When someone encounters two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent it creates tension in the brain known as 'cognitive dissonance'. In order to subvert this state - most often - we try to invent some sort of self-justifying rationale.

Charles Grainer and Lindie England justified their maltreatment, committing indecent acts and Grainer's assault and battery of detainees in Abu Ghraib by saying that the prisoners deserved mistreatment.

Thankfully there is another way to come to terms with one's wrongness!

The third module in our Calmworks^® Core Programme facilitates mindful communication. Mindful communication is a way of approaching cognitive dissonance when two people are occupying contradictory positions in a discussion or argument.

There are five simple steps:

1. One person speaks only using the word "I" and the other person listens without interrupting.
2. The listening person relays what they heard.
3. The speaker corrects and adds anything to the listener's understanding.
4. Reverse roles and repeat steps one to three.
5. Both parties join together to equanimously interpret each position’s rationale.

Intellectual humility, also known as wrongness admission, correlates significantly with: emotional understanding, honesty, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Curtisa, Carrea and Sassenberg (2019) developed a willingness to admit wrongness scale (WAW) which could be quite useful in recruitment because as they point out, the traits of agreeableness and honesty have been isolated as impactful in the workplace.

Furthermore, if it is the case that emotional understanding (one half of emotional intelligence) is also useful in the workplace, then perhaps an assessment of any potential employee’s intellectual humility could be of even more benefit.