Defensive reasoning

There seems to be a universal tendency to design one’s actions consistently according to four basic values: (a) to remain in unilateral control; (b) to maximise “winning” and minimise “losing”; (c) to suppress negative feelings; and (d) to be as “rational” as possible – by which people mean defining clear objectives and evaluating their behaviour in terms of whether or not they have achieved them. The purpose of all these values is to avoid embarrassment or threat, or feeling vulnerable or incompetent. In this respect, the master program that most people use is profoundly defensive. Defensive reasoning encourages individuals to keep private the premises, inferences and conclusions that shape their behaviour and avoid testing them in a truly independent, objective fashion. Because the attributions that go into defensive reasoning are never really tested, it is a closed loop, remarkably impervious to conflicting points of view. The inevitable response to the observation that somebody is reasoning defensively is yet more defensive reasoning (Argyris, 1994).