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The Influence of Motivation on Evidence Assimilation in a Controlled Judgement Task

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Prior research suggests that people ignore evidence that is inconsistent with what they want to believe. However, this research on motivated reasoning has focused on how people reason about familiar topics and in situations where the evidence presented interacts with strongly-held prior beliefs (e.g., the effectiveness of the death penalty…

Prior research suggests that people ignore evidence that is inconsistent with what they want to believe. However, this research on motivated reasoning has focused on how people reason about familiar topics and in situations where the evidence presented interacts with strongly-held prior beliefs (e.g., the effectiveness of the death penalty as a crime deterrent). This makes it difficult to objectively assess how biased people are in motivated-reasoning contexts. Indeed, recent work by Jern and colleagues (2014) suggests that apparent instances of motivated reasoning may actually be instances of rational belief-updating. Inspired by this new account, the current studies reexamined motivated reasoning using a controlled categorization task and tested whether people assimilate evidence differently when they are motivated to maintain a certain belief versus when they are not. Contrary to earlier research on motivated reasoning, six studies with children and adults (N = 1295) suggest that participants’ motivations did not affect their information search and their beliefs were driven primarily by the evidence, even when the evidence was incongruent with their motivations. This work provides initial evidence for the account proposed by Jern and colleagues.
ContributorsSolanki, Prachi Sudhir (Author) / Horne, Zachary S. (Thesis advisor) / Duran, Nicholas (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Power in Motion: Response Dynamics of Social Power, Goal-Oriented Motor Movement, and Sexual Perception

Description
Research on the psychology of social power has shown how experiences of power tend to promote goal-oriented behavior and sexual perception in individuals. These experiences need not be generated through real-life power dynamics, but can be primed experimentally in the lab. A recent study has explored how power affects even…

Research on the psychology of social power has shown how experiences of power tend to promote goal-oriented behavior and sexual perception in individuals. These experiences need not be generated through real-life power dynamics, but can be primed experimentally in the lab. A recent study has explored how power affects even lower level goal-oriented motor movement, showing how increased power facilitates the initiation of goal-oriented motor actions (Maner et al., 2010). However, this research did not explore how these goal-oriented motor movements promoted by power dynamically evolve over time, or can be influenced by sexual perceptual processes. Using an experimental paradigm known as computer mouse-tracking, we designed an experimental task to asses how participants’ – primed with either a High or Low sense of power – motor movements and sexual perceptual processes co-evolved and influenced one another during decision-making. We analyzed four distinct mouse-tracking variables, including traditional reaction time measures and novel measures indexing real-time decision-making processes. Several hypotheses are proposed and discussed. No significant findings emerged, however general trends showed promising signs for future iterations of the study. The study limitations and proposed future directions for studying these phenomena are discussed.
ContributorsGonzales, James Paul (Author) / Duran, Nicholas D (Thesis advisor) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016