We define “motivated reasoning” as a desire to think
about and evaluate information in a way that supports a particular
directional conclusion. Although both motivated and
objective reasoning involve “motivation,” the former
involves a motivation to arrive at a yearned-for conclusion,
whereas the latter involves a motivation to arrive at an accurate
conclusion. With hope, the conclusion that consumers
yearn for is that the goal-congruent outcome is possible.
The greater the yearning for this goal-congruent outcome,
the more motivated consumers are to process information in
a way that suggests its possibility.