Page 218 - The Social Animal

200 The Social Animal

his advisers may not have been intentionally deceiving the Ameri-
can people, it is likely that they succeeded in deceiving themselves.
That is, they may have succeeded in convincing themselves that in-
vading Iraq was worthwhile even in the absence of WMDs. 21
How can a leader avoid falling into the self-justification trap?
Historical examples show us that the way out of this process is for a
leader to bring in skilled advisors from outside his or her inner cir-
cle because the advisors will not be caught up in the need to reduce
the dissonance created by the leader’s earlier decisions. As the histo-
rian Doris Kearns Goodwin, points out, it was precisely for this rea-
son that Abraham Lincoln chose a cabinet that included several
people who disagreed with his policies. 22
Let’s return to the Vietnam War for a moment. Why did the
Joint Chiefs make the ill-advised decision to increase the bombing—
to escalate a war that was unwinnable? They were staying the course;
justifying earlier actions with identical or even more extreme ones.
Escalation of this sort is self-perpetuating. Once a small commit-
ment is made, it sets the stage for ever-increasing commitments.The
behavior needs to be justified, so attitudes are changed; this change
in attitudes influences future decisions and behavior. The flavor of
this kind of cognitive escalation is nicely captured in an analysis of
the Pentagon Papers by the editors of Time magazine.

Yet the bureaucracy, the Pentagon Papers indicate, always de-
manded new options; each option was to apply more force.
Each tightening of the screw created a position that must be
defended; once committed, the military pressure must be main-
tained. 23

The process underlying escalation has been explored, on a more
individual level, under controlled experimental conditions. Suppose
you would like to enlist someone’s aid in a massive undertaking, but
you know the job you have in mind for the person is so difficult, and
will require so much time and effort, that the person will surely de-
cline. What should you do? One possibility is to get the person in-
volved in a much smaller aspect of the job, one so easy that he or she
wouldn’t dream of turning it down. This action serves to commit the
individual to “the cause.” Once people are thus committed, the like-
lihood of their complying with the larger request increases.This phe-
nomenon was demonstrated by Jonathan Freedman and Scott