I remember being a young man and searching for a word to generally describe this. I settled on predilection. Anecdotally, I'd say it's extremely common. I've

I remember being a young man and searching for a word to generally describe this. I settled on predilection. Anecdotally, I'd say it's extremely common. I've confronted a few people about it and heard the same arguments in each case. It seems to boil down to a notion that anything which can be phrased in positive terms can't possibly be bad - quite a handy rationalization.