Intuitively I'd agree that "best intentions of self vs. others" is probably the mechanism behind this type of cognitive dissonance. What I find harrowing is tha

Intuitively I'd agree that "best intentions of self vs. others" is probably the mechanism behind this type of cognitive dissonance. What I find harrowing is that in all likelihood, this is true for myself as well in ways that I'm not aware of! Your point about denial also reminded me of an article a read a couple years ago, attempting to explain why humans deceive themselves. The soft conclusion: we deceive ourselves in order to better deceive others. In this case, we convince ourselves that we have the best intentions in order to convince others of the same. I can't find the exact article, but this is similar and refers to the same research by Robert Trivers. It's an interesting read: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/living-a-lie-we-deceive-ourselves-to-better-deceive-others/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/living-a-lie-we-d...