(psychiatry) a defense mechanism by which your true motivation is concealed by explaining your actions and feelings in a way that is not threatening

Usage examples of rationalization.

I also use it, in a general sense, to refer to the rationalization of any of the mythic structures.

Each belief is the rationalization of the prevailing mood of one of these persons.

And since one psychological state cannot be truer than another, since all are equally facts, it follows that the rationalization of one state cannot be truer than the rationalization of another.

The difference between a scientific theory and a metaphysical world-view is that the first is a rationalization of psychological experiences which are more or less uniform for all men and for the same man at different times, while the second is a rationalization of experiences which are diverse, occasional, and contradictory.

Seeing, then, that even sense impressions not only can but must be rationalized in irreconcilably different ways, according to the class of object with which they are supposed to be connected, we need not be troubled or surprised by the contradictions which we find in the rationalization of less uniform psychological experiences.

The technological transformations of the 1970s, however, with their thrust toward automatic rationalization, pushed these regimes to the extreme limit of their effectiveness, to the breaking point.

I also knew I would find a rationalization, but it was too far from my reach as I prepared myself for a week of solitude.

Do you honestly think your life, with its unending rules, elaborate rituals, and convoluted rationalizations, is simple?

Thus, the almost indefinitely numerous rationalizations of the aesthetic and the mystical experiences not only contradict one another, but agree in contradicting those rationalizations of sense experience known as scientific theories.

In substance, however, they are simply rationalizations of diverse and equally valid psychological states, and are therefore neither true nor false.

I was bored with the endless monologue of numbers and rationalizations in my head.

The treatment of locust swarms by air attack, the spraying of the reafforested regions against various tree diseases, the regular cleansing and stimulation of our grain and root crops are all subsequent rationalizations of these practices of the Age of Frustration.

While the rationale of the she-male may seem to be nothing more than a transparent attempt at rationalization, upon closer examination it reveals an interesting form of transvestic metaphysics.

Then the usual obligatory introductions and sugary compliments and aggravating politenesses, and over an hour of back and forth, of demands calmly deflected, ponderous arguments, delays requested, astonishment where none was merited, questions needing to be repeated, facts dismissed, the truth disregarded--alibis, explanations, rationalizations, excuses, all courteously delivered.

The major virtues tend to disintegrate under the pressures of convenient rationalization.