Tag: Motivated Reasoning

What is a Motivated Tactician?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

In social psychology, a motivated tactician is someone who shifts between quick-and-dirty cognitively economical tactics and more thoughtful, thorough strategies when processing information, depending on the type and degree of motivation. Such behaviour is a type of motivated reasoning. The idea has been used to explain why people use stereotyping, biases and categorisation in some situations, and more analytical thinking in others.

Brief History

After much research on categorisation, and other cognitive shortcuts, psychologists began to describe human beings as cognitive misers; which explains that a need to conserve mental resources causes people to use shortcuts to thinking about stimuli, instead of motivations and urges influencing the way humans think about their world. Stereotypes and heuristics were used as evidence of the economic nature of human thinking. In recent years, the work of Fiske & Neuberg (1990), Higgins & Molden (2003), Molden & Higgins (2005) and others has led to the recognition of the importance of motivational thinking. This is due to contemporary research studying the importance of motivation in cognitive processes, instead of concentrating on cognition versus motivation. Current research does not deny that people will be cognitively miserly in certain situations, but it takes into account that thorough analytic thought does occur in other situations.

Using this perspective, researchers have begun to describe human beings as “motivated tacticians” who are tactical about how much cognitive resources will be used depending on the individual’s intent and level of motivation. Based on the complex nature of the world and the occasional need for quick thinking, it would be detrimental for a person to be methodical about everything, while other situations require more focus and attention. Considering human beings as motivated tacticians has become popular because it takes both situations into account. This concept also takes into account, and continues to study, what motivates people to use more or less mental resources when processing information about the world. Research has found that intended outcome, relevancy to the individual, culture, and affect can all influence the way a person processes information.

Goal-Oriented Motivational Thinking

The most prominent explanation of motivational thinking is that the person’s desired outcome motivates him to use more or less cognitive resources while processing a situation or thing. Researchers have divided preferred outcomes into two broad categories:

  • Directional outcomes; and
  • Non-directional outcomes.

The preferred outcome provides the motivation for the level of processing involved.

Individuals motivated by directional outcomes have the intention of accomplishing a specific goal. These goals can range from appearing smart, courageous or likeable to affirming positive thoughts and feelings about something or someone to whom they are close or find likable. If someone is motivated by non-directional outcomes, he or she may wish to make the most logical and clear decision. Whether a person is motivated by directional or non-directional outcomes depends on the situation and the person’s goals. Confirmation bias is an example of thought-processing motivated by directional outcomes. The goal is to affirm previously held beliefs, so one will use less thorough thinking in order to reach that goal. A person motivated to get the best education, who researches information on colleges and visit schools is motivated by a non-directional outcome. Evidence for outcome-influenced motivation is illustrated by research on self-serving bias. According to Miller (1976), p.901-906:

“Independent of expectancies from prior success or failure, the more personally important a success is in any given situation, the stronger is the tendency to claim responsibility for this success but to deny responsibility for failure.”

Motivation Based on Strategy

Though outcome-based motivation is the most prominent approach to motivated thinking, there is evidence that a person can be motivated by their preferred strategy of processing information. However, rather than being an alternative, this idea is actually a compliment to the outcome-based approach. Proponents of this approach feel that a person prefers a specific method of information-processing because it usually yields the results they wish to receive. This relates back to the intended outcome being the primary motivation. “Strategy of information processing” means whether a person makes a decision using bias, categories, or analytical thinking. Regardless of whether the method is best suited for the situation or more thorough is less important to the person than its likelihood of yielding the intended result. People feel that their preferred strategy just “feels right”. What makes the heuristic or method feel “right” is that the strategy accomplishes the desired goal (i.e. affirming positive beliefs of self-efficacy).

Other Motivations and Approaches

There has been limited research on motivated tactical thinking outside of Western countries. One theory experts have mentioned is that a person’s culture could play a large role in a person’s motivations. Nations like the United States are considered to be individualistic, while many Asian nations are considered to be collectivistic. An individualist emphasizes importance on the self and is motivated by individual reward and affirmation, while a collectivist sees the world as being more group- or culture-based. The difference in the two ways of thinking could affect motivation in information processing. For example, instead of being motivated by self-affirmation, a collectivist would be motivated by more group-affirming goals.

Another theory is that emotions can affect the way a person processes information. Forgas (2000) has stated that current mood can determine the information processing as well as thoroughness of thought. He also mentioned that achieving a desired emotion can influence the level to which information is processed.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_tactician >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

An Overview of Motivated Forgetting

Published on by Andrew Marshall2 Comments

Introduction

Motivated forgetting is a theorised psychological behaviour in which people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. It is an example of a defence mechanism, since these are unconscious or conscious coping techniques used to reduce anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful impulses thus it can be a defence mechanism in some ways. Defence mechanisms are not to be confused with conscious coping strategies.

