When navigating via Favorites how to stop Windows explorer from immediately scrolling the focus to that nth level folder?

I'm noticing a peculiar behavior in Windows Explorer. It used to work fine earlier but after reimaging my system with Windows 7 again I'm seeing this new issue.

The background:

If you open Windows explorer you click on the left panel folder and the right panel shows the contents.

The problem:

Currently when I click on a favorite link on the left pane, then the left pane immediately navigates to that folder's location. So if the folder is n levels deep then all the n folders are opened up on the left pane which makes it difficult to scroll.

Instead I need the focus to remain at the favorites link. Please find a screenshot below for a better visual understanding of what I mean:

I am using the Windows 7 Professional edition. I'm trying to google for solutions but it's very hard to google for this particular behavior.