Pedantically speaking, whether this is true or not depends on what you mean by “it”; owning up to it [a fact about the world external to oneself] does not make it [that fact] worse, but if your psychology can’t handle unpleasant truths, then owning up to it [a specific fact about the external world] make may it [the world as a whole] worse.
But this is a bit of a dodge; I think the right way to look at it is that, in most cases, a false belief is a form of debt; you’ll probably have to own up to it eventually, and there’s a cost to be paid when you do, but time-shifting that cost further into the future creates additional costs, because you make worse decisions and form other incorrect beliefs in the mean time.
Pedantically speaking, whether this is true or not depends on what you mean by “it”; owning up to it [a fact about the world external to oneself] does not make it [that fact] worse, but if your psychology can’t handle unpleasant truths, then owning up to it [a specific fact about the external world] make may it [the world as a whole] worse.
But this is a bit of a dodge; I think the right way to look at it is that, in most cases, a false belief is a form of debt; you’ll probably have to own up to it eventually, and there’s a cost to be paid when you do, but time-shifting that cost further into the future creates additional costs, because you make worse decisions and form other incorrect beliefs in the mean time.