Confusing the subjective for the objective is a widely studied phenomenon. It's called reification and people generally deny doing it. There's a strong ego defense mechanism that raises when it's pointed out that shuts down conversation.
The utterly bizarre things is how so many (I would say, the VAST majority) smart people are unable to overcome it when discussing certain subjects.
Like sure, I can certainly understand the initial incident, heuristics are a bitch...but what is so bizarre is that when people are in this state, there seems to be literally nothing that can draw them out of it. I have done many, many thousands of experiments in this area, it is uncanny.
