Motivated Reasoning

One of an ongoing series on traps of the mind.

I never watched the show “The X Files,” nor did I see either of the movies, but the tag line for the second movie caught my attention:

“I want to believe.”

It caught my attention because it so clearly sums up the way many people approach the extraordinary—they want to believe. They want to believe for a variety of reasons: it seems more “enlightened” to embrace the mystical and mysterious; there is great psychological satisfaction on being among those with inside knowledge of deep and hidden truths; real life can be disappointing and speculation more attractive than reality; they have fantasy-prone personalities; etc.

Thanks to the cognitive bias of motivated reasoning it is easy for such “want-to believers” to find evidence for their beliefs and overlook or simply dismiss evidence that contradicts it.

Motivated reasoning (sometimes called motivated cognition) is actually a phenomenon that incorporates a number of cognitive biases such as biased assimilation and identity-protective cognition in a way that helps people reason their way toward a(n often nonconsciously) predetermined conclusion. It is a modern and fancy way of restating Hume’s assertion that our feelings form our conclusions and our reason finds a way to support them.

Motivated reasoning is frequently on display whenever people are discussing issues to which they are either ideologically identified or in which they have a personal stake in the outcome. It is the true believers of every stripe who will take any piece of data and twist it to support their point of view and deny any confounding evidence, no matter how strong.

Just a few examples include:

Traps of the Mind (Part 2)

In the last article, I talked about how the brain has evolved for survival rather than accuracy. Now we'll look at some specific biases or shortcomings of the way the mind interprets our inner and outer experience.

Cognitive Dissonance

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

If we are to believe Fitzgerald, it is probably safe to say that there are few truly first-rate intelligences amongst us. Holding two opposed views in mind at the same time is very difficult to do because the brain experiences cognitive dissonance and wants to resolve mental conflicts, and it often does so without our awareness.

In their book, "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): How We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts," Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson define cognitive dissonance as:

     "... a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent, such as 'Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me' and 'I smoke two packs a day.' Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; people don't rest easy until they find a way to reduce it." (p. 13, italics added)

Thinking Like a Leader

Like many symbols, the Enneagram makes convenient scaffolding for intellectual constructs. Attempts to create memorable and useful maps and models are often enhanced by a visual pattern. They help the learning process because easily remembered logical patterns help the concepts to which they are attached take root in the brain.

One of the reasons that the Enneagram is so compelling is because of its striking visual pattern, which comprises simple interlocking patterns that create a robust system. Yes, the descriptions of the Ennea-types is useful and valid, but I believe that one of the reason the Enneagram sticks with people is because of the impact of the logic of the visual patterns.

Over the years of working with leaders I have taken advantage of this scaffolding to create a leadership model that describes a set of attributes related to a leader's self mastery, relationships with others, and habits of thinking. Mapping these attributes to the Enneagram not only creates memorability, it also helps to highlight the dynamic interrelationships of these attributes. That is, rather than just seeing the qualities as discreet and independent competencies, mapping them to the diagram helps people better understand how they can support (or impede) each other.

It is important to recognize that there is nothing magical about the scaffolding, and that no model placed on top of the scaffolding is complete or perfect. Leadership is a complex endeavor, and no list of leadership qualities or traits will be complete in and of itself. That said, I have found this model to be a useful foundation upon which to build.

As stated above, the model covers three broad areas: self-mastery (which can essentially be understood as self-motivated behavioral change), relationships with others (particularly subordinates), and leadership thinking (habits of mind that improve judgment and decision-making).

This series of blog posts will address the three attributes related to leadership thinking: rigor, curiosity, and creativity, which, in this model, correlate to points 1, 7, and 4 of the Enneagram, respectively. Again, I want to emphasize that there is nothing inherent in these points of the Enneagram diagram that correlate to these attributes, it is simply a useful and sensible heuristic that fits nicely with some general concepts about the Enneagram of personality. It is not to imply that Ones are necessarily more rigorous, Sevens more curious, or Fours more creative that people of other types.

Effective leadership thinking is a big topic, so we’ll break it down into parts. We’ll start off with why it’s important, and then discuss some of the obstacles to effective thinking. In future blog posts I’ll talk about these three attributes in more depth, along with some resources and exercises for developing each of them.

Before I explain why I chose these three attributes to focus on, it would help to explain why effective thinking is so important for leaders.

Always question the data

Just wanted to share this link to an article by John Kay.
On sex, lies, and the pitfalls of overblown statistics

Pick of the Week: The Basics of Science

I've been busily preparing for the International Enneagram Association board meeting and conference next week and unable to post as much as I'd like, but I did want to get out this pick of the week before leaving for Fort Lauderdale....

My inclination in both my education and the early part of my career was more toward the humanities than anything else, so I am grossly undereducated when it comes to the sciences. Later in life, however, I came to appreciate how important the sciences are for all of us as we try to make sense of our world--whether it is trying to make better business decisions, better decisions regarding the health and well-being of our families, or better decisions about who we should vote for.

I'm often surprised at how easily people fall victim to the misinterpretations or distortions of science, whether it be the distortion of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" (a term actually coined by Spencer) by the Wall-Street types or a distortion of the observer effect in quantum physics by the New-Age crowd. As with any other tools, the sciences can be misused and abused to further our preexisting biases or agendas.

To overcome these tendencies, it is helpful to spend some time with a good primer or two on the basics of science. Understanding what Darwin really meant or what the observer effect really is, for example, can help us past our biases and illusions about the world and how it works. My two favorite such primers are: "The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science" by Natalie Angier and "Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy" by Robert Hazen and James Trefil. While Angier is a more engaging writer, her style can seem a little too cute at points and she lacks the simplicity and crispness of Hazen and Trefil's book. Either one is a very worthwhile read.

Note: Whenever I write about science, I get emails or comments stating the obvious "well, science doesn't address values..." or "you're just a scientistic reductionist" arguments in defense of less than rigorous ideas. I am not saying science addresses values, nor am I advocating logical positivism, nor am I undervaluing the importance of subjective experience. I am not saying that reading, say, Richard Feynman has any anymore inherent value than reading Virgil or the Upanishads. I am saying that an accurate understanding of science helps us see the world more clearly and can help free us from illusion.