As the title says, how often do you admit you’re wrong? Is it different when it’s a factual dispute versus something more subjective?
I make an effort to concede early if I’m in error. I think because my mother almost never admits fault. She’ll fall back to “that’s not what I meant” or similar deflections first, and that’s really annoying.
The last big factual error I made was about the distance of walking, and that’s where I learned about Taxicab Geometry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry ).
I think some people believe admitting fault is a sign of weakness, but I find it’s more of a power move. It takes strength to do it, and people can tell when you’re sweating and desperate. Usually it leads to resolving the conflict faster and cheaper, too.
(I expect some people will feel the urge to reply they’re never wrong. I’ll file that under never admits fault.)
I think that it’s natural for people to think they admit when they’re wrong, but it’s also natural to not admit it. As humans we don’t make decisions based on logic, we do it based on emotions. We then instead explain our decisions with logic. I think the usual way people’s minds change is that they’ll effectively be convinced of something but won’t really admit or accept it (or even be consciously aware of it), but then the next time the topic comes up they’ll have the new opinion.
I read an article once about how people change their minds. It cited a long term study that found people who changed their stance on big issues (eg: abortion) often didn’t remember they had ever held the opposite opinion. Not only do people not like to admit changing their minds, sometimes they can’t even consciously realize.
You may like this VSauce video about this topic called The Future of Reasoning. I spent a lot of time in 2020 and 2021 arguing with people online about covid and election fraud. I was under the impression that if someone just calmly, gently, respectfully laid out why they were wrong they’d accept it. I mean, for goodness’s sake, one of the claims I responded to was someone saying something about X number of people voted in some county but there aren’t that many people registered there. I told them it’s easy to debunk and that I just searched Google for the county’s official website and voter registration numbers and, as expected, they were different and higher than the number of people who voted. You wanna know what their response was? “Google is biased.” Even though the information wasn’t from Google, that’s just how I found the site. (And I probably even used duckduckgo but didn’t want to explain that lmao, point still stands.)
This video came to me after I’d already made the conscious decision to just stop doing it for my own mental health. It was really impactful.
Perhaps the most ironic (or unironic) thing is that had I seen this before I had that experience, I may have disagreed with the video.
This is something I need to work on, and its more apparent to me after having a conversation with my mother recently.
She said something quite unpleasant to my bf, and when I said how hurtful it was to both of us I was met with her denial, her refusal to see how hurtful it was and it was my fault for being upset, and also that I should just move on and forget about it
If she’d said that it came out wrong, or was sorry to have said something that had landed in a hurtful way etc that’s all I/we would have needed
Unfortunately i can see this attitude in myself, in the fact I find it near impossible to apologise for anything
I think my mother has a lot of her own issues around this, and I have my own ‘version’ because of my issues (my autism, and the fact that she’s my mum)
So I’m now going to do my best to rethink my behaviour and do some self reflection…
I really don’t want to be like my mother at all
I really don’t want to be like my mother at all
I think this is a big motivator for me. I’ve seen how aggravating it is when someone refuses to admit fault, continuously reaches for excuses and justifications and lies, rather than just shrug and say “Oh. Seems like you were right.” Hell, you don’t even have to explicitly say “I was wrong” most of the time.
Never (I rarely speak)
All the fucking time. “I don’t know” are the three most-important words. It’s pretty much the key to everything, you can’t improve without it.
There have definitely been times in my life I refused to admit it. It’s more common if people arguing against me are inflammatory: “LOL, you absolute moron! Take a look at this: (well-researched study)”
I think most recent was doubt towards the accusation Chet Faliszek opposed SKG. I still think it’s not quite as clear cut as being an industry shill, but the guy clearly expects more good faith from major publishers than the rest of us do (having worked for the best one).
It’s more common if people arguing against me are inflammatory: “LOL, you absolute moron! Take a look at this: (well-researched study)”
I try to remember that “The worst person you know just made an excellent point” onion post for times like that.
All the time. I am a mistake machine.
On the Internet? Almost never, I like arguing.
With people I actually know? All the time.
Pretty much daily. I will do it every time I know im wrong. Sometimes I’ll be wrong and not realise it and look like a tube later, but thats life.
The only time I wont willingly admit it is if the other guy is a prick and it won’t do to give them an inch.
The only time I wont willingly admit it is if the other guy is a prick and it won’t do to give them an inch.
At the risk of being seen as a prick myself, I feel like I hear the siren song of that behavior, but man is it unhealthy.
I usually admit right away because the more you deny it the bigger the lie and the problem become
Whenever I’m wrong. I’m more interested in the truth than my feelings.
We’ll find out if I am ever wrong. 😤
I tell people I hate being wrong, so the sooner I am corrected or can correct myself the better.
And the answer is… whenever I’m wrong. I am fairly diligent about thinking through what I say and do, but everybody makes mistakes or lacks knowledge, so I am quick to admit being wrong when I am.
Also, counterintuitively, quickly and casually admitting to being wrong often serves to make people forget you were wrong in the first place. My wife and I have had conversations where she admits being wrong (after entirely too much argument), and comments about how I’m never wrong. And I tell her I’m wrong all the time, I just admit it quickly instead of making a big deal about it, so it’s not very memorable. (As we’ve gotten older, those conversations have become more rare, but she still had me 3D print a medal and trophy wall mount, where she gets a “You Were Right” medal or a trophy each time she’s right… like when she convinced me to take my vomiting dog to the vet at night on a weekend and saved his life, and ended up with a dachshund trophy for her wall)
I love the fact that you have a 3d printed dachshund trophy for your wife’s trophy wall
often. usually, when it’s something I misjudged. there’s no shame in it - I had x information, I thought it would be a good idea to do y. I forgot to consider z. can’t win 'em all. or yep I screwed I up I did these calculations / tasks wrong because I was rushing.
it’s harder when it’s an “oh shit yeah I was out of line” thing, but I do it whenever I can because I genuinely want to know if I acted appropriately or not
I will always own up to being wrong if I agree that I was wrong. I will be an absolute pain in your ass if I think I’m being blamed for something that’s unfair/untrue.
All the time. People tend not to take it well but that seems their problem.
Also it’s one of the things destroying politics.
Also it’s one of the things destroying politics.
That’s often the previous stop on this train of thought. There are maga people that in their secret heart know they’ve made a mistake, but they struggle to come to terms with that. Though that also carries the fear of losing all their social bonds and being rejected by the group.
Exactly, it’s two sided trained behavior. On one side, no guilt is admitted leading to all downsides of never learning and on the other side there’s a ruthless expectation. It can never work.
It doesn’t help that any time a politician changes their opinion on something, the other side jumps on them for it and accuses them of flip-flopping. In reality, changing a view when presented with a compelling argument or new information is a good thing but they use it as ammunition to attack each other, so of course everyone just sticks to their guns no matter what…
Daily.
Whenever’s there’s a disagreement I’ll at least entertain that I might be wrong.
Being wrong and not knowing it feels exactly like being right. You wouldn’t know.
Nevermind situations that are more about perspectives than actually binary right/wrong.
