scholarly journals Seeing What You Want to See: How Imprecise Uncertainty Ranges Enhance Motivated Reasoning

Risk Analysis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan F. Dieckmann ◽  
Robin Gregory ◽  
Ellen Peters ◽  
Robert Hartman
Keyword(s):  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Imprecise Uncertainty

The Motivational Power of Moral Beliefs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Identity ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Difficult Case ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Normative Judgment ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Hypocrisy ◽  
Moral Licensing ◽  
Self Interest

Even if we can rise above self-interest, we may just be slaves of our passions. But the motivational power of reason, via moral beliefs, has been understated, even in the difficult case of temptation. Experiments show that often when we succumb, it is due in part to a change in moral (or normative) judgment. We can see this by carefully examining a range of experiments on motivated reasoning, moral licensing, moral hypocrisy, and moral identity. Rationalization, perhaps paradoxically, reveals a deep regard for reason, to act in ways we can justify to ourselves and to others. The result is that we are very often morally motivated or exhibit moral integrity. Even when behaving badly, actions that often seem motivated by self-interest are actually ultimately driven by a concern to do what’s right.

scholarly journals Redistribution Preferences, Inequality Information, and Partisan Motivated Reasoning in the United States

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Clem Brooks ◽  
Elijah Harter
Keyword(s):  
Party Identification ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
High Quality Data ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The U.S

In an era of rising inequality, the U.S. public’s relatively modest support for redistributive policies has been a puzzle for scholars. Deepening the paradox is recent evidence that presenting information about inequality increases subjects’ support for redistributive policies by only a small amount. What explains inequality information’s limited effects? We extend partisan motivated reasoning scholarship to investigate whether political party identification confounds individuals’ processing of inequality information. Our study considers a much larger number of redistribution preference measures (12) than past scholarship. We offer a second novelty by bringing the dimension of historical time into hypothesis testing. Analyzing high-quality data from four American National Election Studies surveys, we find new evidence that partisanship confounds the interrelationship of inequality information and redistribution preferences. Further, our analyses find the effects of partisanship on redistribution preferences grew in magnitude from 2004 through 2016. We discuss implications for scholarship on information, motivated reasoning, and attitudes towards redistribution.

Sorting the File Drawer: A Typology for Describing Unpublished Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162097983
Author(s):  
David A. Lishner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Psychology Research ◽  
Research Dissemination ◽  
Unpublished Studies ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Publication Decision ◽  
Research Domains ◽  
File Drawer ◽  
Insight Into

A typology of unpublished studies is presented to describe various types of unpublished studies and the reasons for their nonpublication. Reasons for nonpublication are classified by whether they stem from an awareness of the study results (result-dependent reasons) or not (result-independent reasons) and whether the reasons affect the publication decisions of individual researchers or reviewers/editors. I argue that result-independent reasons for nonpublication are less likely to introduce motivated reasoning into the publication decision process than are result-dependent reasons. I also argue that some reasons for nonpublication would produce beneficial as opposed to problematic publication bias. The typology of unpublished studies provides a descriptive scheme that can facilitate understanding of the population of study results across the field of psychology, within subdisciplines of psychology, or within specific psychology research domains. The typology also offers insight into different publication biases and research-dissemination practices and can guide individual researchers in organizing their own file drawers of unpublished studies.

scholarly journals Winning, Losing, and the Quality of Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110261
Author(s):  
Richard Nadeau ◽  
Jean-François Daoust ◽  
Ruth Dassonneville
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The Comparative Study

Citizens who voted for a party that won the election are more satisfied with democracy than those who did not. This winner–loser gap has recently been found to vary with the quality of electoral democracy: the higher the quality of democracy, the smaller the gap. However, we do not know what drives this relationship. Is it driven by losers, winners, or both? And Why? Linking our work to the literature on motivated reasoning and macro salience and benefiting from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project—covering 163 elections in 51 countries between 1996 and 2018, our results show that the narrower winner–loser gap in well-established electoral democracies is not only a result of losers being more satisfied with democracy, but also of winners being less satisfied with their victory. Our findings carry important implications since a narrow winner–loser gap appears as a key feature of healthy democratic systems.

Why do business losses cause conflict?

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 219-232
Author(s):  
Henrik Lando
Keyword(s):  
Contract Theory ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Significant Loss ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Negative Reciprocity ◽  
Behavioral Theories ◽  
Full Rationality

Evidence suggests that conflicts between contracting parties are more prone to occur when a party has suffered a significant loss. It is argued that the phenomenon is difficult to understand within conventional contract theory, which assumes full rationality, while behavioral theories based on the concepts of motivated reasoning and reciprocity provide interesting explanations. Thus, losses can trigger motivated, self-serving perceptions and beliefs, which in turn are likely to induce negative reciprocity as well as counter-productive acts aimed at bolstering self-image. These explanations are demonstrated to be well supported by experiments.

scholarly journals Passionately motivated reasoning: Biased processing of passion‐threatening messages

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-531
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. I. Schellenberg ◽  
Daniel S. Bailis
Keyword(s):  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Biased Processing

The Determinants and Consequences of Accurate Beliefs About Childhood Vaccinations

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Joslyn ◽  
Steven M. Sylvester
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Parental Choice ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

In this article, we examine the individual predictors that are responsible for accurate beliefs about the link between vaccinations and autism. We then show how these beliefs affect policy preferences about vaccines. We derive two hypotheses from motivated reasoning theory and test these on national survey data from Gallup and CBS News. Republicans were less likely to report accurate beliefs than Democrats. In addition, educational attainment modified the impact of party identification. The gap between Republicans and Democrats in likelihood of reporting accurate beliefs was largest among the most educated portion of the public. Finally, we show that accurate beliefs about vaccines, independent of statistical controls, are important predictors of policy attitudes about unvaccinated children attending public school and parental choice about the decision to vaccinate. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.

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