The role it plays is in how people may respond to evidence that runs counter to their perception of reality. The blinding happens when HR/management decides that rejecting feedback and evidence is the best route to resolving the contradiction of reality vs belief. If they ignore it, then no such conflict exists.

Obviously this isn't the ideal way to handle cognitive dissonance. However, it is a way of handling and one that you often see. Another bad way of handling it is when you see people "explaining things away" without ever really addressing anything of substance.

In my case, I saw it manifest in the sheer confidence they displayed all year despite our rollout plans failing. It did not matter how many market signals they received either. There was always another excuse as to why things will eventually go smoothly.