by Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi in their book ''A General Theory of Crime'' (1990). Gottfredson and Hirschi define self-control as the differentiating tendency of individuals to avoid criminal acts indep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Pressure
Peer pressure is a direct or indirect influence on peers, i.e., members of social groups with similar interests and experiences, or social statuses. Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person's beliefs, values, religion and behavior. A group or individual may be encouraged and want to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. For the individual affected by peer pressure, this can have both a positive or negative effect on them. Social groups include both ''membership groups'' in which individuals hold "formal" membership (e.g. political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ..., trade unions, schools) and cliques in which membership is less clearly defined. Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
