Rationalization is the process in thinking of constructing a logical justification for a decision, action or lack thereof that was originally arrived at through a different mental process.



People rationalize for various reasons. Rationalization may differentiate the original deterministic explanation of the behavior or feeling in question.[1][2] Sometimes rationalization occurs when we think we know ourselves better than we do. It is also an informal fallacy of reasoning.[3]

Cognitive dissonanceEdit

Main article: Cognitive dissonance

A rather different, but perhaps complementary, approach to rationalization comes from cognitive dissonance. 'In 1957. Leon Festinger...argued that when people become aware that their attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs ("cognitions") are inconsistent with one another, this realization brings with it an uncomfortable state of tension called cognitive dissonance '.[4]

One answer to the discomfort of the situation is that 'their minds rationalize it by inventing a comfortable illusion'.[5] Thus for example 'people who start to smoke again after quitting for a while perceive smoking to be less dangerous to their health, compared to their views when they decided to stop' - thereby averting their 'post-decisional regret'[6] through their new rationalization.

In a similar way, acts of aggression will often be seen as 'reasonable, well justified, even necessary...rationalizing their self-interest in these ways'; so that, to cite 'Martin Luther King, Jr...."It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some rationalization to clothe their act"'.[7] The same may be said of the collective scale. 'When groups commit aggression, they, too, rationalize their acts with high-sounding words...rationalizing their own self-interested desires',[7] so that, for example, 'The own God is the right God. The other God is the strange God....Our own soldiers take care of the poor families; the enemy rapes them'.[8]

As a defence mechanism Edit

Rationalization (defence mechanism) is one of the defense mechanisms proposed by Sigmund Freud, which were later developed further by his daughter Anna Freud.

According to the DSM-IV rationalization occurs "when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his or her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self serving but incorrect explanations."

See alsoEdit


  1. Kendra Van Wagner. Defense Mechanisms - Rationalization. Psychology. URL accessed on 2008-02-24.
  2. Defenses. URL accessed on 2008-03-11.
  3. [1]
  4. E. R. Smith and D. M. Mackie, Social Psychology (Hove 2007) p. 277-8
  5. Scott Adams, in Smith/Mackie, Social p. 280
  6. Smith/Mackie, Social p. 283-4
  7. 7.0 7.1 Smith/Mackie, Social p. 513
  8. Fritz Perls, Gestalt Theory Verbatim (Bantam 1971) p. 9

Further readingEdit

Informal fallacies
Special pleading | Red herring | Gambler's fallacy and its inverse
Correlative-based fallacies:
Deductive fallacies:
Accident | Converse accident
Inductive fallacies:
Hasty generalization | Overwhelming exception | Biased sample
False analogy | Misleading vividness | Conjunction fallacy
False precision | Slippery slope
Equivocation (Loki's Wager | No true Scotsman)
Questionable cause:
Correlation does not imply causation | Post hoc | Regression fallacy
Other types of fallacy