Thought suppression is a method in which people protect themselves by blocking the recall of these anxiety-arousing memories. For example, if something reminds a person of an unpleasant event, their mind may steer towards unrelated topics. This could induce forgetting without being generated by an intention to forget, making it a motivated action. There are two main classes of motivated forgetting: psychological repression is an unconscious act, while thought suppression is a conscious form of excluding thoughts and memories from awareness.

Refer to An Overview of Motivated Reasoning and Emotional Reasoning.

Brief History

Neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot was the first to do research into hysteria as a psychological disorder in the late 19th century. Sigmund Freud, Joseph Breuer, and Pierre Janet continued with the research that Charcot began on hysteria. These three psychologists determined that hysteria was an intense emotional reaction to some form of severe psychological disturbance, and they proposed that incest and other sexual traumas were the most likely cause of hysteria. The treatment that Freud, Breuer, and Pierre agreed upon was named the talking cure and was a method of encouraging patients to recover and discuss their painful memories. During this time, Janet created the term dissociation which is referred to as a lack of integration amongst various memories. He used dissociation to describe the way in which traumatising memories are stored separately from other memories.

The idea of motivated forgetting began with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in 1894. Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud had similar views on the idea of repression of memories as a form of self-preservation. Nietzsche wrote that man must forget in able to move forward. He stated that this process is active, in that we forget specific events as a defence mechanism.

The publication of Freud’s famous paper, “The Aetiology of Hysteria”, in 1896 led to much controversy regarding the topic of these traumatic memories. Freud stated that neuroses were caused by repressed sexual memories, which suggested that incest and sexual abuse must be common throughout upper and middle class Europe. The psychological community did not accept Freud’s ideas, and years passed without further research on the topic.

It was during World War I and World War II that interest in memory disturbances was piqued again. During this time, many cases of memory loss appeared among war veterans, especially those who had experienced shell shock. Hypnosis and drugs became popular for the treatment of hysteria during the war. The term post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was introduced upon the appearance of similar cases of memory disturbances from veterans of the Korean War. Forgetting, or the inability to recall a portion of a traumatic event, was considered a key factor for the diagnosis of PTSD.

Ann Burgess and Lynda Holmstrom looked into trauma related memory loss in rape victims during the 1970s. This began a large outpouring of stories related to childhood sexual abuse. It took until 1980 to determine that memory loss due to all severe traumas was the same set of processes.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was created in 1992 as a response to the large number of memories claimed to be recovered. The FMSF was created to oppose the idea that memories could be recovered using specific techniques; instead, its members believed that the “memories” were actually confabulations created through the inappropriate use of techniques such as hypnosis.

Theories

There are many theories which are related to the process of motivated forgetting.

The main theory, the motivated forgetting theory, suggests that people forget things because they either do not want to remember them or for another particular reason. Painful and disturbing memories are made unconscious and very difficult to retrieve, but still remain in storage. Retrieval Suppression (the ability to utilise inhibitory control to prevent memories from being recalled into consciousness) is one way in which we are able to stop the retrieval of unpleasant memories using cognitive control. This theory was tested by Anderson and Green using the Think/No-Think paradigm.

The decay theory is another theory of forgetting which refers to the loss of memory over time. When information enters memory, neurons are activated. These memories are retained as long as the neurons remain active. Activation can be maintained through rehearsal or frequent recall. If activation is not maintained, the memory trace fades and decays. This usually occurs in short term memory. The decay theory is a controversial topic amongst modern psychologists. Bahrick and Hall disagree with the decay theory. They have claimed that people can remember algebra they learnt from school even years later. A refresher course brought their skill back to a high standard relatively quick. These findings suggest that there may be more to the theory of trace decay in human memory.

Another theory of motivated forgetting is interference theory, which posits that subsequent learning can interfere with and degrade a person’s memories. This theory was tested by giving participants ten nonsense syllables. Some of the participants then slept after viewing the syllables, while the other participants carried on their day as usual. The results of this experiment showed that people who stayed awake had a poor recall of the syllables, while the sleeping participants remembered the syllables better. This could have occurred due to the fact that the sleeping subjects had no interference during the experiment, while the other subjects did. There are two types of interference; proactive interference and retroactive interference. Proactive interference occurs when you are unable to learn a new task due to the interference of an old task that has already been learned. Research has been done to show that students who study similar subjects at the same time often experience interference. Retroactive interference occurs when you forget a previously learnt task due to the learning of a new task.

The Gestalt theory of forgetting, created by Gestalt psychology, suggests that memories are forgotten through distortion. This is also called false memory syndrome. This theory states that when memories lack detail, other information is put in to make the memory a whole. This leads to the incorrect recall of memories.

