Think Better
What to Do about Motivated Reasoning
I can read your mind. Don’t believe me? Let’s try a little experiment: Take a look at the map below, which shows the bestselling singer or band from each state, and note your reaction.
Do you all have your reactions in mind? Great! Here’s my prediction:
If you are from a state whose top musician is cool (like Johnny Cash) or is undeniably the most successful musician from your state (like Michael Jackson), you are thinking, “Yeah, this map checks out.” If, on the other hand, your state’s musician is uncool, or you think the mapmakers are unaware of a different group who should be the most successful, or you have never heard of your state’s musician, you are skeptical of this map. You are wondering, “I wonder how they got their data? What are they counting as bestselling? Over which years? Because this map can’t possibly be right!”
This reaction is only human. I mean, poor New Mexico! And New Jerseyans are probably thinking, What is Bruce Springsteen, chopped liver? Of course, I have it easy. I’m from Minnesota, and our top artist is both cool and obviously the most successful, so my first reaction was “Whoo hoo! Prince for the win!”
Our All-Too-Human Glitch
Confession time: I am not actually psychic. I just assumed that you all would react to the map in the same way everyone else did when the map was recently posted on social media. It was pretty funny! Pennsylvanian Swifties took pride in their home-grown superstar, Californians were universally dubious that the Eagles had made the most money, and Hawaiians who had never heard of Bruno Mars maintained that there must be some more successful Hawaiian artist out there (who could it possibly be? Don Ho?).1 And I get it. If you’re from Washington, of course you would prefer that Nirvana or Pearl Jam represent your state, rather than Kenny G.
This map and our reactions to it provide the perfect opportunity to think about a glitch in how we respond to information, motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning means simply that when we have some ulterior motive for believing a claim, we will accept it unquestioningly, but when we disagree with or are threatened by a claim, we will subject it to the full force of our skepticism and reject evidence on the flimsiest of pretexts. I saw plenty of motivated reasoning in people’s reactions to the map online, when, say, people from Illinois tried desperately to argue that Chance the Rapper has made more money than the band Chicago.
Below are five quick suggestions—with illustrative stories—for how we can avoid the glitch of motivated reasoning and think better.
Beware of Self-Interested Skepticism
In most circumstances, skepticism is a good thing—changing our minds in response to new evidence is crucial to discovering the truth. But we should be wary when our skepticism is reflexive, and when our immediate response to information or an idea is to reject it out of hand. When this happens, we ought to ask ourselves, Why are we so skeptical? Might our skepticism be motivated by a self-interested desire to protect our own positions rather than a disinterested desire to find out the truth?
I am not pointing fingers, because I do this too. For example, a few months ago the New York Times published an article titled “Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health,” and my skepticism alarm started ringing. “Even a little?!” I wondered. “Seriously?! Alcohol is not plutonium!” Disgruntled, I skimmed the article and then lingered over the comments, which, gratifyingly, agreed with me. I took comfort in the words of MExpat, who is
pretty sure uptight obsessing over risk reduction is much worse for one’s health than alcohol. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Now, excuse me while I go and cook pasta with butter and Parmesan cheese on my gas stove2 while drinking an entire bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
And then there’s this comment, by Douglas Levene:
I prefer Benjamin Franklin’s analysis: “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”
My point is not that these commenters were right and the article was wrong,3 but rather that the commenters and I rushed immediately to skepticism about the article without giving it a chance first—a clear sign that motivated reasoning is occurring. When a position, idea, or information threatens something we hold dear, we ought to be especially ready to consider it. We may still wind up rejecting the idea, but at least we will know that our skepticism was reasonable and that we have given the other side a fair hearing.
How to Cultivate Reasonable Skepticism
Consider the source. Sometimes, we can reject an idea or argument because the person advancing it has ulterior motives of his or her own. For example, a couple of weeks ago, Candice L. Odgers wrote a harshly negative review in Nature of Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation. Haidt has marshaled an exceptional amount of high-quality evidence to argue that phone-based childhoods damage children’s mental health. Among other remedies, he recommends keeping phones out of schools so kids can interact with each other and focus on learning.
Odgers argues instead that the decline in kids’ mental health is because of the 2008 financial crisis (but the decline only started in 2012, after the recovery?), racism (but kids’ mental health is worse now than in, say, the fifties?), and school shootings (well, maybe). The review ends with a standard disclaimer: “The author declares no competing interests.” But this is false. As her author bio notes, Odgers works for the Jacobs Foundation, which “collaborat[es] with . . . EdTech companies” to get educational technology, including smartphone apps, into schools. This is obviously a competing interest: EdTech companies have a financial incentive to oppose Haidt’s proposal that we make our schools phone-free. So, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair, we ought to be skeptical of people’s conclusions when their salary depends on them.
But avoid bitch-eating-crackers thinking. You know the phenomenon: Sometimes we are so entrenched in our dislike of a person that we are annoyed by literally everything they say and do, including such inoffensive acts as eating crackers—or holding legitimate opinions. People we find reprehensible can nonetheless be right! Or, as Clickhole puts it, “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point.” When we dismiss ideas simply because of the person advancing them, we may miss out on useful information and insights, as well as potential support for our own goals.
