Scaffolding Motivated Cognition

Most research on motivated cognition is individualistic: it assumes that individuals form and maintain motivated beliefs primarily through biases in how they seek out and process information. Against this, I argue that many of the most consequential forms of motivated cognition are socially scaffolded, dependent for their success on social practices that function to promote and protect motivated irrationality. Specifically, I identify and explore a common form of motivated cognition that results from group identification. In such cases, motives to form group-favoured beliefs become widespread among group members and create an incentive structure—a pattern of social rewards and punishments—that influences the production and transmission of information in ways conducive to generating, protecting, and rationalising such beliefs. In addition to clarifying this phenomenon, I identify its implications for several topics of interest to social epistemologists, including active ignorance, testimonial injustice, and prejudice.