Why Is It Hard to Admit When You Are Wrong? | Admitting You are Wrong : A How To Guide

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on how to admit when you are wrong. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Why is it so hard to admit when we are wrong? Well, admitting when we're wrong makes us feel vulnerable. It says I'm not perfect. Psychologists have found that we often attach our sense of self to an idea, so our values about what is right and wrong. If I do something bad, then I am bad. If I make a mistake, then I am stupid or what have you. So it's important to unhook from that and be more specific. If I do something bad, then I made a bad choice. Doesn't mean I am a bad person. Another reason it's so hard is because when we do something that goes against our concept of ourself as being kind or smart or whatever, it creates cognitive dissonance. So I believe I'm a smart person, but I was wrong. That doesn't jive. I can't be smart and be wrong at the same time. You could argue that point, but we'll use that for the example. Or Sam is dumb. I believe Sam is dumb and Sam is right. Ooh. I can't. In my mind, I can't make all that work. Where somebody I think is dumb is right about something that I'm wrong about. That doesn't work with me. So we've talked in other videos about assimilation and accommodation. When we get information that doesn't fit our expectations, our brain has to do some mental gymnastics. And when we're wrong, that situation is occurring. There are some mental gymnastics that have to have to occur because it just. What happened does not compute. Other examples. I'm a nice person, but I was rude. How can I be a nice person and be rude and think about it? I mean, most nice people that we know occasionally do something that comes off as rude. You know, you don't. You fail to hold the door for somebody or something. Sam is unpleasant, but he was nice today. That doesn't jibe. So this must be an anomaly. This is cognitive dissonance. When something happens that we don't believe to be true, we may hold on to our truth very doggedly and refuse to admit that. You know what? Maybe Sam's actually not that unpleasant. Maybe the last three times I interacted with him, he just was having a bad day. Or maybe I brought it out in him. Who knows? I'm intuitive, you know, I am really good at understanding what's going on. Oh, but I didn't see that coming. It's hard to Admit when something catches us off guard. I really want this to be true. But it's not so. And some people will go to great lengths if there's something that they really passionately want to be true and it's not. They may try to find every scrap of evidence to support their theory and try to magnify that as much as possible because it's something that they really they have an emotional connection to and they don't want to be sad. Attribution reframing is something that we can do that can make it easier to admit when we're wrong. A lot of times when people have difficulty admitting when they're wrong, their attributions are global, stable and internal. So what I'm. I'm wrong. So that mean must mean I'm wrong about everything. Stable, I'm wrong about everything all the time. And internal it has to do with me. I'm a dumb person or I'm not able to make good decisions. And some people were told that when they were younger, some people received a lot of criticism and that is the self talk that they internalized. What can help is if we evaluate the facts in the situation, unhook from it, put it out here, and instead of being global, I do this all the time. I'm rude all the time. Recognize it's a specific incident. I was rude to somebody today. It's changeable. I don't have to be rude to people. Again, I could be more mindful of what's going on around me and it's external. Just because I did something that was rude doesn't mean I'm a rude person. And reframing that can help us feel less attached and attacked when when we admit that we are wrong. People who have difficulty admitting when they're wrong often use cognitive distortions. The first one, and maybe the worst one is mind reading. If I admit I'm wrong, then this person is going to think fill in the blank. So think about times when you have refused to admit you were wrong. What were you assuming the other person would think if you admitted your mistake? And this is especially true if you refuse to admit you're wrong. You know you're wrong, but you refuse to admit it. You're like no, not going to go there. So what are your assumptions? What are you assuming is going to happen if you admit you're wrong? Another cognitive distortion is called catastrophizing. If I admit I made a mistake, I will get fired or severely punished, for example. And it's important to examine this From a fact based point of view, whatever the mistake was, what are the facts about what is probable to happen? I've worked in behavioral health, community mental health centers for a long time. We have things called sentinel events. And that's when a big mistake is made. You know, somebody's given the wrong medication or something happens that is a big, big deal. But the accrediting agencies and the powers that be recognized that if people were afraid to