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Motivated Thinking P1: GFZ 0521824176c13.xml CB798B/Holyoak 0521824176 October 31, 2004 6:5 CHAPTER 13 Motivated Thinking Daniel C. Molden E. Tory Higgins At one time or another, every one of us has judgment. More recently however, there has engaged in “wishful thinking,” or “let our been a sharp increase in attempts to achieve hearts influence our heads.” That is, every a marriage between these two viewpoints in one of us has felt the effects of our motiva- a wide variety of research areas. The pri- tions on our thought processes. Given this mary objective of this chapter is to review common everyday experience, it is not sur- these attempts and to demonstrate how it prising that an essential part of early psy- is not only possible, but also desirable, to chological research was the idea that drives, reintroduce motivational approaches to the needs, desires, motives, and goals can pro- study of basic thought processes. We begin foundly influence judgment and reasoning. by providing some historical background on More surprising is that motivational vari- such approaches. ables play only a small role in current the- ories of reasoning. Why might this be? One possible explanation is that since the cognitive revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, A Brief History of Motivated Thinking researchers studying motivational and cogni- tive processes have been speaking somewhat Motivational perspectives on thought and different languages. That is, there has been reasoning originated most prominently with a general failure to connect traditional moti- Freud’s (1905) clinical theorizing on the vational concepts, such as drives or motives, psychodynamic conflicts created by uncon- to information processing concepts, such as scious drives and urges. These perspectives expectancies or spreading activation, which quickly spread to other areas of psychology. form the foundation for nearly all contem- Early pioneers of experimental social psy- porary research on thinking and reasoning. chology gave primary emphasis to motiva- Foraperiod of time, this led not only to mis- tional variables such as drives, goals, and as- understanding, but also to conflict between pirations (e.g., Allport, 1920; Lewin, 1935). motivational and cognitive perspectives on The study of personality came to involve the 295 P1: GFZ 0521824176c13.xml CB798B/Holyoak 0521824176 October 31, 2004 6:5 296 the cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning identification and classification of different This chapter provides an overview of this types of needs and motives (e.g., Murray, “second generation” of research on moti- 1938). Even research on sensory and percep- vated thinking and discusses some of the tual processes was influenced by a motiva- larger principles that have emerged from the tional approach with the emergence of the study of the motivation/cognition interface. “New Look” school (e.g., McGinnies, 1949). We consider two general classes of motiva- After this early period of growth and tional influences; the first involves people’s expansion, however, research and theory desires for reaching certain types of outcomes on motivated thinking became quite con- in their judgments, and the second involves troversial. With the ascendance of cogni- people’s desires to use certain types of strate- tive perspectives on thinking and reason- gies while forming their judgments. In so do- ing in the 1960s and 1970s, many supposed ing, we adopt a rather broad focus and dis- instances of motivated reasoning were re- cuss several different varieties of motivated cast as merely a product of imperfect infor- thinking. Given space constraints, this broad mation processing by imperfect perceivers focus necessitates being selective in the phe- (compare Bruner, 1957, with McGinnies, nomena to be described. We have chosen 1949;Festinger, 1957, with Bem, 1967; those programs of research that we believe Bradley, 1978, with Nisbett & Ross, 1980). are representative of the larger literature and The various “motivation versus cognition” are especially relevant not only to the study debates that subsequently developed con- of reasoning, but also to other areas in cog- tinued off and on for years before they nitive psychology.1 After reviewing the sep- were declared not only unwinnable, but also arate influences of outcome- and strategy- counterproductive. An uneasy armistice was based motivations on thinking, we conclude declared (Tetlock & Levi, 1982) that ef- by suggesting potential directions for future fectively quieted the public conflict, but research, giving special attention to circum- did nothing to reconcile the deep con- stances where multiple sources of motiva- ceptual differences that still remained be- tion might operate simultaneously. tween researchers favoring cognitive or motivational