ABSTRACT
Once seen as a dubious endeavor, the study of motivated reasoning has recently achieved new life and begun to reappear in many different areas of social psychology. One reason for this new life is that instead of revisiting old debates about whether people’s judgments stem from their motivations or from cognitive processes, researchers have started to examine the complex interplay that occurs between these two systems as judgments are formed. As a result, a growing number of studies are examining the interface of motivation and cognition—especially how people’s needs and desires to reach certain conclusions influence the cognitive processes that are involved in forming their judgments.
