While I do like the idea that it’s honesty about one’s past actions that motivates us not to fix past mistakes, the evidence suggests its application is limited. More often than not, we find mistakes uncorrected for other reasons:

1) Unwillingness to acknowledge that we made a mistake in the first place. Hence, the whole range from denial to rationalization to cover-up.

2) Reluctance to spend time and effort on fixing the error that could be spent on something more rewarding or amusing. Whether through laziness or determined pursuit of some goal, we decide to let the error stand – at least until some external pressure forces us to correct it.

3) Last and worst, inability to see that we made a mistake that needs correction. We are all too prone to self-deception, thinking we are and do better than an impartial observer would perceive. In the worst cases, that leads us to keep on making that mistake until reality knocks us on the head and says “This mess is your fault” – for example, once a lake is hopelessly polluted after decades of dumping effluent into it. And even then, alas, we’re all too likely to believe *our* contribution to the mess was smaller than that of other people.

We humans are inevitably fallible, but I do wish we were less prone to compounding our mistakes.