How do I achieve consistent highlighting of QListWidget items across widget states?

Question

I am using PyQT 4.8.3 to create a dialog with two QListWidgets both allowing multiple selection.

1. I find that if these QListWidgets are enabled, the selected items are highlighted in blue only when the QListWidget has focus, without focus the highlight is light-grey.

2. I also find that if the QListWidgets are disabled, the selected items are highlighted in blue despite lack of focus.

As the users go from one list to the other they will find this very confusing.

As a developer I find the light-grey/unfocused, blue/disabled behaviours undesirable. I would appreciate any advice on modifying them.

I've looked through the docs for QListWidget, QListView and QAbstractView without finding anything applicable, I have also looked through the stylesheet documentation without having any luck.