Wishful Thinking: Belief, Desire, and the Motivated Evaluation of Scientific Evidence

Abstract

The article discusses a study which examined whether desire would trump beliefs based on facts when participants were asked if they believe home care is superior to day care. It also examind whether would-be-parents would change their initial beliefs to conform to their plans and desires. The study concluded that evaluations of purported scientific evidence were shaped more by what would-be-parents desired to be true than by what they had initially believed to be true.