In the Executive Master's Degree I recently completed at INSEAD, one of the professors teaching in the program (Enrico Diecidue) gave the class a great example about how people tend to rationalize decisions or points of view.  

In the example, participants in the study were asked to say what they would pay for an unmarked 'expensive' bottle of champagne. Just before submitting their bid, they were asked to tell the researchers the last few digits of their social security number. The bids were then assessed. Consistently, the people who had high social security numbers bid higher than the people who had low social security numbers. This study was meant to demonstrate the power of anchoring (about which there is considerable research to support the finding in this study).  

The most interesting part to me, however, was what Professor Diecidue said next: despite the obvious bias in the distribution of their bids based on their social security numbers, all parties were able to come up with seemingly legitimate reasons to justify their bids - and when challenged, insisted their bids were 'legitimate' and based on the merits! Wow.  

To me, this shows just how problematic - and dangerous - it can be to get too 'stuck' on our point of view in any given situation, without adequately challenging it.  

As such, this month we're looking at our ability to rationalize and how those rationalizations justify self-favourtism, and in the process, trap us in prisons of our own making.