Concept
Rationalization
A defence in which a person gives a coherent, reasonable-sounding account of an attitude, belief or act whose real motives are unconscious or unacceptable. It does not deny the act but conceals its source behind an explanation that satisfies the demand to appear rational to oneself and to others.
- Broader concept
- Defense
- Introduced by
- Ernest Jones
- Key works
- 1
introduced by
- Ernest Jones 1908 Jones coined the term in a paper first given in 1908 and later reprinted as the opening chapter of his Papers on Psycho-Analysis; Freud and the later literature adopted it.