A powerful cause of dissonance is an idea in conflict with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as “I am a good person” or “I made the right decision.” The anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one’s choices. A person who just spent too much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may or may not be true, but it would likely reduce dissonance and make the person feel better. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.

498a is an Indian law in which a husband and his family are summarily arrested without any investigation when a complaint is lodged by the wife or any of her relative claiming that the husband or his relatives treated her cruelly. Once the complaint is lodged the husband and his family are presumed guilty and it is up to them to prove that they are innocent in a court of law. This law has been under much controversy due to its increasing misuse leading to breakdown of families. It does not cost anything to file a 498A, and there is no penalty (or even a fine) for filing a false dowry complaint which has contributed to a fast rise in the number of such cases in courts today.

Sailors (stereotyped by the eye-patch-wearing pirate) who often went above and below deck, used eye patches to have one eye adjusted for the top deck and the other eye already adjusted for the darkness when suddenly going below deck. The strong sunlight while above deck on an oceangoing vessel could require minutes of adjustment to the dim lighting below deck. With virtually no light sources below deck, sailors would have to rely heavily upon their eyes to adjust. In the critical moments of modifying the rigging, navigating, and especially during battle, those minutes were too precious. A simple switch of the patch from one eye to the other saved time and was more convenient than being temporarily blinded when going between decks.

Metaphorically, the term echo chamber is any situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an “enclosed” space. For example, observers of mass media journalism describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse.[1][2] One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form)[3] until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.[4]

In the pursuit of a mate, women prefer men who possess money, resources, power and high social status, while men tend to seek attractive, youthful women who will remain sexually faithful. This finding emerged from a global survey by Buss and colleagues of 10,047 persons in 37 cultures, from Australia to Zambia. Women and men are often at cross-purposes in mate selection, sexual relations and affairs. In a provocative study, Buss, a University of Michigan psychology professor, attributes these differences to ingrained psychological mechanisms which he argues are universal across cultures and rooted in each gender’s adaptive responses over millennia of human evolution. One area, however, where Buss finds common ground between men and women is in their ruthless use of deception, sexual display and denigration of rivals in the pursuit of a partner.

So, how do you learn about Computer Science? Some would no doubt recommend “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” by Abelson and Sussman here. (Someone sent me review copy of that book too.) But really, SICP (as it is often referred to) has its own agenda: convincing the reader that the most important thing computers can do is interpreting computer programs. This agenda has arguably caused the proliferation of Scheme implementations and indoctrinated many young minds with certain ideas about how to design and implement programming languages. But personally, I recommend you go straight to the source. After all these years, there is still no substitute for Knuth.

The term ‘non sequitur’ is often used in everyday speech and reasoning to describe a statement in which premise and conclusion are totally unrelated but which is used as if they were. An example might be: “If I buy this cell phone, all people will love me.” However, there is no actual relation between buying a cell phone and the love of all people. This kind of reasoning is often used in advertising to trigger an emotional purchase.