To those of you who do not know what I studied in school, the below passage as adapted from today's Straits Times Mind your Body section would be a fair reflection.

By Gary Hayden
At the core of the book is the idea of cognitive dissonance. This is a label psychologists use for the uncomfortable feeling we get whenever we try to hold two conflicting ideas in our minds simultaneously.

Cognitive dissonance is so unpleasant that we will go to great lengths to reduce it. One of the main ways is through self-justification.

The two authors describe cognitive dissonance as "the engine that drives self-justification". Their book references dozens of psychological studies and real-life examples that demonstrate the mechanisms by which we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions and hurtful acts. One section which i found particularly illuminating concerns the so-called "pyramid of choice".

Consider the following scenario. Two very similar young men are sitting an important exam. Each draws a blank on a crucial question but each has the opportunity to cheat by copying from someone else. Both agonise for a minute or two over whether to do the right thing and risk a poor grade or compromise their integrity to secure a good one. It is a close call. One eventually opts to cheat and the other opts not to.

At the time, there was little to separate the young men's attitude towards cheating. The decision could easily have gone the other way for both of them. But if we return to those young men a week later, we will find that their attitudes have hardened. Each will have had ample time to reflect on - and justify - his action.

The young man who succumbed to temptation will have decided that cheating is not, in truth, such a bad thing. After all, almost everyone does it at some time or other. And anyway, he studied hard for that exam and deserved to pass. Only a schmuck would jeopardise his entire future because of a bit of bad luck over one exam question.

The young man who resisted temptation, on the other hand, will have decide that he was absolutely right not to cheat. After all, cheating is downright immoral. No self-respecting person would even consider doing it.

"It is as if they had started off at the top of a pyramid, a millimetre apart," wrote Tavris and Aronson, "but by the time they have finished justifying their individual actions, they have slid to the bottom, and now stand at opposite corners of the base"

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So yup ... this concept of pyramid of choice is extremely interesting while reading it just now. Self-justification happens all the time, with every action you make, you constantly justify it to assure yourself that you did the right thing.

Most of the time, few people will think that their actions are wrong while they are performing it. In their minds, their self-justification mechanism will be working full speed to conjure up various reasons for their behaviour.

Yet, upon talking to many people, these reasons and justification we give ourselves could be changed, even to the extent of the extreme opposite, when we realize perhaps we might not have been so right after all.