Criticisms

The term recovered memory, also known in some cases as a false memory, refers to the theory that some memories can be repressed by an individual and then later recovered. Recovered memories are often used as evidence in a case where the defendant is accused of either sexual or some other form of child abuse, and recently recovered a repressed memory of the abuse. This has created much controversy, and as the use of this form of evidence rises in the courts, the question has arisen as to whether or not recovered memories actually exist. In an effort to determine the factuality of false memories, several laboratories have developed paradigms in order to test whether or not false repressed memories could be purposefully implanted within a subject. As a result, the verbal paradigm was developed. This paradigm dictates that if someone is presented a number of words associated with a single non-presented word, then they are likely to falsely remember that word as presented.

Similar to the verbal paradigm is fuzzy-trace theory, which dictates that one encodes two separate things about memory: the actual information itself and the semantic information surrounding it (or the gist). If we are given a series of semantic information surrounding a false event, such as time and location, then we are more likely to falsely remember an event as occurring. Tied to that is Source Monitoring Theory, which, among other things, dictates that emotionally salient events tend to increase the power of the memory that forms from said event. Emotion also weakens our ability to remember the source from the event. Source monitoring is centralised to the anterior cingulate cortex.

Repressed memory therapy has come under heavy criticism as it is said that it follows very similar techniques that are used to purposefully implant a memory in an adult. These include: asking questions on the gist of an event, creating imagery about said gist, and attempting to discover the event from there. This, when compounded with the fact that most repressed memories are emotionally salient, the likelihood of source confusion is high. One might assume that a child abuse case one heard about actually happened to one, remembering it with the imagery established through the therapy.

Repression

The idea of psychological repression was developed in 1915 as an automatic defensive mechanism based on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model in which people subconsciously push unpleasant or intolerable thoughts and feelings into their unconscious.

When situations or memories occur that we are unable to cope with, we push them away. It is a primary ego defence mechanism that many psychotherapists readily accept. There have been numerous studies which have supported the psychoanalytic theory that states that murder, childhood trauma and sexual abuse can be repressed for a period of time and then recovered in therapy.

Repressed memories can influence behaviour unconsciously, manifesting themselves in our discussions, dreams, and emotional reactions. An example of repression would include a child who is abused by a parent, who later has no recollection of the events, but has trouble forming relationships. Freud suggested psychoanalysis as a treatment method for repressed memories. The goal of treatment was to bring repressed memories, fears and thoughts back to the conscious level of awareness.

Suppression

Thought suppression is referred to as the conscious and deliberate efforts to curtail one’s thoughts and memories. Suppression is goal-directed and it includes conscious strategies to forget, such as intentional context shifts. For example, if someone is thinking of unpleasant thoughts, ideas that are inappropriate at the moment, or images that may instigate unwanted behaviours, they may try to think of anything else but the unwanted thought in order to push the thought out of consciousness.

In order to suppress a thought, one must:

  1. Plan to suppress the thought; and
  2. Carry out that plan by suppressing all other manifestations of the thought, including the original plan.

Thought suppression seems to entail a state of knowing and not knowing all at once. It can be assumed that thought suppression is a difficult and even time consuming task. Even when thoughts are suppressed, they can return to consciousness with minimal prompting. This is why suppression has also been associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Directed Forgetting

Suppression encompasses the term directed forgetting, also known as intentional forgetting. This term refers to forgetting which is initiated by a conscious goal to forget. Intentional forgetting is important at the individual level: suppressing an unpleasant memory of a trauma or a loss that is particularly painful.

The directed forgetting paradigm is a psychological term meaning that information can be forgotten upon instruction. There are two methods of the directed forgetting paradigm: item method and list method. In both methods, the participants are instructed to forget some items, the to-be-forgotten items and remember some items, the to-be-remembered items. The directed forgetting paradigm was originally conceived by Robert Bjork. The Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab and members of the Cogfog group performed much important research using the paradigm in subsequent years.

In the item method of directed forgetting, participants are presented with a series of random to-be-remembered and to-be-forgotten items. After each item an instruction is given to the participant to either remember it, or forget it. After the study phase, when participants are told to remember or to forget subsets of the items, the participants are given a test of all the words presented. The participants were unaware that they would be tested on the to-be-forgotten items. The recall for the to-be-forgotten words are often significantly impaired compared to the to-be-remembered words. The directed forgetting effect has also been demonstrated on recognition tests. For this reason researchers believe that the item method affects episodic encoding.