admit they were wrong, then we couldn't learn from the mistakes to prevent them from happening again. So a lot of agencies have what I call a no fault policy. You know, when something happens, you need to report that it happens so we can fix it and look at the procedure to keep it from happening again. And if it wasn't a willful thing, then most of the time you won't get in trouble. And I say most of the time because I can't speak for every agency. But that was the case at the agencies that I worked at. And it was made it a lot easier for me to admit when I was wrong. And I had a great boss too. And I remember many times, many times over the course of 14 years walking into his office and going, richard, I screwed up. And he wouldn't get upset, he wouldn't get flustered, he'd just kind of shake his head and go, okay, how are you gonna fix it? There was no yelling, there was no screaming, there was no, well, how can you be a supervisor if you did this? He's just like, okay, how are you gonna fix it? And sometimes I know that he actually knew ahead of time because I would go in there and I'd say, richard, I screwed up. And he'd go, yeah, I know, so what are you going to do about it? So he wasn't coming to me, he wasn't berating me. He was giving me the opportunity to have the courage to come to him and go, I made a mistake. And that was really important for developing trust among our team. So for catastrophizing. Yes. When you make a mistake at work or whatever, could you get fired? Possibly. What are the facts in the situation and what are the probable consequences of what's going to happen? All or none. Thinking is the third and last one we're going to talk about in terms of cognitive distortions. For this, people who have difficulty admitting they're wrong often think in all or none terms. I'm either right or I'm wrong. There's no in between. There's no maybe I'm partially right or maybe we both can be right. It's all or none. Thoughts that go along with this include I know I'm right and I will not consider others may also be right. No, not even going to consider that option. So I would ask you to consider how could you both be right? How could your opinion be correct and their opinion be correct? As my son would say, from a certain point of view. And what does it mean to you if they are right? Some people have difficulty allowing others to be right because then they feel vulnerable. They feel like people know things that they don't, which makes them less powerful or vulnerable. Negative self talk also triggers the fight or flight response which makes people double down on proving that they are right just to save face, to save their power. When we admit that we are wrong, then sometimes we may be admitting that we failed at something. I made a mistake, I failed to do something right, I failed to know or provide correct information. Therefore I'm worried that people will think that I'm stupid. So there it's I am again. So it's that internal we need to unhook from it. And people may think that you made a really unfortunate choice, but they will be looking at the choice, not the person. Some people fear that if they admit failure, they will be rejected or abandoned. They think things like, people will not like trust or respect me if I make mistakes, so I need to make sure that I look better than I really am. I'm going to put on this facade or people will ridicule me if I make a mistake. They will basically try to take me down a peg, so to speak. Or some people fear loss of control. People will think I'm not competent if I can't control what other people think about me. If I can't know that they're going to think I'm competent and worthy and all this stuff, then that's terrifying to me. This is especially true in people who have low self esteem and they require other people to to provide them validation. If they fear rejection, if they fear loss of the ability to control everybody around them, that's terrifying because that means those people may not provide them the validation that they need. Another common thought is if I apologize, I'm giving my power to that other person. And yeah, you kind of are. You're saying I'm not going to stand up here on my pedestal, I'm going to step down off of it and acknowledge that you were right or that I was wrong or both. So that is a changing the power dynamic where you acknowledge what's going on sometimes it isn't that it's difficult to admit you're wrong, but you refuse to admit somebody else is right. And I want you to think about times when you have had difficulty admitting you were wrong. You knew you were. You knew you were wrong, but gosh darn it, you were not going to let that other person have the win. You were not going to admit that they knew something you didn't or they did something better than you did. What feelings does it trigger in you when people say let's agree to disagree? That's one that kind of makes my skin crawl. Somebody in my past used to say that and they said it went in a very passive aggressive manner, very condescending manner. Okay, fine, let's just agree to disagree. The implied message was, I'm right, you're wrong, but I'm not going to argue about it with you. And that always triggered my fight