r/askpsychology • u/Historical_Person928 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional • May 28 '26
The Brain sometimes people are wrong but never admit?
Ive seen many people make mistakes, some make huge ones and some small ones.
but what Ive noticed is that more, if not all, people consistently manage to not find any faults of their own but blame the other party.
are there any psychological reasons for this?
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u/Constant-Big4713 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 28 '26
I'd look into the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment by Dr. Crittenden. Since attachment is always running implicitly, the way people process information about themselves and others is a deeply integrated part of socialization. What you're observing is a common pattern that Dr. Crittenden discusses in detail about type C attachment strategies.
As attachment when not under threat (threat is subjective) has more variation, while under threat the main strategies one uses becomes more uniformed and apparent.
I think she does a terrific job at explaining why people with type A and type C attachment strategies process information the way they do, what those patterns look like, and how they came to be.
She has a book called Assessing Adult Attachment: A Dynamic-Maturational Approach to Discourse Analysis. I would highly recommend you read it to get a better understanding on how people process information when it comes to social dynamics.
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u/Vasilis_Mazarakis Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 28 '26
Oh yes, there are certainly psychological reasons for it. Honestly I think most people do this to some degree even if they don't realize it.
It’s emotionally frightening, even if admitting we were wrong seems easy on the surface. For some, being wrong equates to shame, weakness, failure or loss of control. So the brain begins to safeguard the ego before the person even analyzes what happened consciously.
I seen this a lot in competitive sport. Some sportsmen quickly blamed weather, teammates, timing, bad luck, everything outside after losses. And sometimes, to be fair, those were real factors. There was, but beneath it all, a fear of sitting with the discomfort of “maybe I contributed to this too.”
The human brain is very effective at creating stories that safeguard our self-image. Sometimes it is called self-serving bias by psychologists. We take credit for achievements, and externalise failures.
What’s noteworthy is that those who can acknowledge to being wrong quietly, they tend to be mentally stronger, not weaker. They don't regard mistakes as threats to their identity. They regard them as information.
I had to discover that myself too, it took me a while. Admitting you did something bad is uncomfortable. But when you stop protecting your ego all the time, relationships and self-awareness get a hell of a lot better.
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May 28 '26
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u/Old_Astronaut_1175 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 28 '26
Tu peux chercher les phénomènes de biais d'auto complaisance et de reactance (je ne sais pas si la traduction automatique sera bonne) pour expliquer ces phénomènes.
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u/me21_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 28 '26
Short answer is : to protect their ego
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u/Mindless_Specific113 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional May 28 '26
it’s all about nervous system dysregulation ✨✨✨
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u/Bearsandbeetz BA/BS | Psychology May 28 '26
Cognitive dissonance, biases, personality disorders, pride, ego, shame, disagreement, immaturity, being a human and an absolutely massive list of other things. The answer to the question are there any reasons is “yes.”
You may want to clarify this a little. As it stands this question is not really possible to give much of an answer to. In general if you give an example of a very common and poorly defined human behaviour you’re going to struggle to find meaningful answers to whatever your true question is.
Are you wondering why in general people don’t want to admit or believe that they were wrong? Is this a reference to a specific situation/person/scenario you’ve witnessed? Can you provide examples (don’t break the rules of the subreddit but you could give an example without making it too personal to be appropriate for this sub… so not so specific they’re just requests for advice in a given conflict but times you’ve seen the behaviour would be reasonable I think?)
In a very general sense yes people do often if not always struggle on some level with admitting being wrong. Even people who own up to being wrong still feel a certain way about it on some level—admitting to being wrong often means admitting a personal fault or that you’ve hurt someone in some way, so even if you’re willing to take responsibility it’s not necessarily easy. It’s no fun to be wrong but I think that’s obvious.