In the list method procedure, the instructions to forget are given only after half of the list has been presented. These instructions are given once in the middle of the list, and once at the end of the list. The participants are told that the first list they had to study was just a practice list, and to focus their attention on the upcoming list. After the participants have conducted the study phase for the first list, a second list is presented. A final test is then given, sometimes for only the first list and other times for both lists. The participants are asked to remember all the words they studied. When participants are told they are able to forget the first list, they remember less in this list and remember more in the second list. List method directed forgetting demonstrates the ability to intentionally reduce memory retrieval. To support this theory, researchers did an experiment in which they asked participants to record 2 unique events that happened to them each day over a 5-day period in a journal. After these five days, the participants were asked to either remember or forget the events on these days. They were then asked to repeat the process for another five days, after which they were told to remember all the events in both weeks, regardless of earlier instructions. The participants that were part of the forget group had had worse recall for the first week compared to the second week.

There are two theories that can explain directed forgetting: retrieval inhibition hypothesis and context shift hypothesis.

The Retrieval Inhibition Hypothesis states that the instruction to forget the first list hinders memory of the list-one items. This hypothesis suggests that directed forgetting only reduces the retrieval of the unwanted memories, not causing permanent damage. If we intentionally forget items, they are difficult to recall but are recognized if the items are presented again.

The Context Shift Hypothesis suggests that the instructions to forget mentally separate the to-be-forgotten items. They are put into a different context from the second list. The subject’s mental context changes between the first and second list, but the context from the second list remains. This impairs the recall ability for the first list.

Psychogenic Amnesia

Motivated forgetting encompasses the term psychogenic amnesia which refers to the inability to remember past experiences of personal information, due to psychological factors rather than biological dysfunction or brain damage.

Psychogenic amnesia is not part of Freud’s theoretical framework. The memories still exist buried deeply in the mind, but could be resurfaced at any time on their own or from being exposed to a trigger in the person’s surroundings. Psychogenic amnesia is generally found in cases where there is a profound and surprising forgetting of chunks of one’s personal life, whereas motivated forgetting includes more day-to-day examples in which people forget unpleasant memories in a way that would not call for clinical evaluation.

Psychogenic Fugue

Psychogenic fugue, a form of psychogenic amnesia, is a DSM-IV Dissociative Disorder in which people forget their personal history, including who they are, for a period of hours to days following a trauma. A history of depression as well as stress, anxiety or head injury could lead to fugue states. When the person recovers they are able to remember their personal history, but they have amnesia for the events that took place during the fugue state.

Neurobiology

Motivated forgetting occurs as a result of activity that occurs within the prefrontal cortex. This was discovered by testing subjects while taking a functional MRI of their brain. The prefrontal cortex is made up of the anterior cingulate cortex, the intraparietal sulcus, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. These areas are also associated with stopping unwanted actions, which confirms the hypothesis that the suppression of unwanted memories and actions follow a similar inhibitory process. These regions are also known to have executive functions within the brain.

The anterior cingulate cortex has functions linked to motivation and emotion. The intraparietal sulcus possesses functions that include coordination between perception and motor activities, visual attention, symbolic numerical processing, visuospatial working memory, and determining the intent in the actions of other organisms. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex plans complex cognitive activities and processes decision making.

The other key brain structure involved in motivated forgetting is the hippocampus, which is responsible for the formation and recollection of memories. When the process of motivated forgetting is engaged, meaning that we actively attempt to suppress our unwanted memories, the prefrontal cortex exhibits higher activity than baseline, while suppressing hippocampal activity at the same time. It has been proposed that the executive areas which control motivation and decision-making lessen the functioning of the hippocampus in order to stop the recollection of the selected memories that the subject has been motivated to forget.

Examples

War

Motivated forgetting has been a crucial aspect of psychological study relating to such traumatising experiences as rape, torture, war, natural disasters, and homicide. Some of the earliest documented cases of memory suppression and repression relate to veterans of the Second World War. The number of cases of motivated forgetting was high during war times, mainly due to factors associated with the difficulties of trench life, injury, and shell shock. At the time that many of these cases were documented, there were limited medical resources to deal with many of these soldiers’ mental well-being. There was also a weaker understanding of the aspects of memory suppression and repression.

Case of a Soldier (1917)

The repression of memories was the prescribed treatment by many doctors and psychiatrists, and was deemed effective for the management of these memories. Unfortunately, many soldiers’ traumas were much too vivid and intense to be dealt with in this manner, as described in the journal of Dr. Rivers. One soldier, who entered the hospital after losing consciousness due to a shell explosion, is described as having a generally pleasant demeanour. This was disrupted by his sudden onsets of depression occurring approximately every 10 days. This intense depression, leading to suicidal feelings, rendered him unfit to return to war. It soon became apparent that these symptoms were due to the patient’s repressed thoughts and apprehensions about returning to war. Dr. Smith suggested that this patient face his thoughts and allow himself to deal with his feelings and anxieties. Although this caused the soldier to take on a significantly less cheery state, he only experienced one more minor bout of depression.

