Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.

Professor: Generally, of course we want other people to think well of us. We want others to see us as good people as people who know how to behave appropriately.

But being human, we all occasionally behave inappropriately, do something we shouldn't do. And When that happens, we often come up with explanations for our inappropriate behavior so that others won't think we are foolish or rude or irresponsible.

Let's look at a couple different ways people explain or account for inappropriate behavior. One way to account for inappropriate behavior is to attribute it to something beyond our control.

This type of explanation is called an excuse. With excuses, we acknowledge that our behavior was inappropriate, but claimed that we didn't intend to behave that way, that our inappropriate behavior was due to events or circumstances beyond our control.

As a professor, I hear excuses all the time. For example, when students are late to class, a classic excuse is that they overslept because their alarm clock didn't go off.

They didn't mean to come to class late, but something beyond their control went wrong with their alarm clock. And that's why they didn't wake up on time and were late.

Another way we sometimes explain inappropriate behavior so that others don't think badly of us is by utilizing what's called a justification.

When we use a justification, we explained that we intentionally did something that would normally be inappropriate, but that it was ok this time because we had a good reason for behaving the way we did.

I also often hear justifications when students explain why they missed a class, for example, they say they miss the class because they had a very important job interview at the same time as the class.

So they chose to miss the class. But they justify it by explaining that they had to go to an important job interview.