or flight response. More likely the fight response because of the tone of condescension, not because they had a different opinion, but the tone of condescension. So for some people, it's hard to agree to disagree because they hear somebody in their past saying that in a condescending tone. But again, what does it mean to you if you respect someone? And that's part of assertiveness. Assertiveness means my values, opinions, thoughts, etc. Are valid. They just as valid as your thoughts, opinions, needs, wants, etc. Our stuff is equally valid. So why can't we agree to disagree? Why? If I have an opinion about something and you have an opinion about something, I acknowledge that yours is valid from your point of view, mine's valid from my point of view. And you know, we don't necessarily need to change one another's mind. Why do you think you need to be right, good or perfect? Why is it so hard to admit when you're wrong? Why is it so scary? Why do you need to be right all the time? And it's different for every person. So what to do? Well, think about how were mistakes handled when you were growing up? So let's first start with your mistakes. When you made a mistake as a child, how was it handled? Were you punished for making mistakes? Were you punished for doing things wrong? Did your parents treat it as an opportunity for growth? You know, you came to me, you told me your mistake, so let's figure out how to fix it. Or were you taught, never admit, just blame and reframe, Never admit mistakes. Lie, manipulate, do whatever you have to do. So what messages did you receive Growing up from your caregivers. And sometimes the caregiver, I mean, the caregivers are not going to say, you know, blame your sister for it. But the way your parents responded to you when you admitted mistakes shaped how you handle mistakes henceforth. So if they punished you severely or they told you how disappointed they were and continued to bring it up six months, a year later, the mistake that you made, well, then you might learn from that. Never admit mistakes because it's just going to keep coming back and biting you in the butt. However, if they acknowledged your mistakes like my, my old boss did and said, all right, you screwed up, you're human, what are you going to do to fix it? Then you may have a whole different outlook and approach at handling mistakes. Now let's talk about your parents mistakes because we learn based on our personal experiences, but we also learn by observation. So when your parents made mistakes, your caregivers made mistakes, how did they handle it? Did they lie about it? Did they blame and reframe in order to avoid having to admit their mistake? Or did they admit it and use it as an opportunity for growth? Or I guess the third option, did they admit it, say they were sorry for it, and then do it again 17 more times? You know, it's important to recognize that if we admit a mistake, we need to learn from it. When you were growing up, how were your differences of opinion handled? If you thought that it was appropriate to go to bed at 9 and your parents thought it was appropriate for you to go to bed at seven, you know, it was a difference of opinion and you made your case for why you should get to stay up till 9, how was that handled? If you had a difference of opinion from your parents, if you had a difference of opinion as you got older and when you're going through your teenage years and you're individuating, as Erickson would say, you will have differences of opinion from your parents about, you know, a whole host of things. And how, how is that handled if you have a difference of opinion? I'll use the example of my daughter went through a period where she wanted to try out different hairstyles and different hair colors. And did I like it? Not so much. However, it was important for her to be able to experience that. Would I dye my hair blue? No, but she wanted to do it, so, you know, she experienced that. So it's important to examine, you know, how did your parents react? How did your caregivers react if you admitted dissension, which in their opinion meant you were Admitting you were wrong. When you were growing up, did your family warn you to keep secrets even though you knew things were not right? For example, if your house had substance abuse in it? A lot of times there's a mantra. Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel in the addicted family, because the whole goal is to paint this facade of perfection. We can't admit anything's wrong. Everything's good here. Thank you very much. Same thing if there's domestic violence or maybe there was drug dealing or something else nefarious going on and you knew it was wrong and you were warned to keep it a secret. You felt it was wrong, but you couldn't tell anybody. You couldn't admit that something wrong was going on in your family. Think of a time when you were or might have been wrong. What are you afraid of if you admit you're wrong? You know, just think about it real quick. What's the first thing that pops into your head when you think about a time when you. You were wrong? And. And I ask you, what are you afraid of if you admit you're wrong? What's the first thing that pops into your