Abuse

Many cases of motivated forgetting have been reported in regards to recovered memories of childhood abuse. Many cases of abuse, particularly those performed by relatives or figures of authority, can lead to memory suppression and repression of varying amounts of time. One study indicates that 31% of abuse victims were aware of at least some forgetting of their abuse and a collaboration of seven studies has shown that one eighth to one quarter of abuse victims have periods of complete unawareness (amnesia) of the incident or series of events. There are many factors associated with forgetting abuse including: younger age at onset, threats/intense emotions, more types of abuse, and increased number of abusers. Cued recovery has been shown in 90% of cases, usually with one specific event triggering the memory. For example, the return of incest memories have been shown to be brought on by television programs about incest, the death of the perpetrator, the abuse of the subject’s own child, and seeing the site of abuse. In a study by Herman and Schatzow, confirming evidence was found for the same proportion of individuals with continuous memories of abuse as those individuals who had recovered memories. 74% of cases from each group were confirmed. Cases of Mary de Vries and Claudia show examples of confirmed recovered memories of sexual abuse.

Legal Controversy

Motivated forgetting and repressed memories have become a very controversial issue within the court system. Courts are currently dealing with historical cases, in particular a relatively new phenomenon known as historic child sexual abuse (HCSA). HCSA refers to allegations of child abuse having occurred several years prior to the time at which they are being prosecuted.

Unlike most American states, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have no statute of limitations to limit the prosecution of historical offenses. Therefore, legal decision-makers in each case need to evaluate the credibility of allegations that may go back many years. It is nearly impossible to provide evidence for many of these historical abuse cases. It is therefore extremely important to consider the credibility of the witness and accused in making a decision regarding guiltiness of the defendant.

One of the main arguments against the credibility of historical allegations, involving the retrieval of repressed memories, is found in false memory syndrome. False memory syndrome claims that through therapy and the use of suggestive techniques, clients mistakenly come to believe that they were sexually abused as children.

In the United States, the statute of limitations requires that legal action be taken within three to five years of the incident of interest. Exceptions are made for minors, where the child has until they reach eighteen years of age.

There are many factors related to the age at which child abuse cases may be presented. These include bribes, threats, dependency on the abuser, and ignorance of the child to their state of harm. All of these factors may lead a person, who has been harmed, to require more time to present their case. As well as seen in the case below of Jane Doe and Jane Roe, time may be required if memories of the abuse have been repressed or suppressed. In 1981, the statute was adjusted to make exceptions for those individuals who were not consciously aware that their situation was harmful. This rule was called the discovery rule. This rule is to be used by the court as deemed necessary by the Judge of that case.

Psychogenic Amnesia

Severe cases of trauma may lead to psychogenic amnesia, or the loss of all memories occurring around the event.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_forgetting >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

An Overview of Motivated Reasoning

Published on by Andrew Marshall4 Comments

Introduction

Motivated reasoning (motivational reasoning bias) is a cognitive and social response in which individuals, consciously or sub-consciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived. Individuals tend to favour evidence that coincides with their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts them, despite contrary evidence.

Motivated reasoning overlaps with confirmation bias. Both favour evidence supporting one’s beliefs, at the same time dismissing contradictory evidence. However, confirmation bias is mainly a sub-conscious (innate) cognitive bias. In contrast, motivated reasoning (motivational bias) is a sub-conscious or conscious process by which one’s emotions control the evidence supported or dismissed. For confirmation bias, the evidence or arguments can be logical as well as emotional.

Motivated reasoning can be classified into two categories:

  1. Accuracy-oriented (non-directional), in which the motive is to arrive at an accurate conclusion, irrespective of the individual’s beliefs; and
  2. Goal-oriented (directional), in which the motive is to arrive at a particular conclusion.

Refer to Motivated Forgetting, Emotional Reasoning, and Motivated Tactician.

Definitions

Motivated reasoning is a cognitive and social response, in which individuals, consciously or unconsciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived. Individuals tend to favour arguments that support their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts these beliefs.

Motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance are closely related. Both motivated reasoning and confirmation bias favour evidence supporting one’s beliefs, at the same time dismissing contradictory evidence. Motivated reasoning (motivational bias) is an unconscious or conscious process by which personal emotions control the evidence that is supported or dismissed. However, confirmation bias is mainly an unconscious (innate, implicit) cognitive bias, and the evidence or arguments utilised can be logical as well as emotional. More broadly, it is feasible that motivated reasoning can moderate cognitive biases generally, including confirmation bias.

