People fiercely defend their choice to spend a chunk of money on something, otherwise they wasted their money and look foolish, clearly (to themselves) they are

People fiercely defend their choice to spend a chunk of money on something, otherwise they wasted their money and look foolish, clearly (to themselves) they are not foolish, so they must have spent the money for the right reasons. The more this perception is challenged, the more fiercely it gets defended. An attack on $BRAND_OF_CHOICE is viewed as an attack on their choice to invest in it, and thus an personal attack on themselves. So they seek to reaffirm their choices via whatever and whoever will say what they want to hear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognative_dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognative_dissonance