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More often than not, I rationalize a situation in an attempt to allow myself to do things, or not do things, instead of just going along with what I'm "supposed" to do. Often I want to do something that society says is bad. I rationalize the situation and my desire so as to allow me to do it. For example, I may want to watch pornography involving dolphins and small asian women. Society generally dislikes this kind of behaviour and may even have laws preventing it. But I rationalize that; well, the porn already exists, so I'm not creating more of it, I'm just enjoying what is already there. Presto! I can enjoy such porn.
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This is a different kind of rationalization than what I was referring to. You're taking "bad" in the sense that someone else tells you that it is bad. I'm taking "bad" as meaning that you feel personally negative feelings. The psychological definition that I am using is "
a defense mechanism by which your true motivation is concealed by explaining your actions and feelings in a way that is not threatening."
I'll provide an example of the cognitive dissonance that comes along with acting to supress the negative feelings to justify one's self:
Someone is unsure as to how much their SO loves/cares for them. They begin to get anxious and try to get the other person to prove their love. These passive-agressive actions alienates the other person and in desperation, this person goes to a bar in self-loathing because they are attention-starved. They have a few drinks, "one thing leads to another", and this person has sex with a stranger. This person realizes what an awful mistake it was, feels terrible, and realizes that they love their SO and their SO loves them. Then, this person choses to lie about the event/hide the event/or justify the event to the SO to play down the break of trust.
Now, this person is completely responsible for all of these actions, and yet acted irresponsibly. While deep feelings of guilt are natural and can be very debilitating, a good faith response to them is not to deflect responsibility of these actions by rationalization. There ARE reasons that these negative things happen, and it is important to understand those reasons... however, deflecting responsibility and trying to nullify the negative emotions through rationalization which is a form of self-deception is unhealthy.
Using rationalization excessively shows a lack of courage and an unwillingness to address the dark side of yourself to prevent yourself from making decisions that affect your life negatively in the future.