Individual differences such as political beliefs can moderate the emotional/motivational effect. In addition, social context (groupthink, peer pressure) also partly controls the evidence utilised for motivated reasoning, particularly in dysfunctional societies. Social context moderates emotions, which in turn moderate beliefs.

Motivated reasoning differs from critical thinking, in which beliefs are assessed with a sceptical but open-minded attitude.

Cognitive Dissonance

Individuals are compelled to initiate motivated reasoning to lessen the amount of cognitive dissonance they feel. Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of psychological and physiological stress and unease between two conflicting cognitive and/or emotional elements (such as the desire to smoke, despite knowing it is unhealthy). According to Leon Festinger, there are two paths individuals can engage in to reduce the amount of distress: the first is altering behaviour or cognitive bias; the second, more common path is avoiding or discrediting information or situations that would create dissonance.

Research suggests that reasoning away contradictions is psychologically easier than revising feelings. Emotions tend to colour how “facts” are perceived. Feelings come first, and evidence is used in service of those feelings. Evidence that supports what is already believed is accepted; evidence which contradicts those beliefs is not.

Mechanisms: Cold and Hot Cognition

The notion that motives or goals affect reasoning has a long and controversial history in social psychology. This is because supportive research could be reinterpreted in entirely cognitive non-motivational terms (the hot versus cold cognition controversy). This controversy existed because of a failure to explore mechanisms underlying motivated reasoning.

Early research on how humans evaluated and integrated information supported a cognitive approach consistent with Bayesian probability, in which individuals weighted new information using rational calculations (“cold cognition”). More recent theories endorse these cognitive processes as only partial explanations of motivated reasoning, but have also introduced motivational[1] or affective (emotional) processes (“hot cognition”).

Kunda Theory

Ziva Kunda reviewed research and developed a theoretical model to explain the mechanism by which motivated reasoning results in bias. Motivation to arrive at a desired conclusion provides a level of arousal, which acts as an initial trigger for the operation of cognitive processes. To participate in motivated reasoning, either consciously or subconsciously, an individual first needs to be motivated. Motivation then affects reasoning by influencing the knowledge structures (beliefs, memories, information) that are accessed and the cognitive processes used.

Lodge–Taber Theory

Milton Lodge and Charles Taber introduced an empirically supported model in which affect is intricately tied to cognition, and information processing is biased toward support for positions that the individual already holds. Their model has three components:

  • On-line processing, in which, when called on to make an evaluation, people instantly draw on stored information which is marked with affect;
  • A component by which affect is automatically activated along with the cognitive node to which it is tied; and
  • An “heuristic mechanism” for evaluating new information, which triggers a reflection on “How do I feel?” about this topic. This process results in a bias towards maintaining existing affect, even in the face of other, disconfirming information.

This theory is developed and evaluated in their book The Rationalizing Voter (2013). David Redlawsk (2002) found that the timing of when disconfirming information was introduced played a role in determining bias. When subjects encounter incongruity during an information search, the automatic assimilation and update process is interrupted. This results in one of two outcomes:

  • Subjects may enhance attitude strength in a desire to support existing affect (resulting in degradation in decision quality and potential bias); or
  • Subjects may counter-argue existing beliefs in an attempt to integrate the new data.

This second outcome is consistent with research on how processing occurs when one is tasked with accuracy goals.

To summarise, the two models differ in that Kunda identifies a primary role for cognitive strategies such as memory processes, and the use of rules in determining biased information selection, whereas Lodge and Taber identify a primary role for affect in guiding cognitive processes and maintaining bias.

Neuroscientific Evidence

A neuroimaging study by Drew Westen and colleagues does not support the use of cognitive processes in motivated reasoning, lending greater support to affective processing as a key mechanism in supporting bias. This study, designed to test the neural circuitry of individuals engaged in motivated reasoning, found that motivated reasoning “was not associated with neural activity in regions previously linked with cold reasoning tasks [Bayesian reasoning] nor conscious (explicit) emotion regulation”.

This neuroscience data suggests that “motivated reasoning is qualitatively distinct from reasoning when people do not have a strong emotional stake in the conclusions reached.” However, if there is a strong emotion attached during their previous round of motivated reasoning and that emotion is again present when the individual’s conclusion is reached, a strong emotional stake is then attached to the conclusion. Any new information in regards to that conclusion will cause motivated reasoning to reoccur. This can create pathways within the neural network that further ingrain the reasoned beliefs of that individual along similar neural networks to where logical reasoning occurs. This causes the strong emotion to reoccur when confronted with contradictory information, time and time again. This is referred to by Lodge and Taber as affective contagion. But instead of “infecting” other individuals, the emotion “infects” the individual’s reasoning pathways and conclusions.

