Rationalization

When something happens that we find difficult to accept, then we will make up a logical reason why it has happened. The target of rationalization is usually something that we have done, such as being unkind to another person.**

Example
A person evades paying taxes and then rationalizes it by talking about how the government wastes money (and how it is better for people to keep what they can). A man buys a expensive car and then tells people his old car was very unreliable, very unsafe, etc. A person fails to get good enough results to get into a chosen university and then says that they didn't want to go there anyway. A parent punishes a child and says that it is for the child's 'own good'. I trip and fall over in the street. I tell a passer-by that I have recently been ill.