Rationalizing Your Way to a Better Self-Image: Why Indiscretions Appear Youthful

[Elmore Furth]

Depressed people are more realistic. One theory of cognitive distortions is that they protect the psyche from negative thoughts that would be destructive. Depressed people are less affected by cognitive distortions of illusory superiority, the illusion of control and optimism bias. Studies have shown that depressed people appear to have a more realistic perception of their importance, reputation, locus of control, and abilities than those who are not depressed.

Depressive realism

Depressed people, in other words, are no fun to be around.

One school of thought is that productive people need their illusions to be maximally effective. Optimists also live longer than pessimists and they have healthier hearts. People with a positive outlook live, on average, 19% longer than those who are miserable.

Study: Optimists Live Longer

Optimists 'live longer'

And hypomanic people, people with flights of joyous energy, are more productive.

Hypomanic? Absolutely. But Oh So Productive!

In recent years psychologists have exposed the many ways that people subconsciously maintain and massage their moral self-image. They rate themselves as morally superior to the next person; overestimate the likelihood that they will act virtuously in the future; see their own good intentions as praiseworthy while dismissing others’ as inconsequential. And they soften their moral principles when doing a truly dirty job, like carrying out orders to exploit uninformed customers.

Now, scientists are beginning to learn how memory assists and even amplifies this righteous self-messaging. In piecing together a life story, the mind nudges moral lapses back in time and shunts good deeds forward, these new studies suggest — creating, in effect, a doctored autobiography. Recognizing this tendency in oneself, psychologists say, can both reduce the risk of lapsing into middle-aged sanctimony and increase moral vigilance for when it matters most: the present.

“We can’t make up the past, but the brain has difficulty placing events in time, and we’re able to shift elements around,” said Anne E. Wilson, a social psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. “The result is that we can create a personal history that, if not perfect, makes us feel we’re getting better and better.”


The researchers transcribed the recorded tales and created a database of 758 “moral memories” by singling out those that had clear moral content, whether positive or negative. . .After correcting for age at the time of memories (in other words, trying to take account of the lunacy of youth) the researchers identified a clear pattern: people dated their memories of moral failings about 10 years earlier, on average, than their memories of good


Why Indiscretions Appear Youthful

[RandomThoughts]

1. Or people learn from their mistakes, so moral failings are earlier then memories of good.

If you postulate that people learn from mistakes, then you could say most people would remember mistakes behind better actions.

Since when they think of something they define as 'good' they would also remember the 'lesson' behind it they learned from it. Although the opposite does not apply for most people.

So it makes sense that mistakes would be behind better actions.

[Elmore Furth]

2. Mistakes? Remember what Freud said