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Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 30, Number 3—Summer 2016—Pages 133–140
Whenever we see voters explain away their preferred candidate’s weak-
nesses, dieters assert that a couple scoops of ice cream won’t really hurt
their weight loss goals, or parents maintain that their children are unusu-
ally gifted, we are reminded that people’s preferences can affect their beliefs. This
idea is captured in the common saying, “People believe what they want to believe.”
But people don’t simply believe what they want to believe. The psychological
mechanisms that produce motivated beliefs are much more complicated than that.
Personally, we’d like to believe that our contributions to the psychological literature
might someday rival those of Daniel Kahneman, but, try as we might, the disparity in
citations, prizes, invitations—you name it—makes holding such a belief impossible.
People generally reason their way to conclusions they favor, with their preferences
influencing the way evidence is gathered, arguments are processed, and memories of
past experience are recalled. Each of these processes can be affected in subtle ways by
people’s motivations, leading to biased beliefs that feel objective (Gilovich and Ross
2015; Pronin, Gilovich, and Ross 2004). As Kunda (1990) put it, “people motivated
to arrive at a particular conclusion attempt to be rational and to construct a justifica-
tion of their desired conclusion that would persuade a dispassionate observer. They
draw the desired conclusion only if they can muster up the evidence necessary to
support it” (p. 482–83). Motivated reasoning is constrained.
The Mechanics of Motivated Reasoning
■ Nicholas Epley is the John T. Keller Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Chicago,
Booth School of Business, Chicago, Illinois. Thomas Gilovich is the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld
Professor of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Their email addresses are
epley@chicagobooth.edu and tdg1@cornell.edu.
†
For supplementary materials such as appendices, datasets, and author disclosure statements, see the
article page at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.30.3.133 doi=10.1257/jep.30.3.133
Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich
134 Journal of Economic Perspectives
Psychological research makes it clear, in other words, that “motivated beliefs”
are guided by motivated reasoning—reasoning in the service of some self-interest,
to be sure, but reasoning nonetheless. We hope that being explicit about what
psychologists have learned about motivated reasoning will help clarify the types of
motivated beliefs that people are most likely to hold, specify when such beliefs are
likely to be strong and when they are likely to be relatively weak or fragile, and illu-
minate when they are likely to guide people’s behavior.
In this introduction, we set the stage for the discussion of motivated beliefs in
the papers that follow by providing more detail about the underlying psycholog-
ical processes that guide motivated reasoning, including a discussion of the varied
motives that drive motivated reasoning and a description of how goals can direct
motivated reasoning to produce systematically biased beliefs. The first paper in
this symposium, by Roland Bénabou and Jean Tirole, presents a theoretical frame-
work for how motives might influence behavior in several important domains; two
additional papers focus on specific motives that can guide motivated reasoning:
Russell Golman, George Loewenstein, Karl Ove Moene, and Luca Zarri discuss how
a “preference for belief consonance” leads people to try to reduce the gap between
their beliefs and those of relevant others, and Francesca Gino, Michael Norton, and
Roberto Weber consider how people engage in motivated reasoning to feel as if they
are acting morally, even while acting egoistically.
A more detailed understanding of motivated beliefs and motivated reasoning
yields a middle-ground view of the quality of human judgment and decision-making.
It is now abundantly clear that people are not as smart and sophisticated as rational
agent models assert (Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Thaler 1991; Simon 1956), in
the sense that people do not process information in unbiased ways. But people
are also not as simple-minded, naïve, and prone to simply ignoring unpalatable
information as a shallow understanding (or reporting) of motivated beliefs might
suggest.
Motives for Reasoning
People reason to prepare for action, and so reasoning is motivated by the goals
people are trying to achieve. A coach trying to win a game thinks about an oppo-
nent’s likely moves more intensely than a cheerleader trying to energize the crowd.
A lawyer trying to defend a client looks for evidence of innocence, whereas a lawyer
seeking to convict tries to construct a chain of reasoning that will lead to a guilty
verdict. A person feeling guilty about harming another focuses on ways to assuage
the guilt, while the person harmed is likely to focus on the nature and extent of the
harm. As the great psychologist and philosopher William James (1890, p. 333) wrote
more than a century ago: “My thinking, is first and last and always for the sake of my
doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.”
