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Motivated reasoning — which is sometimes called motivated cognition — is a scientific term for how your unconscious motivations shape how you interpret information. Here’s a quick example. If you’re watching a basketball game and the ref calls a foul on your team, you go nuts. That was a bad call! If the exact same call happened on the opposing team, you’d be like “Fair call! Keep it moving! Get my boys to the line!” That’s essentially motivated reasoning. You’re shifting the narrative on the fly to fit what you want fit. As Discover Magazine notes, motivated reasoning is “the tendency of individuals to fit their processing of information to conclusions that suit some end or goal.”
This idea of motivated reasoning explains a lot about society currently. If you combine it with a somewhat-connected idea of “an algorithm bubble,” you can begin to see how divisive and partisan politics has become (at least in America). Motivated reasoning also explains some concepts around work — and not in a good way.
A quick video detailing motivated reasoning and decision-making
At its most basic level, work is just a series of decisions that need to be made and actions that need to be taken. So, if you understand how exactly motivated reasoning impacts decision-making, you can begin to…
