Reasoning is directed towards a preferred conclusion while remaining subjectively rigorous.
Kunda's 1990 review. The mechanism is that people search harder for flaws in unwelcome evidence and stop searching when welcome evidence appears — the standards are real, and applied asymmetrically.
In practice
- An analyst who wants a project approved scrutinises the risk assumptions hard and the benefit assumptions lightly, and applies real rigour to both halves.
- A board reviewing a decision it already made asks tougher questions of the dissent than of the paper.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- Why reasoning works the way it does