One of the complexities in understanding motivated reasoning is that people
have many goals, ranging from the fundamental imperatives of survival and
Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich 135
reproduction to the more proximate goals that help us survive and reproduce, such
as achieving social status, maintaining cooperative social relationships, holding
accurate beliefs and expectations, and having consistent beliefs that enable effective
action. Sometimes reasoning directed at one goal undermines another. A person
trying to persuade others about a particular point is likely to focus on reasons why
his arguments are valid and decisive—an attentional focus that could make the
person more compelling in the eyes of others but also undermine the accuracy
of his assessments (Anderson, Brion, Moore, and Kennedy 2012). A person who
recognizes that a set of beliefs is strongly held by a group of peers is likely to seek
out and welcome information supporting those beliefs, while maintaining a much
higher level of skepticism about contradictory information (as Golman, Loewen-
stein, Moene, and Zarri discuss in this symposium). A company manager narrowly
focused on the bottom line may find ways to rationalize or disregard the ethical
implications of actions that advance short-term profitability (as Gino, Norton, and
Weber discuss in this symposium).
The crucial point is that the process of gathering and processing information
can systematically depart from accepted rational standards because one goal—
desire to persuade, agreement with a peer group, self-image, self-preservation—can
commandeer attention and guide reasoning at the expense of accuracy. Econo-
mists are well aware of crowding-out effects in markets. For psychologists, motivated
reasoning represents an example of crowding-out in attention.
In any given instance, it can be a challenge to figure out which goals are
guiding reasoning. Consider the often-cited examples of “ above-average” effects in
self-evaluation: on almost any desirable human trait, from kindness to trustworthi-
ness to the ability to get along with others, the average person consistently rates
him- or herself above average (Alicke and Govorun 2005; Dunning, Meyerowitz,
and Holzberg 1989; Klar and Giladi 1997). An obvious explanation for this result
is that people’s reasoning is guided by egoism, or the goal to think well of oneself.
Indeed, a certain percentage of above-average effects can be explained by egoism
because unrelated threats to people’s self-image tend to increase the tendency for
people to think they are better than others, in an apparent effort to bolster their
self-image (as in Beauregard and Dunning 1998).
But above-average effects also reflect people’s sincere attempts to assess accu-
rately their standing in the world. For instance, many traits are ambiguous and hard
to define, such as leadership or creativity. When people try to understand where
they stand relative to their peers on a given trait, people quite naturally focus on
what they know best about that trait—and what they know best are the personal
strengths that guide their own lives. As Thomas Schelling (1978, pp. 64–65) put it,
“Careful drivers give weight to care, skillful drivers give weight to skill, and those
who think that, whatever else they are not, at least they are polite, give weight to
courtesy, and come out high on their own scale. This is the way that every child has
the best dog on the block.” The above-average effect, in other words, can result from
a self-enhancement goal, or from a non-motivated tendency to define traits egocen-
trically. Supporting Schelling’s analysis, the above-average effect is significantly
136 Journal of Economic Perspectives
reduced when traits are given precise definitions, or when the traits are inherently
less ambiguous such as “punctual” or “tall” (Dunning, Meyerowitz, and Holzberg
1989).
Knowing which goal is guiding reasoning is critical for predicting the influence
of specific interventions. For example, economists routinely predict that biases in
judgment will be reduced when the stakes for accurate responding are high. This
prediction implicitly assumes that people are not trying to be accurate already. But
in fact, many cognitive biases are not affected by increased incentives for accuracy
because the individuals in question are already trying hard to be accurate (Camerer
and Hogarth 1999). Increasing the incentive to achieve a goal should influence
behavior only when people are not already trying to achieve that goal.
How Motives Influence Beliefs
Understanding that multiple goals can shape reasoning does not explain
how reasoning can become systematically biased. Reasoning involves the recruit-
ment and evaluation of evidence. Goals can distort both of these basic cognitive
processes.
