Text Box:                                Core Research Topic:                                                                                  What is Hot Cognition? My Hot Cognition La

Text Box:    Motivated Reasoning                                                                                 What is Hot Cognition? My Hot Cognition La

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box:     Motivated Reasoning is a term coined by the late social psychologist Ziva Kunda to describe how the way we process information can be affected by our goals and desires.  There are many ways that our reasoning can be motivated.  Sometimes we care a lot about the accuracy of our judgments (e.g., when we are trying to assess which college would be best for us to attend), and other times we aren't nearly as concerned about accuracy.  Sometimes we are motivated to reach any kind of conclusion quickly (we need cognitive "closure"), and other times we are under less pressure to reach a quick conclusion. The type of motivated reasoning that has received the most research attention, and the kind in which our lab is most interested, is when people make judgments in situations where they have a strong preference to reach one conclusion rather than another.  When we make judgments about important issues in our lives, those judgments are often accompanied by strong wishes, needs, hopes, and fears.  In many situations we prefer the judgment to turn out one way rather than the other – we would rather a medical test tell us we are healthy rather the sick, we prefer that a love interest feel positively about us rather than negatively.  Denial and wishful thinking are everyday terms that people use to describe this kind of motivated reasoning.  Our research on motivated reasoning has been focused on developing a theoretical model of how preferences affect judgment and decision making processes.  The key challenge to such models is to account for how people "walk the line" between the dictates of passion and reason.  That is, how are people able to be generally sensitive to data and logic, but at the same time adroitly bend (but not break) that logic in way that allows them quite frequently to believe what they want to believe?   We are also interested in exploring the consequences of motivated reasoning processes in important real world judgments, such as those involved in medical, moral, and political decision making.    Key Readings:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F.  (1992).  Motivated skepticism:  Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 568-584. Ditto, P. H., Scepansky, J. A., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., & Lockhart, L. K.  (1998).  Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 53-69. Ditto, P. H., Munro, G. D., Apanovich, A. M., Scepansky, J. A., & Lockhart, L. K.  (2003).  Spontaneous skepticism:  The interplay of motivation and expectation in responses to favorable and unfavorable medical diagnoses.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1120-1132.       for a full list of papers on this topic.       to return to Ditto Home