What is Motivated Reasoning?

Have you ever gone out of your way to justify eating just one more piece of chocolate after dinner, not sitting down to read the book you’ve been pushing off for months, or convincing yourself that a news story was accurate? You may have been using motivated reasoning. In this step, Reyhaneh Maktoufi, a Rita Allen Foundation Civic Science Fellow, describes the concept of motivated reasoning using an hypothetical example.

Discussion: When have you used motivated reasoning to convince yourself that information you came across in social media, your news feed, or elsewhere was accurate? What did you take away from this video?