Most people aren’t taught how to deal with criticism and see it as a personal attack, an attempt to discredit them. This leads a culture where people are afraid/unwilling to admit they were wrong (it’s a sign of weakness after all, “I can’t be weak”) and would rather dig themselves towards more and more absurd explanations and deflections on how they are the correct ones.
The more popular this stance becomes (compare how stars or politicians, the ones setting an example, act now and how they were few decades ago) the more it spreads, powering the cycle of pride and unwillingness to say “I was wrong”.
That’s how I see it at least. It’s not exactly a professional or scientific look at the issue so there might be better explanations out there.