Why do most people refuse to accept that they are wrong
I have come across a lot’s of people like these. like 99% of them. Sometimes it makes me think twice if what i am saying is wrong? What’s wrong with them. Is it so hard to swallow your pride and acknowledge that the other person is speaking facts? When they come to know they are wrong they proceed to insult/make fun of others to save their ass. Just why?
I have struggled against this for a long time. I tend to be a pretty prideful person and the urge to shift blame when I fuck up and deflect when faced with being wrong is something that has I have to actively work to correct. The difference for me came when I was younger in dealing with my parents: My dad was far from perfect and there were plenty of times he was in the wrong, but always made sure to sit down with me and apologize if he fucked up. My mom, for the most part, was better at avoiding being in the wrong in the first place, but when she was, I never once got her to apologize or admit her mistake. Of the two, I was hurt far more by the latter, and make it a point to be willing to admit my shortcomings.
The most difficult part after I identified it as an issue is to not let my willingness to apologize/admit my mistake become a carte blanche for continuing the behavior. If I fuck up, apologizing only means something if I work on the mistake. If I am wrong about somethimg, I should learn about both the thing and where my misconceptions came from.
For a lot of people, realizing it is an issue is difficult, because you first have to let go of the pride by acknowledging it. Shame isn't a good motivator, as it makes most people double down on pride.
Out of curiosity, are you conscious of denying your mistake initially, or is it just an impulsive response? After denying it, do you immediately realize you’re lying and just stick with it? No judgment, I’m just asking because someone I care about often does this and I’m just trying to understand it.
Sometimes, mainly when it is stuff that isn't rooted in true or false. If I am factually wrong, it isn't usually concious and I tend realize my mistake after the fact. If I am in the wrong in an emotional/moral way, I tend to realize my mistake while I am still emotionally charged, so I am not always ready to acknowledge it or effectively communicate my apology, though I still try to either admit fault or tell the other person I'd like to discuss it after I have calmed down.
Either way, I usually allow some amount of time for self reflection, which I think is better for me. It allows me to formulate my reasoning for apologizing/admitting my mistake, calm down, and let go of the ego. I have found that even if there is a long pause, the other person almost always will take the follow up discussion with kindness and respect, and appreciates the emotional/intellectual honesty and vulnerability. Nobody has ever rubbed it in my face. Which helps encourage the practice going forward.
It also, in general, facilitates better real-time admission of incorrectness to practice in this way.
Ego has been mentioned. Sunk cost fallacy plays a part. Combine those and people tend to over value the effort they've made to form their opinion, either through some form of information consumption or synthesis of known ideas/held opinions, while devaluing/doubting the existence other people's previous efforts. So, you often end up with two people who both think they're informed and assume the other person is just making up an opinion right now and failing to see their valuable insight.
Cognitive dissonance. People see themselves as rational and intelligent and anything that counters that is very difficult to accept, so they double down.
Because people tie their egos to their opinions and beliefs. They see an attack on those as an attack on their person.
We are all like this to certain extents. For example, I am a firm believer of the right of the individual to make their own choices, and believe that attempts to remove a person's right to make choices morally abhorrent.
It’s a basic psychological need to be able to trust that your brain can be right. A lot of psychological problems can result if you don’t trust your own brain to be able to solve problems and cope with new information.
Some people don’t learn the value of accepting mistakes/failure as part of learning. As a result, they will associate being wrong with weakening the trust they have in their brain. They don’t want to believe that their brain may not come up with answers for the problems and changes they face in life. So they will deny that their brain is incorrect.
It’s an ugly insecurity, but it’s totally understandable from an evolutionary perspective. We need to be able to trust our brains to navigate life’s challenges. People need to be taught that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that admitting when you are wrong is an opportunity for personal growth.
Can you elaborate on what you mean psych problems when you don't trust your brain?
I have memory issues and so when I'm doing something more complex than muscle memory I write it down. So I don't trust myself on specific memory tasks, like phone numbers.
I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t explain the exact theory, but basically my understanding is that self-confidence and self-esteem are linked to the concept of self-efficacy, which means the trust that your mind will be able to cope with the challenges presented to it. Low self-esteem and self-confidence are linked to all kinds of insecurities and challenges functioning.
Disclaimer: I recently began working on my own low self-confidence with my therapist and she pointed me to a book, the contents of which I’m mostly regurgitating here. The book is “The Six Pillars of Self-esteem” by Nathaniel Branden.
Online it can become a competitive thing. They still want to “win” the argument even if the light comes on and they realize they have incorrect or incomplete information and the other side has made better arguments with better evidence. I suspect most people fall into this trap at some point in online forums. I definitely have. Guilty as charged.
And not to excuse this behavior, but part of it comes from poor sportsmanship and lack of grace from damned near everyone vis a vis Twitter/X/Facebook/reddit. People who “win” a competition like this are quick to gloat on how they “owned” the other person. Worse than this, trying to be reasonable and open-minded in these spaces often comes across as weakness.
There is a small movement of folks who call for radical empathy. This is where you do your level best to make a good faith effort to fully understand and see the merits of the other side’s arguments even if you don’t agree. That way lies learning and growth.
