INSTRUMENTAL BIAS IN MOTIVATED REASONING - MORE WHEN MORE IS NEEDED

Decision makers must often make judgments in an environment in which t hey have a strong motivation to reach a particular conclusion, While n ormative theory would indicate that they should use available informat ion to make their most accurate judgment without being influenced by t he conclusion or outcome it may imply evidence from the social judgmen t literature suggests that motivation does bias the judgment process, Specifically, decision makers motivated to support a particular conclu sion tend to adopt information processing strategies most likely to yi eld the desired conclusion. We propose and empirically demonstrate two extensions to the motivation literature, First, we argue that motivat ed reasoning is instrumental, meaning motivated decision makers bias t heir judgments more or less as needed to support the desired conclusio n, subject to ''reasonableness'' constraints, Second, we propose that motivated decision makers exhibit confidence bolstering and thereby re main at least as confident as non-motivated decision makers in their b iased estimates, We illustrate that motivated subjects even report con fidence in utilizing these estimates outside the original motivating c ontext, We investigate motivational effects within a business context involving forecasting, strategic decision making, and new product intr oductions, We explore the impact of motivation on quantitative forecas ts and estimates, rather than on social judgments and perceptions. In addition, we go a step beyond the judgment phase to demonstrate that m otivation influences choice. (C) 1997 Academic Press.