Recruiting Evidence
When recruiting evidence to evaluate the validity of a given belief, an impartial
judge would consider all of the available evidence. Most people do not reason like
impartial judges, but instead recruit evidence like attorneys, looking for evidence
that supports a desired belief while trying to steer clear of evidence that refutes
it. In one memorable example, essayist Johanna Gohmann (2015) describes her
improbable teenage crush on the actor Jimmy Stewart, and her reaction as she
learned more and more about Mr. Stewart: “As I flipped through the pages my
eyes skimmed words like ‘womanizer’ and ‘FBI informant,’ and I slapped it shut,
reading no further.” If you avoid recruiting evidence that you would prefer not to
believe, your beliefs will be based on only a comforting slice of the available facts.
One prominent example of motivated avoidance comes from studies of people’s
reactions to the prospect of having Huntington’s disease: few people who are at risk
of getting the disease get tested before showing symptoms, and those with symptoms
who avoid testing have beliefs that are just as optimistic as those who show no symp-
toms (Oster, Shoulson, and Dorsey 2013).
Even when people do not actively avoid information, psychological research
consistently demonstrates that they have an easier time recruiting evidence
supporting what they want to be true than evidence supporting what they want to be
false. But even here, people are still responsive to reality and don’t simply believe
whatever they want to believe. Instead, they recruit subsets of the relevant evidence
that are biased in favor of what they want to believe. Failing to recognize the biased
nature of their information search leaves people feeling that their belief is firmly
supported by the relevant evidence.
The Mechanics of Motivated Reasoning 137
Biased information processing can be understood as a general tendency for
people to ask themselves very different questions when evaluating propositions they
favor versus oppose (Gilovich 1991). When considering propositions they would prefer
to be true, people tend to ask themselves something like “Can I believe this?” This
evidentiary standard is rather easy to meet; after all, some evidence can usually be found
even for highly dubious propositions. Some patients will get better after undergoing
even a worthless treatment; someone is bound to conform to even the most baseless
stereotype; some fact can be found to support even the wackiest conspiracy theory.
In contrast, when considering propositions they would prefer not be true, people
tend to ask themselves something like “Must I believe this?” This evidentiary standard
is harder to meet; after all, some contradictory evidence can be found for almost
any proposition. Not all patients benefit from demonstrably effective treatments;
not all group members conform to the stereotypes of their group; even the most
comprehensive web of evidence will have a few holes. More compelling evidence is
therefore required to pass this “Must I?” standard. In this way, people can again end
up believing what they want to believe, not through mindless wishful thinking but
rather through genuine reasoning processes that seem sound to the person doing it.
In one study that supports this Can I?/Must I? distinction, students were told
that they would be tested for an enzyme deficiency that would lead to pancreatic
disorders later in life, even among those (like presumably all of them) who were not
currently experiencing any symptoms (Ditto and Lopez 1992). The test consisted
of depositing a small amount of saliva in a cup and then putting a piece of litmus
paper into the saliva. Half the participants were told they would know they had the
enzyme deficiency if the paper changed color; the other half were told they would
know they had it if the paper did not change color. The paper was such that it did
not change color for anyone.
Participants in these two conditions reacted very differently to the same result—
the unchanged litmus paper. Those who thought it reflected good news were quick
to accept that verdict and did not keep the paper in the cup very long. Those who
thought the unchanged color reflected bad news, in contrast, tried to recruit more
evidence. They kept the paper in the cup significantly longer, even trying out (as
the investigators put it) “a variety of different testing behaviors, such as placing the
test strip directly on their tongue, multiple redipping of the original test strip (up
to 12 times), as well as shaking, wiping, blowing on, and in general quite carefully
scrutinizing the recalcitrant . . . test strip.” A signal that participants wanted to receive
was quickly accepted; a signal they did not want to receive was subjected to more
extensive testing.
People’s motivations thus do not directly influence what they believe. Instead,
their motivations guide what information they consider, resulting in favorable
conclusions that seem mandated by the available evidence.
Evaluating Evidence
Of course, even when looking at the very same evidence, people with different
goals can interpret it differently and come to different conclusions. In one telling
138 Journal of Economic Perspectives
experiment cited in this symposium, participants who were randomly assigned to
play the role of a prosecuting attorney judged the evidence presented in trial to be
more consistent with the defendant’s guilt than did participants randomly assigned
to play the role of the defense attorney (Babcock and Loewenstein 1997).
These distorting influences can take many forms, influencing the apparent
meaning of the evidence before us. For instance, any given action can be thought of
in multiple ways. A father lifting a child off the floor could be described as “picking
up a child” or “caring for the child.” The two equally apt descriptions have very
different meanings. Caring for a child is a more significant, benevolent act than
simply picking up the child. A person trying to extol a parent’s character will be
more likely to code the event in a higher-level term like “caring” than a person
trying to demean a parent’s character. Differences in how people construe the very
same action can lead two people to observe the same event but “see” very different
things (Maas, Salvi, Arcuri, and Semin 1989; Trope and Lieberman 2003; Vallacher
and Wegner 1987).
Psychologists have examined a host of ways in which people’s goals influence
how they evaluate information, and we won’t review that voluminous literature
here. But it is worth noting that psychologists have been especially interested in
the distortions that arise in the service of consistency. Leon Festinger’s (1957)
theory of cognitive dissonance has been particularly influential. The central idea
is that people are motivated to reconcile any inconsistencies between their actions,
attitudes, beliefs, or values. When two beliefs are in conflict, or when an action
contradicts a personal value, the individual experiences an unpleasant state of
arousal that leads to psychological efforts to dampen or erase the discrepancy, often
by changing a belief or attitude.
Festinger’s (1957) theory stemmed in part from his earlier work on group
dynamics and what he called “pressures to uniformity” (Festinger 1950). When
differences of opinion arise within a group, a palpable tension arises that group
members try to resolve. That tension, he maintained, is diminished only when
agreement is achieved, typically by the majority pressuring the minority to go along.
Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance essentially took what he had observed in
groups and put it in the head of the individual: that is, what plays out interperson-
ally in group dynamics also takes place in individual psychodynamics. We all feel
psychological discomfort when our actions, attitudes, beliefs, or values conflict, and
that discomfort leads us to seek ways to reduce the dissonance.
By focusing on cognitive processes that occur in the head of the individual,
Festinger (1957) helped to usher in a period in which social psychology became
a lot less social. But dissonance reduction is often a group effort. We help one
another feel better about potentially upsetting inconsistencies in our thoughts
and deeds. Our friends reassure us that we chose the right job, the right house,
or the right spouse. We console an acquaintance who’s messed up by saying that
“it’s not so bad,” “he had it coming,” or “things would have turned out the same
regardless of what you did.” Indeed, whole societies help their members justify the
ill-treatment of minorities, the skewed division of resources, or the degradation of
Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich 139
the environment through a variety of mechanisms, including everyday discourse,
mass media messages, the criminal code, and even how the physical environment
is structured.
The social element of rationalization and dissonance reduction fits nicely with
the insightful piece by Golman, Loewenstein, Moene, and Zarri on people’s prefer-
ence for belief consonance. Furthermore, by connecting the preference for belief
consonance to the existing literature on dissonance reduction, a great body of
empirical research can be tapped to advance our understanding of when and why
people will have an easy time achieving the belief consonance they seek, and when
and why they are likely to struggle.
Coda
The most memorable line from the classic film Gone with the Wind—indeed,
the most memorable line in the history of American movies according to the Amer-
ican Film Institute—is Rhett Butler’s dismissive comment, “Frankly Scarlett, I don’t
give a damn.” But a different line from that film has attracted more interest from
psychologists: Scarlett O’Hara’s frequent lament, “I can’t think about that right
now. . . . I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
The comment captures people’s intuitive understanding of how motivations
and emotions influence our judgments and decisions. When Scarlett doesn’t want
to accept some unwelcome possibility, she willfully cuts herself off from the relevant
evidence. She can continue to believe what she wants because she never consults
evidence that would lead her to believe differently.
Scarlet’s path is one way that people can end up believing what they want
to believe. But as we have noted, there are many others. Furthermore, people’s
preferred beliefs, developed and sustained through whatever path, guide their
behavior whenever they are called to mind as choices are made. The path from
motives to beliefs to choices should not be a black box to be filled with analyti-
cally convenient assumptions. Different motives can guide reasoning in different
ways on different occasions—altering how information is recruited and evaluated—
depending on what a person is preparing to do. We are delighted to see a topic with
such a long history in psychological science being taken seriously by economists.
■ Thanks to George Loewenstein, who took the leading role in stimulating and organizing the
papers that appear in this symposium.
140 Journal of Economic Perspectives
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