Ashen-faced, soaked in rain and with a big swollen cheek, my husband returned home. He’d had a tooth out and – apparently – I’d said I’d meet him afterwards at the dentist.
The penny slowly dropped. I’d said that I’d meet him after his appointment, but started chatting with a friend. And then totally forgot. But it took me a good few hours to recognise that it was my fault. Eventually I gave a shifty apology, promised I wouldn’t do it again and skulked around feeling guilty. Not my finest hour. So why can it be so hard to admit when we’re wrong? Even when it’s obvious who’s at fault. And why should we own up at all?
The upside to coming clean
Owning up to a mistake isn’t easy, but it can be worth it in the long run. Admitting you’re wrong shows you’re human, it demonstrates vulnerability and helps to build trust – all of which can deepen relationships.
Daryl R Van Tongeren, PhD is a professor of psychology at Hope College and author of Humble: Free Yourself from the Traps of a Narcissistic World. He explains: ‘Research has found that humility helps relationships in many different ways. First, we’re more likely to want to be friends with, more attracted to and more eager to become romantically involved with someone who is humble, relative to someone who is arrogant. Second, humility improves relationships: we’re more satisfied with and committed to humble partners. Third, humility helps us maintain relationships, as we’re more likely to forgive a humble partner during times of stress.’
Daryl also explains how humility helps people to navigate conflict, as our bodies have better physiological reactions to the stress of an argument when both partners are humble, than when only one or neither partner is humble.
Changing your mind
It becomes even harder to admit fault when you’ve made up your mind about something, and then need to backtrack. That’s the concept of ‘intellectual humility’, which can be defined as the ability to admit wrong ideas or beliefs. Studies have shown that people with high intellectual humility think more critically, are better listeners and have better relationships. Meanwhile, people with low intellectual humility cling to their beliefs and are more likely to act defensively.
People who can admit they’re wrong are often better listeners, and better listeners can often be more understanding, empathic and respectful. If you’re able to recognise the limits of what you know and value others’ insights, you’re more open to learning. Listening closely, without judgment, to people who have different ideas from you, can help to expand your thinking – helping to build bridges and work collaboratively.
Shift your focus
Admitting when you’ve made an error also brings the opportunity to reframe a mistake as a chance to learn and grow. You can shift from self-berating critic to approaching the situation with curiosity. What could you do next time to create a better outcome?
As a parent, that can be particularly helpful. Admitting when you’re wrong shows that you’re a human and make mistakes. It can help to take the fear out of getting things wrong and soften the pressure of perfectionism. Even sharing when you’ve made a seemingly trivial mistake – like leaving trainers out in the rain or forgetting to send a birthday card – can be helpful. It can model to children that everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and those mistakes can even be helpful if you look at them in a different light.
Mistakes are part of the process of learning, experimenting and growing. As Einstein put it: ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.’
But I’m never wrong!
So if we know that admitting fault is theoretically a good thing, why can it still be so difficult?
‘We have a strong desire to see ourselves positively,’ explains Daryl. ‘And we have a number of biases and defences that make it hard to admit when we’re wrong. We often see the world as we want to see it (because it preserves our ego) rather than the way it is.’
He continues: ‘In the end, it is hard to admit when we’re wrong because doing so feels threatening and chips away at our self-esteem and worsens our self-image. And because so many of these biases and defences work automatically, often unconsciously, it takes serious commitment, attention and effort to try to counteract or overcome them.’
And there are many more reasons why it’s tough to say you’ve done something wrong. Maybe your parents or caregivers never admitted they were wrong when you were young, or you were brought up to believe that saying you were wrong is a sign of weakness or vulnerability.
Freeing yourself
Admitting you’re wrong can also be hard if your actions were at odds with your self concept. If you’re late to meet someone, but you define yourself as someone who is always punctual, you might feel extra uncomfortable or uneasy about showing up late. Or in my case, the (quite clearly incorrect) belief that ‘I am always reliable’, meant I couldn’t at first see my failure to be there when my husband needed me.
Carl Rogers, founder of the person-centred approach to counselling, described this as ‘incongruence’ – it’s the discrepancy between what you believe about yourself and your actual experience. That dissonance, if you allow it, can be the pathway to greater self-understanding and self-compassion. It encourages you to loosen up what you think about yourself, in the longer term allowing you to respond more genuinely to any situation. You can live more authentically, and be kinder to yourself in the process.
So next time you make a mistake, try putting your hand up and saying so – even if it feels jarring or uncomfortable. As Daryl puts it: ‘It is freeing to acknowledge that you don’t have to live for the approval of other people. You can never be perfect, so embracing and owning your limitations is not only honest, it helps make you more approachable to other people who make mistakes – just like you do.’