Self-justification, therefore, is not only about protecting high self-esteem; it's also about protecting low self-esteem if that is how a person sees himself.
Interpretation
Self-justification serves to protect one's self-esteem, whether high or low.
Elliot Aronson's quote illuminates the human tendency to engage in self-justification as a means of safeguarding one's self-image. This behavior is not solely reserved for those with high self-esteem; individuals with low self-esteem also seek to defend their self-perception, highlighting the complexities of human psychology and the need for individuals to reconcile their internal views with external realities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a psychology class to discuss defense mechanisms.
Part of my evolution has been to learn how painful most people's childhoods are. They grow up not liking themselves, not loving themselves. Ask people if they were lovable the minute they were born, and watch them sit back and have to think about it. One lady said, 'I suppose so.' That's painful.
We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but itβs dangerous. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying.
Though many schizophrenics become curiously attached to their delusions, the fading of the nondelusional world puts them in loneliness beyond all reckoning, a fixed residence on a noxious private planet they can never leave, and where they can receive no visitors.
The combination of rumination and negative mood is toxic. Research shows that people who ruminate while sad or distraught are likely to feel besieged, powerless, self-critical, pessimistic, and generally negatively biased.
I think the relationship between social-dominance orientation in people and the extent to which they're made uncomfortable by ambiguity and novelty is really important. Better a stable world that's familiar, in which I'm doing pretty poorly, than dealing with all the ambiguity of a changing world.
People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives.
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