Health psychology/Defence mechanisms · Neurotic

Rationalisation

What it means

Justifying unacceptable behaviour or feelings with plausible but false reasoning.

Worked example

"I didn’t want that job anyway" after being rejected (sour grapes).

In the exam

Passed over for promotion, a man explains at length that the role was beneath him and he never truly wanted it.

What settles it

Rationalisation invents acceptable but untrue reasons. Intellectualisation avoids the FEELING by retreating into facts and abstraction, without necessarily justifying.

Classically confused with

Intellectualisation

Source: AMBOSS