Motivated reasoning is when people maintain a belief despite contrary evidence. They rationalize and seek out opinions that support their belief, while ignoring or debunking contrary facts. It is based on emotions and can lead to complicated rationalizations and stereotypes. People may use it to avoid admitting they are wrong or to remain loyal to a political party or religion.
The psychological phenomenon known as motivated reasoning is an approach whereby people attempt to maintain a certain belief or notion they hold even when the facts are contrary to their belief. Using reasoned reasoning, people will actively seek out and fervently believe in something and give credence to opinions that support that belief. On the other hand, when they come across facts that are contrary to their belief, they can ignore them. They may even find it necessary to attempt to debunk the contrary fact or attempt to question the competence or credibility of the bearer of the fact that goes against their belief.
People who use motivated reasoning are likely to come up with complicated rationalizations to support their fallacious beliefs, especially when faced with contrary evidence. They could also cite a specific, isolated incident to support their point in an attempt to generalize it to all instances related to their belief. If they have an opinion about a specific group of people based on characteristics such as race or religion, for example, they might try to make their case that all people in that group are a certain way because of their personal experience with one or two people from that group. In the event that a person using reasoned reasoning encountered a person in the group who was against the stereotypes they held, the person might say that a different person is an exception to the rule. The motivated person might rationalize, because she has met a few people in the group who fit the negative stereotype and has heard stories from other like-minded people, that her mistaken belief about her must be true.
Being correct about something, or truly believing that you are right about something even when you are not, makes most people feel better than admitting that you are wrong. Motivated reasoning is based more on emotions than on facts. It may be easier, for example, for a parent to ignore signs that the child is using drugs and to believe the child’s false claims to the contrary than to believe physical evidence and other people’s accounts of drug use. Loyalty to a particular political party or religious group can also be highly emotional, leading people to use reasoned reasoning to ignore negative facts about the party or religion in which they are invested, to seek information that corroborates the positives they believe true, and to actively discredit people who oppose alternative political parties or religions.
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