Motivated reasoning moves people to justify decisions, actions or outcomes that they most desire in spite of contradictory evidence. We tend to find arguments to support the outcomes we want and ignore those that we don’t want to believe, especially if our goal is to protect our standing in a social group or our own identity. It is similar to confirmation bias, where we purposefully seek out and give more credibility to the information that confirms our beliefs rather than seeking for information that contradicts us. The stronger our emotional stake is to the subject at hand, the stronger our emotional attachment will become each time we are confronted with the information, eventually reinforcing and strengthening our conclusions.
Citations: Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108 (3), 480-498.
Kahan, D. M. (2012). Ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection: An experimental study. Judgment and Decision Making, 8, 407-424.