Categories

Motivated reasoning can be classified into two categories:

  1. Accuracy-oriented (non-directional), in which the motive is to arrive at an accurate conclusion, irrespective of the individual’s beliefs; and
  2. Goal-oriented (directional), in which the motive is to arrive at a particular conclusion.

Politically motivated reasoning, in particular, is strongly directional.

Despite their differences in information processing, an accuracy-motivated and a goal-motivated individual can reach the same conclusion. Both accuracy-oriented and directional-oriented messages move in the desired direction. However, the distinction lies in crafting effective communication, where those who are accuracy motivated will respond better to credible evidence catered to the community, while those who are goal-oriented will feel less threatened when the issue is framed to fit their identity or values.

Accuracy-Oriented (Non-Directional) Motivated Reasoning

Several works on accuracy-driven reasoning suggest that when people are motivated to be accurate, they expend more cognitive effort, attend to relevant information more carefully, and process it more deeply, often using more complex rules.

Kunda asserts that accuracy goals delay the process of coming to a premature conclusion, in that accuracy goals increase both the quantity and quality of processing—particularly in leading to more complex inferential cognitive processing procedures. When researchers manipulated test subjects’ motivation to be accurate by informing them that the target task was highly important or that they would be expected to defend their judgments, it was found that subjects utilized deeper processing and that there was less biasing of information. This was true when accuracy motives were present at the initial processing and encoding of information. In reviewing a line of research on accuracy goals and bias, Kunda concludes, “several different kinds of biases have been shown to weaken in the presence of accuracy goals”. However, accuracy goals do not always eliminate biases and improve reasoning: some biases (e.g. those resulting from using the availability heuristic) might be resistant to accuracy manipulations. For accuracy to reduce bias, the following conditions must be present:

  • Subjects must possess appropriate reasoning strategies.
  • They must view these as superior to other strategies.
  • They must be capable of using these strategies at will.

However, these last two conditions introduce the construct that accuracy goals include a conscious process of utilising cognitive strategies in motivated reasoning. This construct is called into question by neuroscience research that concludes that motivated reasoning is qualitatively distinct from reasoning in which there is no strong emotional stake in the outcomes. Accuracy-oriented individuals who are thought to use “objective” processing can vary in information updating, depending on how much faith they place in a provided piece of evidence and inability to detect misinformation that can lead to beliefs that diverge from scientific consensus.

Goal-Oriented (Directional) Motivated Reasoning

Directional goals enhance the accessibility of knowledge structures (memories, beliefs, information) that are consistent with desired conclusions. According to Kunda, such goals can lead to biased memory search and belief construction mechanisms. Several studies support the effect of directional goals in selection and construction of beliefs about oneself, other people and the world.

Cognitive dissonance research provides extensive evidence that people may bias their self-characterisations when motivated to do so. Other biases such as confirmation bias, prior attitude effect and disconfirmation bias could contribute to goal-oriented motivated reasoning. For example, in one study, subjects altered their self-view by viewing themselves as more extroverted when induced to believe that extroversion was beneficial.

Michael Thaler of Princeton University, conducted a study that found that men are more likely than women to demonstrate performance-motivated reasoning due to a gender gap in beliefs about personal performance. After a second study was conducted the conclusion was drawn that both men and women are susceptible to motivated reasoning, but certain motivated beliefs can be separated into genders.

The motivation to achieve directional goals could also influence which rules (procedural structures, such as inferential rules) are accessed to guide the search for information. Studies also suggest that evaluation of scientific evidence may be biased by whether the conclusions are in line with the reader’s beliefs.

In spite of goal-oriented motivated reasoning, people are not at liberty to conclude whatever they want merely because of that want. People tend to draw conclusions only if they can muster up supportive evidence. They search memory for those beliefs and rules that could support their desired conclusion or they could create new beliefs to logically support their desired goals.

Case Studies

Smoking

When an individual is trying to quit smoking, they might engage in motivated reasoning to convince themselves to keep smoking. They might focus on information that makes smoking seem less harmful while discrediting any evidence which emphasizes any dangers associated with the behaviour. Individuals in situations like this are driven to initiate motivated reasoning to lessen the amount of cognitive dissonance they feel. This can make it harder for individuals to quit and lead to continued smoking, even though they know it is not good for their health.

Political Bias

Peter Ditto and his students conducted a meta-analysis in 2018 of studies relating to political bias. Their aim was to assess which US political orientation (left/liberal or right/conservative) was more biased and initiated more motivated reasoning. They found that both political orientations are susceptible to bias to the same extent. The analysis was disputed by Jonathan Baron and John Jost, to whom Ditto and colleagues responded. Reviewing the debate, Stuart Vyse concluded that the answer to the question of whether US liberals or conservatives are more biased is: “We don’t know.”

On 22 April 2011, The New York Times published a series of articles attempting to explain the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. One of these articles by political scientist David Redlawsk explained these “birther” conspiracies as an example of political motivated reasoning. US presidential candidates are required to be born in the US. Despite ample evidence that President Barack Obama was born in the US state of Hawaii, many people continue to believe that he was not born in the US, and therefore that he was an illegitimate president. Similarly, many people believe he is a Muslim (as was his father), despite ample lifetime evidence of his Christian beliefs and practice (as was true of his mother). Subsequent research by others suggested that political partisan identity was more important for motivating “birther” beliefs than for some other conspiracy beliefs such as 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Climate Change

Despite a scientific consensus on climate change, citizens are divided on the topic, particularly along political lines. A significant segment of the American public has fixed beliefs, either because they are not politically engaged, or because they hold strong beliefs that are unlikely to change. Liberals and progressives generally believe, based on extensive evidence, that human activity is the main driver of climate change. By contrast, conservatives are generally much less likely to hold this belief, and a subset believes that there is no human involvement, and that the reported evidence is faulty (or even fraudulent). A prominent explanation is political directional motivated reasoning, in that conservatives are more likely to reject new evidence that contradicts their long established beliefs. In addition, some highly directional climate deniers not only discredit scientific information on human-induced climate change but also to seek contrary evidence that leads to a posterior belief of greater denial.

A study by Robin Bayes and colleagues of the human-induced climate change views of 1,960 members of the Republican Party found that both accuracy and directional motives move in the desired direction, but only in the presence of politically motivated messages congruent with the induced beliefs.

Social Media

Social media is used for many different purposes and ways of spreading opinions. It is the number one place people go to get information and most of that information is complete opinion and bias. The way this applies to motivated reasoning is the way it spreads. “However, motivated reasoning suggests that informational uses of social media are conditioned by various social and cultural ways of thinking”. All ideas and opinions are shared and makes it very easy for motivated reasoning and biases to come through when searching for an answer or just facts on the internet or any news source.

COVID-19

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, people who refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated may engage in motivated reasoning to justify their beliefs and actions. They may reject scientific evidence that supports mask-wearing and vaccination and instead seek out information that supports their pre-existing beliefs, such as conspiracy theories or misinformation. This can lead to behaviours that are harmful to both themselves and others.

In a 2020 study, Van Bavel and colleagues explored the concept of motivated reasoning as a contributor to the spread of misinformation and resistance to public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their results indicated that people often engage in motivated reasoning when processing information about the pandemic, interpreting it to confirm their pre-existing beliefs and values. The authors argue that addressing motivated reasoning is critical to promoting effective public health messaging and reducing the spread of misinformation. They suggested several strategies, such as reframing public health messages to align with individuals’ values and beliefs. In addition, they suggested using trusted sources to convey information by creating social norms that support public health behaviours.

Outcomes and Tackling Strategies

The outcomes of motivated reasoning derive from “a biased set of cognitive processes—that is, strategies for accessing, constructing, and evaluating beliefs. The motivation to be accurate enhances use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas the motivation to arrive at particular conclusions enhances use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion.” Careful or “reflective” reasoning has been linked to both overcoming and reinforcing motivated reasoning, suggesting that reflection is not a panacea, but a tool that can be used for rational or irrational purposes depending on other factors. For example, when people are presented with and forced to think analytically about something complex that they lack adequate knowledge of (i.e. being presented with a new study on meteorology whilst having no degree in the subject), there is no directional shift in thinking, and their extant conclusions are more likely to be supported with motivated reasoning. Conversely, if they are presented with a more simplistic test of analytical thinking that confronts their beliefs (i.e. seeing implausible headlines as false), motivated reasoning is less likely to occur and a directional shift in thinking may result.

Hostile Media Effect

Research on motivated reasoning tested accuracy goals (i.e. reaching correct conclusions) and directional goals (i.e. reaching preferred conclusions). Factors such as these affect perceptions; and results confirm that motivated reasoning affects decision-making and estimates. These results have far reaching consequences because, when confronted with a small amount of information contrary to an established belief, an individual is motivated to reason away the new information, contributing to a hostile media effect. If this pattern continues over an extended period of time, the individual becomes more entrenched in their beliefs.

Tipping Point

However, recent studies have shown that motivated reasoning can be overcome. “When the amount of incongruency is relatively small, the heightened negative affect does not necessarily override the motivation to maintain [belief].” However, there is evidence of a theoretical “tipping point” where the amount of incongruent information that is received by the motivated reasoner can turn certainty into anxiety. This anxiety of being incorrect may lead to a change of opinion to the better.

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