GILBERT: Well, it’s not hard to understand and, once again, our friend Adam Smith predicted this right on the money. He said that we tend to rationalize, but we only tend to rationalize our outcomes when those outcomes can’t be changed. You know, if you find yourself, you bought a sweater and you think maybe it makes you look fat, you bring it back to the store. You don’t say to yourself, I don’t believe it makes me look fat. In fact, it makes me look quite trim. You don’t rationalize the sweater when you can, in fact, return it. It’s only when we’re stuck with things that rationalization kicks in.
~ Dan Gilbert / NPR, April 25th 2012
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=151361554&source=post_page—————————