I don’t see admitting that I’m wrong as a weakness, and I’m not afraid to be the first to make a “concession”. I had a very few arguments on reddit turn into something positive (to the surprise of both parties) because I admitted I had made an incorrect assumption, my reasoning was flawed, or whatever. That made it “okay” for the other individual to admit they had made a mistake, too. Importantly, I didn’t use that as an opportunity to judge, criticize, or attack them. From there, we had a real conversation. It didn’t happen often, but it was great when it did!
Of course, most of the time people made cheap insults or just ignored me, but I was okay with that, too. Sure, it was disappointing, but the whole conversation was right there for anyone who wanted to read it. At least I wasn’t the one who looked like a petty asshole.
I’ve often had the same question as OP. I’ve read and understood the replies in this thread, and some of them are very good. I understand the points being made, but I still don’t get it, ya know? Everybody is wrong sometimes. There’s absolutely no shame in it, and it’s completely unrealistic to pretend that you never are. Plus, by keeping an open mind, being wrong is a fantastic way to learn!
I agree with you that it shouldn’t come across as weakness, and to a mature person it is sign of strength. I should have phrased it better, but my intention was to say that in these online forums many of the ‘spectators’ (who up and down vote, and/or pile on) seem to read nuanced arguments and open-minded thinking as being “weak”.
In other words, there’s often too many points scored for having an aggressive style, nasty sarcasm, insults, etc.
It’s frustrating, because the people who normally call this out are the people who are most likely to be the ones doing it.
They see people around them fail to think critically, they criticize them for that, and then turn around and never question their own opinions. Because “obviously I am right”.
Not accusing you of it, but I’m sure a lot of people reading this fall into that category. Maybe we all do.
You are right i always try to think in all ways but maybe i am biased? It’s just that during my school life i was never bullied but rather it was my classmates badmouthing my family, me, shaming my body, or insulting me so that the entire class would know etc. The attitude of people just randomly changes if you open up too much to them or be too friendly they don’t respect your boundaries. I just don’t know anymore i talk to people but i never try to get too close to them. I feel like i have changed in just these recent 6 months
You might have something there. I know it works the other way. I was going to post that most of the people I know just come out and say when they know they’ve been wrong. It stops it being a big thing. Admitting you’re wrong or you made a mistake takes all the embarrassment out of it because you now own the situation.
In my experience, with most people, his typically goes away as they get older. You eventually hit a point where people’s impressions of you dont matter anymore and it becomes much easier to freely admit you’re wrong.
Of course, there are people that never grow out of it, and that is often read as confidence. There is a reason that “fake it until you make it” works.
I am 18 currently and I have pretty much stopped caring about what others think of me. It just feels as if wasting any more energy speaking to them would be useless. But when I don’t defend myself people start verbally abusing me etc. I just don’t know what to do in situations like these
When I was 18, I started hangin out with a different crowd. ADULTS (of any age). If I was wrong, they’d explain why nicely. And vice versa. Learned a lot.
Sometimes an idea is so engraved in their heads that they cannot believe otherwise. Also, some people don’t like to fact-check. They may hear a “fact” which is popular but is totally false, and they will never change their minds about it.
I encounter that all the time especially on public forums like this. This is a quote from an article I found about it online: According to psychologist, speaker and author Guy Winch, most people who consistently refuse to admit they're wrong do so because they have incredibly fragile egos. They clam up and insist they're right, demonstrating what experts term "psychological rigidity", as a defense mechanism.
Also I think that telling someone they are wrong comes across as a criticism about their intellect and they respond defensively by instinct. And, another reason is because people don't want to believe anything that contradicts their preferred view of the world. So if you "correct" someone they tend to act like you're attacking them or as too stupid to know what "truth" is.
It's really a telling distinction because today, most people behave in this defensive way. You don't see many people willing to concede or say, "wow that's a different point of view than I have considered, maybe it requires me to spend some thought on why I feel the way I do." Which is the real value of differing opinions; they help us re-assess and redefine the reasons why we feel the way we do.
It cant help that especially online it seems incredibly rare for someone to point out that you are wrong politely, gently and informatively. Who wants to admit they are wrong to someone who informs you via “OMG you dumb fuck…”
That's also true. How can you not be defensive when someone's reply starts with, "listen here you stupid dumbfuck....." Of course that kind of name calling is going to result in a verbal fight. I don't know why we can't just say, "OK I disagree but here's why, and I hope you'll appreciate my feedback." Do we have to resort to calling each other juvenile names? A person isn't stupid just because they have a controversial point of view.
I suppose the positions you are describing are not reached by reasoning, rather by being part of a group, religion or ideology. In those cases it’s quite clear that they can’t give up the position unless they weaken their ties to that group/religion/ideology, or abandon it entirely.
Some times in their life people are open to big changes, but most of the time not.
Yup, and when most people are a certain way, odds are you are too. I try to keep an open mind as much as possible because it’s very hard to identify your own biases and it would be naive to believe that I am the exception to human nature.
i actually find it reasonably easy to identify my biases, it’s just basically impossible to directly act on that knowledge.
if i realize i’m actually probably in the wrong i tend to just sorta… slide into the shadows and disengage, which is at least better than continuing to insist that i’m correct and just digging in deeper… Then in the future the brain tends to have let go of it and people have forgot what was said previously and i can upgrade to a more correct take.
And this is the normal thing how it works Just not online because what’s said there doesn’t fade away. It just keeps up standing there regardless if the author since then changed their mind.
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