True
Stories of False Memories
By Carol Tavris and
Elliot Aronson
authors of
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by
Me)
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Sources
by Amanda Bach
False
memories allow us to forgive ourselves and justify our mistakes, but
sometimes at a high price: an inability to take
responsibility for our
lives. An appreciation of the distortions of memory, a realization that even
deeply felt memories might be wrong, might encourage people to hold their
memories more lightly, to drop the certainty that their memories are always
accurate, and to let go of the appealing impulse to use the past to justify
problems of the present. If we are to be careful about what we wish for
because it might come true, we must also be careful which memories we select
to justify our lives, because then we will have to live by them.
Certainly one of the most powerful stories that many people wish to live by
is the victim narrative. Nobody has actually been abducted by aliens (though
experiencers will argue fiercely with us), but millions have survived
cruelties as children: neglect, sexual abuse, parental alcoholism, violence,
abandonment, the horrors of war. Many people have come forward to tell their
stories: how they coped, how they endured, what they learned, how they moved
on. Stories of trauma and transcendence are inspiring examples of an
resilience.
It is
precisely because these accounts are so emotionally powerful that thousands
of people have been drawn to construct "me, too" versions of them. A few
have claimed to be Holocaust survivors; thousands have claimed to be
survivors of alien abduction; and tens of thousands have claimed to be
survivors of incest and other sexual traumas that allegedly were repressed
from memory until they entered therapy in adulthood. Why would people claim
to remember that they had suffered harrowing experiences if they hadn't,
especially when that belief causes rifts with families or friends? By
distorting their memories, these people can "get what they want by revising
what they had," and what they want is to turn their present lives, no matter
how bleak or mundane, into a dazzling victory over adversity. Memories of
abuse also help them resolve the dissonance between "I am a smart, capable
person" and "My life sure is a mess right now" with an explanation that
makes them feel good and removes responsibility: "It's not my fault my life
is a mess. Look at the horrible things they did to me." Ellen Bass and Laura
Davis made this reasoning explicit in
The Courage to Heal. They tell readers who have no memory of
childhood sexual abuse that "when you first remember your abuse or
acknowledge its effects, you may feel tremendous relief. Finally there is a
reason for your problems. There is someone, and something, to blame."
It is
no wonder, then, that most of the people who have created false memories of
early suffering, like those who believe they were abducted by aliens, go to
great lengths to justify and preserve their new explanations. Consider the
story of a young woman named Holly Ramona, who, after a year in college,
went into therapy for treatment of depression and bulimia. The therapist
told her that these common problems were usually symptoms of child sexual
abuse, which Holly denied had ever happened to her. Yet over time, at the
urging of the therapist and then at the hands of a psychiatrist who
administered sodium amytal (popularly and mistakenly called "truth serum"),
Holly came to remember that between the ages of five and sixteen she had
been repeatedly raped by her father, who even forced her to have sex with
the family dog. Holly's outraged father sued both therapists for
malpractice, for "implanting or reinforcing false memories that [he] had
molested her as a child." The jury agreed, exonerating the father and
finding the therapists guilty.
This
ruling put Holly in a state of dissonance that she could resolve in one of
two ways: She could accept the verdict, realize that her memories were
false, beg her father's forgiveness, and attempt to reconcile the family
that had been torn apart over her accusations. Or she could reject the
verdict as a travesty of justice, become more convinced than ever that her
father had abused her, and renew her commitment to recovered-memory therapy.
By far, the latter was the easier choice because of her need to justify the
harm she had caused father and the rest of her family. To change her mind
now would have been like turning a steamship around in a narrow river -- not
much room to maneuver and hazards in every direction; much easier to stay
the course. Indeed, Holly Ramona not only vehemently rejected the verdict;
she bolstered that decision by going to graduate school to become a
psychotherapist. The last we heard, she was encouraging some of her own
clients to recover memories of their childhood sexual abuse.
Yet
every once in a while someone steps forward to speak up for truth, even when
the truth gets in the way of a good, self-justifying story. It's not easy,
because it means taking a fresh, skeptical look at the comforting memory we
have lived by, scrutinizing it from every angle for its plausibility, and,
no matter how great the ensuing dissonance, letting go of it. For her entire
adult life, for example, writer Mary Karr had harbored the memory of how, as
an innocent teenager, she had been abandoned by her father. That memory
allowed her to feel like a heroic survivor of her father's neglect. But when
she sat down to write her memoirs, she faced the realization that the story
could not have been true.
Copyright © 2007 by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson from
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me);
Published by Harcourt, Inc. May 2007; $25.00US; 978-0-15-101098-1
Book Description
Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of
public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital
quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in
ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell?
Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a
compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we
make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings
of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility,
restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often
keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.
Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose,
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of
self-deception—how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome
it.
Review
Warren Bennis:
"This book casts a bright and penetrating
light on how and why nation-states, organizations, and individuals get
into malignant messes. But it also shows how they (NOT us) cluelessly
keep repeating these offensive, sometimes criminal acts. Tavris and
Aronson don't let any of us off the hook but they do teach us how to
avoid hanging ourselves on that hook again and again. One of the most
needed and important books for our time."
David Callahan:
"To err is human, to rationalize even more
so. Now, thanks to this brilliant book, we can finally see how and why
even the best meaning people may justify terrible behavior. Mistakes
Were Made will not turn us into angels, but it is hard to think of a
better -- or more readable -- guide to the mind's most devilish tricks."
Michael Shermer:
"Please, somebody, get a
copy of this book to the President and his cabinet right away. Read it
aloud into the Congressional Record. If this book doesn't change the way
Daniel Gilbert:
"This book is charming and delightful. But
mainly, it's just damn smart. Armed with reams of scientific data and
loads of real-world anecdotes, Tavris and Aronson explain how
politicians, pundits, doctors, lawyers, psychotherapists--and oh yes,
the rest of us--come to believe that we are right and reasonable... and
why we maintain that dangerous self-deception in the face of glaring
evidence to the contrary. Every page sparkles with sharp insight and
keen observation. Mistakes were made--but not in this book!"
David Myers:
"Tavris and Aronson-a dream team of two of
psychology's greatest communicators-investigate our self-serving
explanations and malleable memories, explaining how well-meaning people
stay the course when pursuing ill-fated ventures, then shuck
responsibility when failure arrives. This is a fascinating exploration
of our astonishing powers of self-justification."
Judith Rich Harris:
"This eye-opener of a book is essential
reading, not because we've all made mistakes - certainly not! - but
because we've all been victims of mistakes made by others. Why do these
people behave so badly? Tavris and Aronson's explanation is
illuminating, entertaining, based on solid science, and highly relevant
to our public and private lives."
Robert B. Cialdiani:
"Tavris and Aronson have combined their
formidable skills to produce a gleaming model of social insight and
scientific engagement. Make no mistake, you need to read this book."
Elizabeth Loftus:
"Combining far-ranging scholarship with
lucid, witty prose, Tavris and Aronson illuminate many of the mysteries
of human behavior -- why hypocrites never see their own hypocrisy, why
couples so often misremember their shared history, why many people
persist in courses of action that lead straight into quicksand. A
delight to read, with surprising revelations in every chapter."
Burt Nanus:
"A pathbreaking book that could change
forever how leaders think about the decisions they make . Crackles with
new insights and understanding. A must read!"
The General Psychologist:
"Written with the perfect combination of
science and snap, this is a book that will change the way you think
about self-deception--how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we
can overcome it."
Author
Carol Tavris is a social
psychologist, lecturer, and writer whose books include
Anger and
Mismeasure of Woman. She has
written on psychological topics for the
Los Angeles Times, the New
York Times, Scientific
American, and many other publications. She is a Fellow of the
American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological
Science, and a member of the editorial board of
Psychological Science in the Public
Interest. She lives in Los Angeles.
Elliot Aronson
is one of the most distinguished social psychologists in the world. His
books include The Social Animal
and The Jigsaw Classroom.
Chosen by his peers as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the
twentieth century, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and is the only psychologist to have won all three of the American
Psychological Association's top awards -- for writing, teaching, and
research. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Dr. Elliot Aronson is
currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Cruz.
He has long-standing research interests in social influence and attitude
change, cognitive dissonance, research methodology, and interpersonal
attraction. Professor Aronson's experiments are aimed both at testing theory
and at improving the human condition by influencing people to change
dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors.
Professor Aronson received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1954, his
M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D. in psychology from
Stanford University in 1959. He has taught at Harvard University, the
University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of
California. In 1999, he won the American Psychological Association's
Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, making him the only
psychologist to have won APA's highest awards in all three major academic
categories: distinguished writing (1973), distinguished teaching (1980), and
distinguished research (1999).
http://aronson.socialpsychology.org/
