In order to avoid cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance you have a num­ber of choices. Pri­mar­ily: selec­tive expo­sure and/or con­fir­ma­tion bias. Researchers from a num­ber of US uni­ver­si­ties are now attempt­ing to quan­tify these phe­nom­ena, look­ing at how we seek val­i­da­tion as opposed to cor­rect­ness.

The researchers found that peo­ple are about twice as likely to select infor­ma­tion that sup­ports their own point of view (67 per­cent) as to con­sider an oppos­ing idea (33 per­cent). Cer­tain indi­vid­u­als, those with close-minded per­son­al­i­ties, are even more reluc­tant to expose them­selves to dif­fer­ing per­spec­tives […] They will opt for the infor­ma­tion that cor­re­sponds to their views nearly 75 per­cent of the time.

The researchers also found, not sur­pris­ingly, that peo­ple are more resis­tant to new points of view when their own ideas are asso­ci­ated with polit­i­cal, reli­gious or eth­i­cal values.

[…] Per­haps more sur­pris­ingly, peo­ple who have lit­tle con­fi­dence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose them­selves to con­trary views than peo­ple who are very con­fi­dent in their own ideas.

As an author of the study (pdf) sug­gests, maybe those who fall vic­tim to selec­tive expo­sure and the con­fir­ma­tion bias do so because the new infor­ma­tion “might pre­vent them from liv­ing the lives they’re liv­ing”. Sounds almost like an evo­lu­tion­ary response to pre­vent dissonance.

via @anibalmastobiza