Why Do People Support Ideas They Know Are Bad? The Effect of Motives on Metacognition

When attempting to persuade others, decades of research show that the arguments people generate unintentionally influence their own attitudes on the topic. Traditionally, the more compelling the persuader’s arguments, the more the persuader becomes convinced of what they’re arguing for. In the present research, we identify when this cognitive process can go awry. When people try to persuade others for self-focused motives (i.e., they’re engaging in persuasion for outcomes that ultimately benefit the self), the persuader becomes more positive toward the topic, even after generating uncompelling arguments. In contrast, when people try to persuade others for other-focused motives (i.e., they’re engaging in persuasion for outcomes that ultimately benefit the other person), they become more positive toward the topic only to the extent that their arguments are actually compelling. Across a variety of domains, incentive compatible designs, and external coders, we find that self-focused (vs. other-focused) persuaders end up with miscalibrated opinions on the topic they’re arguing for, which can lead to a host of downstream, negative outcomes for the persuader (e.g., being positive toward a topic or action that further scrutiny would reveal has limited support).