Shankar Vedantam in today's Washington Post: "The different perceptions of victims and perpetrators in Baumeister's experiment are a result of a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, Tavris and Aronson argue in a new book titled "Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)." When we do something that hurts others, there is a part of us that recognizes our action as despicable. But that comes into conflict -- into dissonance -- with our belief that we are good people. The solution? We reinterpret our hurtful actions to minimize our responsibility and downplay the pain we have caused."
That right there is the essence of most conflict. I wanted to write this book, but it sounds like they beat me to the punch. Read Chapter One here.