head? Okay, that gives you an idea. What automatic beliefs do you have that tell you to fight instead of compromise or admit you're wrong? Write each of those beliefs down and then dispute them. So, for example, you may have this automatic belief, I'm not going to let them have the satisfaction of knowing they were right. Then you can dispute that. You know, what is the benefit to that? And why is it that I refuse to let to acknowledge their correctness? Apologizing is a sign of weakness, and I will not be weak. People who've experienced trauma, as well as people who have been told this in their family of origin, may have difficulty admitting weakness because they equate weakness with lack of control and being victimized. So some people may doggedly hold on to their beliefs because it helps them feel in control. Another thought could be, they will use it against me. And that without evidence, is mind reading. If you assume somebody's going to use it against you. Now, if you've got evidence that they're going to use it against you, that's a whole different ball game. But in general, when we admit our mistakes, people feel respected. They feel grateful, they that you were willing to acknowledge your mistake and had the courage to actually, you know, take that step, to admit it. Or you could be in a position where you're in power. You're the parent, you're the adult, you're the smart one of the group. Therefore, I cannot be wrong. Oh, gosh. Well, what. What does it mean if you're wrong? What does it mean if somebody else in the group who you don't think is as smart as you are or is right? What does it mean if you're a parent and you make a mistake and your kid calls you out on it? Been there, done that. What does it mean as a parent if you admit to your child, you know what, you're right, I, I screwed up. What does that mean to you? What does that feel like even thinking about saying that? Think of a time when you were right and somebody else was wrong. Now, this one's easy to think about because you like thinking about when you're right. What thoughts did you have about the person that was wrong? There are their beliefs, and then there's the person. You may have thought their beliefs were wrong and ill advised, to use a nice phrase. But what did you think about the person? Did you think that they were ill advised? How did you respond to them? They were wrong. So did you berate them? Did you use Socratic questioning to try to help them understand your point of view? Or what did you do? The way you respond to others when they're wrong is often how you expect them to respond in turn. So if when other people are wrong, you berate them and you think ill of them, then you probably assume they're going to do the same back to you. How do you want them to respond to you? So if somebody else is wrong, how do you want them to respond to you when you point out their. When you provide them constructive feedback? We'll call it that. You know, a lot of times we want people, we don't want people to get angry. We want people to hear it from the place of nurturance that it comes. How did the person respond to you? So remember, you were right, they were wrong. How did you handle it? And how did they respond to you? What did you learn about admitting mistakes from that interaction? Reimagine your relationship with being wrong. Being wrong adds knowledge. Scientists, doctors, you know, we see this all the time. I think it was Benjamin Franklin, but I could be wrong who said, every failure just teaches me one more way not to do something. So we can make mistakes. We can be wrong. Scientists may say, I think that XYZ causes cancer. Scientist does the experiment and finds out that they're wrong. The null hypothesis was proven correct. They were wrong. Okay, well, we know that this, in this condition, this doesn't cause cancer. I was Wrong. Now, does that mean the person is stupid? No. Does it mean that the premise was flawed? Possibly. But it doesn't mean that the, the scientist is a bad person or stupid. I remember the show House, that was on many, many years ago, and House was a very curious diagnostician, but he usually got the diagnosis wrong three or four times before he found the right, right diagnosis. But people, like, fawned all over him and said how brilliant he was. And you're thinking, you know what? But he made like four misdiagnoses first. It helps us understand that it's okay to be wrong, especially if we, if we learn from it. Making a mistake or being wrong is situation specific. Just because I make a mistake today doesn't mean I have to make it tomorrow. Just because I make a mistake today doesn't mean it doesn't change who I am as a person. It means I made a bad choice. