Motivated thinkers and the mistakes they make: The goals underlying social cognitions and their consequences for achievement

Meta-Bias: A Practical Theory of Motivated Thinking

“…With this context and these caveats in place, the proposed theory is straightforward. In line with Gehlbach and Brinkworth (2008), Kunda (1990), and Swann and Schroeder (1995), we posit that perceivers aspire to accurately understand others and themselves. In other words, perceivers are motivated to discern people's true thoughts, feelings, and motivations.…”

Teaching social perspective taking: how educators might learn from the Army

“…Based on several conceptualizations of social perspective taking (e.g., Davis, 1996;Gehlbach & Brinkworth, 2008;Ickes, 2003), teaching this capacity could take any combination of three approaches -motivating perceivers to engage in the process of "reading" others more frequently, improving person-perception skills to enhance the accuracy of perceivers' inferences, or developing perceivers' abilities to recognize and mitigate biases. The role of biases in social perspective taking warrants further clarification.…”

“…In general, perceivers are motivated to accurately perceive and understand others. However, this core motive can be derailed by two broad, competing motives: maximizing cognitive efficiency or enhancing their sense of self (Gehlbach & Brinkworth, 2008). In other words, people are generally motivated to see those in their social world as they really are, but sometimes one of two types of biases derail this goal of accurate perspective taking.…”

Making Social Studies Social: Engaging Students Through Different Forms of Social Perspective Taking

“…Though perceivers are generally motivated to perceive those in their social world accurately, this motivation can be derailed by the motivation to think efficiently and/or by the motivation to preserve one's sense of self (Gehlbach & Brinkworth, 2008). In other words, perceivers strive to understand others as they truly are, but occasionally they lack the time or cognitive energy to accurately discern others.…”