About Us
People like to believe their thinking reflects an accurate impression of reality. Upon closer inspection, this assumption collapses. Instead, like the inhabitants of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon, people tend to see themselves and their peers as unrealistically likable, moral, attractive, trustworthy, and all other positive traits. These cases exemplify the phenomenon of motivated cognition, under which goals and needs guide individuals’ thinking toward desired conclusions. We study the processes underlying motivated cognition, their influence on self-perception, social cognition, and decision-making, and their impact on real-world outcomes.
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