A book I shall be buying

Neuroscientists have recently shown that biases
in thinking are built into the very way the
brain processes information--all brains... In
a study of people who were being monitored by
magnetic resonance imaging while they were
trying to process dissonant or consonant
information about George Bush or John Kerry,
researchers found that the reasoning areas of
the brain virtually shut down when participants
were confronted with dissonant information,
and the emotion circuits of the brain lit up
happily when consonance was restored. Researchers
also showed that reading information that goes
against your point of view can make you all the
more convinced that you are right.
--Carol Travis & Elliot Aronson (2007)

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify
Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts


"Renowned social psychologists Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right­-a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong."