The Benefits of Being Wrong

You’re bound to hear it eventually. You’ll ask about a situation or an issue that someone is having and the words you’ll hear back are “It’s complicated.” On a cognitive level, I feel like most of us understand this concept. Sure, most things are not simple and have a degree of complexity to them. But then why does it seem that so often we will ignore or dismiss an uncomfortable truth that we discover that challenges what we believe and then dig our heels in deeper to our original belief or perspective? Well, here’s why: Cognitive Dissonance.

As defined by the American Psychological Association, cognitive dissonance is: “an unpleasant psychological state resulting from inconsistency between two or more elements in a cognitive system.” Basically, when we are dealing with two beliefs or concepts that are in conflict, we feel uncomfortable. We may feel anxious, defensive, denial, anger, confusion, sadness or a whole bunch of other emotions. At an extreme level, an example of this is when someone has joined a cult that is objectively harmful for them from an outside perspective, but it takes them years to leave and they keep doubling down their commitment to it. Cognitive dissonance is a huge part of this process because admitting you are wrong requires you to reckon with a colossal amount of discomfort. In general, it just feels really shitty to be wrong and most of the time we humans take many steps to try to avoid feeling shitty. 

Making the Harder Choice

While it is immensely uncomfortable to realize the way we viewed a situation was wrong and then reckon with all the actions we took, the time we lost, the consequences we have to deal with now, it is how we truly grow. Once we can learn how to deal with these feelings that come up, we can more quickly make changes and navigate to healthier places in our lives. It’s worth thinking about the idea of maybe there are better ways of living than being definitively right all the time. In time, it is possible to even take joy in being wrong as you can start to then continue to grow. 

For more tips on how to work through the feelings involved with this, check out my other blog post on How to Deal with Uncomfortable Feelings. 

References: 

1. American Psychological Association. Cognitive dissonance.