Case in point, long before legal cannabis was a gleam in Snoop Dogg’s eye, senators Ron Paul, from the right, and Barney Frank, from the left, cosponsored a bill to legalize cannabis. A right-wing high school friend, with whom I enjoyed sparring, posted an article about the proposed law and said, “Amazing! I agree with Barney Frank!” I replied, “Amazing! I agree with Ron Paul!” See? We ought not to reject potential allies simply because of who they are.
Be grateful for others’ skepticism. I have a lot of practice with this one, because of my mathematician husband, who is our family’s Chief Skepticism Officer. Often, when I share some factoid I have read online, his first response will not be to flatter me by immediately agreeing, but rather to muse, “Hmm, that seems unlikely. I wonder how the study was done?” Loathe as I sometimes am to admit it, his skepticism is actually a compliment and a favor. As the replication crisis has revealed, a large percentage of research in psychology, sociology, and medicine has failed to replicate, and my husband knows that I would prefer not to spout unfounded nonsense as fact.
Anyway, our contrary tendencies—mine to believe and his to doubt—came to a head a few years ago, over the psychologist Amy Cuddy’s research into the Power Pose. Cuddy claimed that when subjects in her experiments posed like Wonder Woman, they not only felt more confident, but their testosterone levels went up and their cortisol levels dropped. My husband, citing the blog of the statistician Andrew Gelman, noted that Cuddy’s research was flawed; her sample was small and her results were noisy. Only one of her data points showed increased testosterone and decreased cortisol, which suggested that her conclusion was based on a statistical fluke. As Gelman reports, a later study that was preregistered and double-blind, and that “us[ed] a sample population five times larger than the original group,” attempted to replicate Cuddy’s work and failed to reproduce her results.
At first I was irritated at my husband and stubbornly clung to my original position. This was motivated reasoning: It felt to me as though Gelman and his circle were disproportionately picking on a female scientist who had advanced a plausible idea. But Gelman has the perfect rejoinder to this concern, arguing that discrediting bad science, no matter who the scientist is, is important:
I don’t care about power pose. It’s just a silly fad. I do care about reality, and I care about science, which is one of the methods we have for learning about reality. The current system of scientific publication, in which a research team can get fame, fortune, and citations by p-hacking . . . it’s a problem.
When someone doubts our position and shares another side to the issue, we can try reframing their doubt not as an attack on us, but rather as a friendly effort to help us refine and improve our beliefs.
And finally, ask if this claim passes the smell test. Before raiding a pizza parlor, guns a-blazing, we might first check that the restaurant actually has a basement. Or before assuming that children are being trafficked inside furniture, we might remind ourselves that children require oxygen to survive. When we encounter an idea that sounds, not to put too fine a point on it, nuts, it’s ok to dismiss it as balderdash.
For example, last month our book club, as is our wont, digressed from discussing the book. Just for fun, we recounted some of the crazy parenting advice we’ve been given. A friend whom I’ll call Cathy told us that right after her twins were born, the nurses had to whisk her daughter away for a quick procedure. Thankfully, her daughter is totally fine—except that Cathy’s mother told her that “research shows” that babies who don’t get skin-to-skin contact with their mothers immediately after birth are more likely to become serial killers. (!) When Cathy told us this gem, we all erupted in raucous laughter.4 But really! When we encounter ideas this ludicrous, we don’t need to worry that we are engaging in motivated reasoning if we channel our inner Barney Frank and ask, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”
How about you, readers? Have you ever caught yourself engaging in motivated reasoning? Do you have tips for avoiding it? And what is the craziest and most skepticism-worthy claim you have encountered (so we can all laugh at it)? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
The Tidbit
We Minnesotans are rightly proud of Prince. I have been a fan since the early eighties and believe he was one of the greatest musical geniuses our country—and maybe even the world—has ever known. The performance below was recorded live in 1988, in a small club for an audience of only 300 people. Halfway through, Prince plays a truly epic guitar solo. Imagine being in the audience that night!
Everyone also got a kick out of the fact that Kansas is the bestselling band from Kansas.
For the record, I have no idea how the mapmakers arrived at their sales data, how they assigned the home states for the musicians, or whether their conclusions are accurate. I simply offer the map as an interesting litmus test.
The commenter is referring to the numerous stories in the media, including in the Times, that were fomenting panic about gas stoves. Funny how that particular fear has totally disappeared, right?
While the article did overstate the risks of moderate social drinking, probably to get clicks, there is a mountain of evidence by now that alcohol isn’t a health food.
I picture the waitstaff at this restaurant thinking to themselves, “There they go again. Those foreign ladies sure are noisy!”
Excellent post! I feel like I'm the Chief Skepticism Officer in every context, so this sort of thing really rings my chimes. You could even say that my great interest in motivated reasoning is an example of motivated reasoning. I was born to be the Devil's Advocate.
I love the map. Indeed, I wanted Iowa (where I live now) to be Slipknot and not uncool Andy Williams (and I did not know Andy was from Iowa!); I wanted Michigan (where I was born) to be Bob Seger rather than chirpy Madonna; I wanted Georgia (where I grew up) to be somebody other than crazy Kanye.
Beyond that, I’m very surprised that Kenny G has been more successful than Jimi Hendrix, that Prince has been more successful than Bob Dylan, and that Whitney Houston has been more successful than Bruce Springsteen. But what do I know?
Well good on him. As for me, it's sometimes tough to be heterodox in a largely orthodox institution.