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. How might it improve your relationships to admit mistakes? Remember I said a lot of times people feel respected and, and cared about when you admit your mistakes. When you admit you're wrong, they're like, thank you. Part of that is because you are again stepping down off that pedestal. So the power dynamic is a little bit more equal. But part of that also is because they may feel less of a need to try to fight against you, to try to defend against you, because you're not attacking them anymore. You're working with them. You're synergizing. How does doggedly holding on to something that is clearly wrong, you know, you even, you can see that it's wrong, but you're holding on to it. You're like, well, I, I already said this. Cat's already out of the bag. I can't go back now. How does that increase your stress. When we are wrong? It's an opportunity to learn and expand our field of view. What else might be causing cancer? Remember I said we determined XYZ doesn't cause it, so what else might be causing cancer? That encourages us to get curious. It encourages us to ask, what. What did I miss? If you did something and you were rude to somebody, what vulnerabilities did you have preceding the episode? Get curious. I'm not a rude person, so why did I respond that way? Open up your field of view. Look backwards. Linehan calls it backwards chaining. Actually, they call it backwards chaining and behavior analysis, too. But look back and see what vulnerabilities did you have leading up to that? Maybe you were your blood sugar was low. Maybe you didn't sleep well. Maybe you were too hyped up on caffeine. What things might have contributed to you acting in a way that's not consistent with your values? What vulnerabilities led to the mistake? Remember I said in hospitals, vulnerabilities in the process can lead to sentinel incidents? So what things led to this mistake? What processes might have led to this mistake? How can you do better so you don't make the mistake again? And if you're having a difference of opinion with people on something, even if it involves facts, is it possible that you both can be right? In what way can you both be right? Other steps get support. It's always helpful before, even before you admit a mistake, to call a friend and go, oh, I've got to go eat some crow right now. Swallow your pride. That's whatever you want to call it. But it can be helpful to get support ahead of time and support afterwards, especially if the person doesn't respond well. Unhook the mistake from your core self. I made a mistake or I'm wrong about this. It doesn't mean that I'm dumb as a person or I'm a bad person. It means in this particular instance, I was wrong. Remember, people's reactions to you are more about them than they're about you. If they reject you because you made a mistake, what does that say about them? What might be prompting that? Or if they won't accept your apology, what does that say about them? And I'll give you a hint, their fight or flight response so they don't feel safe for some reason. Learn from your mistakes. Repeat offenses are harder to forgive. We see this a lot, for example, in substance abuse counseling, where people relapse and they admit they were they made a mistake. They admit they were wrong in what they thought they could do or what they thought they could handle, and they learn from it. But if they keep making that same mistake and keep relapsing for that same reason, then eventually people will quit feeling like there's any authenticity to their admissions or apologies. When you're wrong, you often feel shame and guilt. Mindfully notice how it feels to admit mistakes instead of hiding them or keeping secrets. So if you know you're wrong, that can prompt feelings of shame and guilt. So now not only do you have to keep the secret because you know you're wrong, but you can't admit it, but you've also got to deal with the shame and guilt associated with being wrong. So how might it feel to admit you were wrong and be willing to learn from it. Admit you're human. Oh my gosh. It is not easy for anyone to admit they're wrong. Mistakes provide an opportunity for growth and learning. Admitting mistakes allows others the opportunity to help you learn. So that's another reframe that you can look at. If I admit a mistake like when I used to admit mistakes to Richard, he would say, okay, you know, you're a new supervisor or you're a new clinician. Let's figure out how to prevent this from happening in the future. And let me tell you from my years of experience what's worked for me. And in substance abuse recovery, we have a phrase, take what's useful and leave the rest. He didn't force me to adopt his opinions, but he provided information that I was able to use to figure out how to solve the problem and prevent it from happening in the future in a way that most nearly corresponded with my self concept. And admitting mistakes demonstrates respect to others. When you are willing to admit you are wrong and they are right, that is showing that you are respecting their cognitive boundaries. You're not going to go in there and try to change what they think because it doesn't jive with what you think. You are willing to respect their boundaries and even admit that you are wrong. This has been a brief video on admitting mistakes, but hopefully it gives you some things to think about. And now obviously admitting mistakes, again, as I said, is not easy, but really examine, really take some time to think about times when you've been wrong and what were you telling yourself? What did you feel in your gut would happen or what did you fear would happen if you admitted you were wrong? Thank you for watching.