Notes
These notes give the sources behind the claims in each chapter, and say where I'm giving my own interpretation. The book isn't medical or psychological advice. If holding on has come with low mood, or with conflict at home that frightens you, your GP is the person to ask first. The examples throughout, the roundabout on the way to the in-laws, the supplier meeting, the film in the group chat, the teenager and the bus, are invented to illustrate and aren't drawn from real people.
Studies were checked on 26 September 2026 by reading their published abstracts. None was read in full, and none carried a retraction or correction notice at that date. Where a study is a laboratory experiment or a scenario study, it describes what people did in that setting and I've tried to say where I'm carrying it further than it was tested.
Chapter 1. No sources. The terms are the book's own.
Chapter 3. Fetterman and Sassenberg, "The reputational consequences of failed replications and wrongness admission among scientists", PLoS One 10, 2015, e0143723. 281 published scientists, a scenario-based survey. Fiske, Cuddy and Glick, "Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11, 2007, pages 77 to 83. A review. The accounting of what a climb-down does on each dimension is my interpretation.
Chapter 4. Bruk, Scholl and Bless, "Beautiful mess effect: self-other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 115, 2018, pages 192 to 205. Seven studies. The earlier book Tell someone uses the same paper for a different purpose. The claim that climb-downs don't register as events is my observation.
Chapter 5. Schumann and Dweck, "Who accepts responsibility for their transgressions?", Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40, 2014, pages 1598 to 1610. Four studies, real and hypothetical offences, correlational and experimental. The earlier book referred to is You don't have to win this one. The claim that the other person's climb-down becomes more likely after yours is my observation, not a finding.
Chapter 6. Staw, "Knee-deep in the big muddy: a study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action", Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 16, 1976, pages 27 to 44, confirmed by citation only. Staw and Fox, "Escalation: the determinants of commitment to a chosen course of action", Human Relations 30, 1977, pages 431 to 450. Sleesman, Conlon, McNamara and Miles, "Cleaning up the big muddy: a meta-analytic review of the determinants of escalation of commitment", Academy of Management Journal 55, 2012, pages 541 to 562. The abstract available to me gives the scope of the review and not its figures. The application to arguments and the cab fare are mine.
Chapter 7. Kunda, "The case for motivated reasoning", Psychological Bulletin 108, 1990, pages 480 to 498. A review. Rozenblit and Keil, "The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth", Cognitive Science 26, 2002, pages 521 to 562. Twelve studies. Fernbach, Rogers, Fox and Sloman, "Political extremism is supported by an illusion of understanding", Psychological Science 24, 2013, pages 939 to 946. Three experiments. The test is my suggestion.
Chapter 8. Leary and colleagues, "Cognitive and interpersonal features of intellectual humility", Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 43, 2017, pages 793 to 813. Four studies, and the flip-flopping finding is study 3. The distinction between consistency of method and of conclusion is mine.
Chapter 9. Ross, Lepper and Hubbard, "Perseverance in self-perception and social perception: biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32, 1975, pages 880 to 892. Two experiments. The account of the second argument is mine.
Chapter 10. Kim, Ferrin, Cooper and Dirks, "Removing the shadow of suspicion: the effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence- versus integrity-based trust violations", Journal of Applied Psychology 89, 2004, pages 104 to 118. Two studies in a workplace setting. The extension to holding is my interpretation and is said to be.
Chapter 11. Schumann, "The psychology of offering an apology: understanding the barriers to apologizing and how to overcome them", Current Directions in Psychological Science 27, 2018, pages 74 to 78, read as the author's preprint abstract. A review. The length of the feeling is my observation.
Chapter 12. Ferrin, Kim, Cooper and Dirks, "Silence speaks volumes: the effectiveness of reticence in comparison to apology and denial for responding to integrity- and competence-based trust violations", Journal of Applied Psychology 92, 2007, pages 893 to 908. Two laboratory studies in two countries. The repainted wall and the slide's later bill are mine.
Chapter 13. No research sources. The argument is mine.
Chapter 14. Karmarkar and Tormala, "Believe me, I have no idea what I'm talking about: the effects of source certainty on consumer involvement and persuasion", Journal of Consumer Research 36, 2010, pages 1033 to 1049. Three experiments with consumer messages. The extension to workplaces and families is mine and is said to be.
Chapter 15. Porter and Schumann, "Intellectual humility and openness to the opposing view", Self and Identity 17, 2018, pages 139 to 162. Four studies. The book doesn't use the paper's finding about beliefs about intelligence.
Chapter 16. Fetterman, Muscanell, Wu and Sassenberg, "When you are wrong on Facebook, just admit it", Social Psychology 53, 2022, pages 34 to 45. Four experiments, 679 participants.
Chapter 17. No research sources. The argument is mine.
Chapter 18. Porter and Schumann, as above. The five items and the claim that people stop offering corrections are my observations.
Chapter 19. No research sources. The earlier book referred to is Not in front of the children. The claims about what children and colleagues learn are my interpretation.
Chapter 21. Lewicki, Polin and Lount, "An exploration of the structure of effective apologies", Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 9, 2016, pages 177 to 196. Two studies. The earlier book referred to is You've apologised enough. The choice of acknowledgement as the component that matters for a roundabout is mine.
Chapter 23. Gollwitzer and Sheeran, "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 2006, pages 69 to 119, for the when-then form. Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts and Wardle, "How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world", European Journal of Social Psychology 40, 2010, pages 998 to 1009. 96 volunteers, 82 with usable data. The rule hasn't been tested as a package and what I say to expect is my expectation.
Chapter 24. The NHS page on the symptoms of depression in adults, at nhs.uk, read on 26 September 2026. The earlier books referred to are You don't have to win this one and Not in front of the children.
Chapter 25. Lally and colleagues, as above. The extension from a missed day to a held argument is mine. The earlier book referred to is It's already over.
Looked up and not used. Wood and Porter, "The elusive backfire effect", Political Behavior 2019, and Doherty, Dowling and Miller, "When is changing policy positions costly for politicians?", Political Behavior 2016, would have suited chapters 8 and 16, but no abstract was available to me and they aren't cited. Nyhan and Reifler's 2010 paper on corrections and political misperceptions is about public beliefs rather than arguments between people, and isn't cited. Festinger and Carlsmith's 1959 experiment on forced compliance and Brehm's 1956 study of post-decision preference change are the classical sources for the idea that people come to believe what they've committed to, but PubMed carries no abstracts for either and they aren't cited. Fetterman, Curtis, Carre and Sassenberg's 2019 measure of willingness to admit wrongness had no abstract available and isn't cited. Ludwig, Schumann and Porter's 2021 preprint on humility and apology quality was read and left out as too close to book 55's ground.