We feel good when others agree with us and bad when they disagree. All of us have experienced unpleasant feelings arising when someone expresses opinions with which we profoundly disagree. These feelings of anger and frustration were labeled cognitive dissonance by the psychologist Leon Festinger. They motivate us to try to influence disagreeing ot

He theorized that we experience dissonance when new information conflicts with our prior beliefs. When that happens, it makes us uncomfortable, and we want to make that discomfort go away. So we rationalize away the new information so we can defend our prior beliefs.