perspectives. Following this period of conflict, enthu- siasm for questions concerning motivational Outcome-Motivated Thinking influences on thinking was dampened in the 1970s and early 1980s. Beginning in the late The most prominent approach to motivated 1980s, however, there was a resurgence of reasoning, in both classic and contemporary interest in this area (for recent reviews and perspectives, has been to examine the influ- overviews, see, Dunning, 1999; Gollwitzer ence on people’s thought processes of their & Bargh, 1996; Higgins & Molden, 2003; needs, preferences, and goals to reach desired Kruglanski, 1996;Kunda, 1990; Sorrentino outcomes (or avoid undesired outcomes). & Higgins, 1986). One reason for this new Although the types of preferred outcomes life is that instead of revisiting debates about that have been studied are highly diverse, the workings of motivational versus cog- they can be divided into two general classes: nitive processes, researchers began to ex- directional outcomes and nondirectional out- amine the important interactions between comes (see Kruglanski, 1996;Kunda, 1990). these two processes. Thus, more recent Individuals who are motivated by directional investigations have focused on the iden- outcomes are interested in reaching specific tification of principles that describe the desired conclusions, such as impressions of interface between motivation and cogni- themselves as intelligent, caring, and worthy tion, and the implications of this interface people (e.g., Dunning, 1999; Pyszczynski & for thinking, reasoning, and judgment (see Greenberg, 1987), or positive beliefs about Kruglanski, 1996;Kunda, 1990; Higgins & others whom they find likeable or to whom Molden, 2003). they are especially close (e.g., Murray, 1999). P1: GFZ 0521824176c13.xml CB798B/Holyoak 0521824176 October 31, 2004 6:5 motivated thinking 297 In contrast, individuals who are motivated different cognitive processes, including attri- by nondirectional outcomes have more gen- bution, evaluation of evidence, information eral concerns, such as reaching the most search, recall and knowledge activation, and accurate conclusion possible (e.g., Fiske & the organization of concepts in memory. Neuberg, 1990)ormaking a clear and con- cise decision (e.g., Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), whatever this conclusion or decision effects on attribution may be. Some of the first evidence for the effects Whether outcome motivation is direc- on reasoning of motivations for positive self- tional or nondirectional, however, this moti- evaluation grew out of work on attribution vation has been conceptualized as affecting (see Kelley, 1973). Early attributional re- thought and reasoning in the same way: by search found that when people were ex- directing people’s cognitive processes (e.g., plaining their performance on tasks measur- their recall, information search, or attribu- ing important abilities, they tended to take tions) in ways that help to ensure they reach responsibility for their success (i.e., cite in- their desired conclusions. That is, individu- ternal and stable causes, such as “I’m good als’ preferences for certain outcomes are be- at this task.”) and to deny responsibility for lieved to often shape their thinking so as to their failure (i.e., cite external and unstable all but guarantee that they find a way to be- causes, such as “I was unlucky.”). Such find- lieve, decide, and justify whatever they like. ings were typically described as stemming In this chapter, we review several programs from desires for positive beliefs about the of research that have more closely exam- self (for a review, see Bradley, 1978). ined the specific mechanisms by which this The motivational nature of these find- can occur, first in relation to motivations for ings was questioned, however. Several re- directional outcomes and then in relation searchers (e.g., Nisbett & Ross, 1980)ar- to motivations for nondirectional outcomes. gued that although one’s attributions may Following this, we discuss several limitations sometimes be biased, this does not neces- of the effects of outcome motivation on rea- sarily imply that motivational forces are at soning and identify circumstances in which work (e.g., previous expectancies for success these motivations are most likely to have could lead people to label an unexpected an impact. failure as unusual or unlucky). Yet, subse- quent research has found that, although peo- ple’s expectancies do play a role in these Influences of Directional attributional effects, there is substantial ev- Outcome Motivation idence that motivation plays an important Overall, the kinds of phenomena that have role as well (see Kunda, 1990; Pyszczynski been studied most extensively in research on & Greenberg, 1987). motivated thinking involve directional
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