Motivated reasoning
Reasoning toward a conclusion you want while believing you are reasoning toward the truth. The standard of proof rises for unwelcome conclusions and drops for welcome ones.
What drives it
Protects identity, relationships, money and self-image while keeping the sense of being rational. It needs a plausible justification, so the cleverer the person, the better the case they can build.
How it shows
Work
The founder who demands three references and a pilot before accepting a critical customer finding, then greenlights a feature on one enthusiastic call. Leaders scrutinise complaints about people they hired harder than complaints about people they inherited. For welcome news the question is 'can I believe this?'; for unwelcome news it is 'must I believe this?' (Gilovich's framing).
Relationships
A friend whose partner is plainly cheating finds an innocent reading for each clue taken one at a time. Families defend the favoured child with arguments they would never accept for the scapegoat. Accepting the study that says red wine is good and finding the flaw in the one about your drinking.
Self
You start hunting for the flaw in an argument only after seeing its conclusion, or feel relief rather than curiosity when a counterpoint turns up. With people, the tell is that someone you like and someone you dislike are held to different standards for the same behaviour.
What tells it apart
Confirmation bias: Confirmation bias operates even on beliefs with nothing riding on them; motivated reasoning tracks what the person wants, so swapping who benefits from the conclusion changes their verdict.
Rationalisation: Rationalisation justifies something already done, usually an act; motivated reasoning shapes the belief as it forms and shows in how evidence is weighed, not in after-the-fact excuses.
Denial: Denial refuses to register the fact at all ('it isn't happening'); motivated reasoning acknowledges the facts and argues them into a preferred shape.
A test
Swap the parties: put the same evidence about someone the person is neutral or negative toward and see whether the verdict changes; a change means the conclusion was steering the reasoning.
Questions to carry
- If the same facts were about someone nobody here likes, how would the conclusion read?
- Which conclusion do I need to be true right now, and what would it cost me if it were false?
How strong the research is
strong
Where it comes from
Ziva Kunda, 1990; Peter Ditto and David Lopez, 1992 (asymmetric scrutiny)
Sources
- Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012)