Sorting Fact from Fiction When Reasoning Is Motivated

We combine a simple theoretical framework with a survey experiment to investigate how individuals sort fact from fiction and update their assessments in societally important but politicized topics, such as climate change and public health. We show that cognitive ability improves news discernment and in particular, the ability to make correct assessments that contradict one’s prior issue positions. However, when we disaggregate results by topic, higher cognitive ability sometimes amplifies motivated decision-making rather than attenuating it. Our framework and findings suggest a hard–easy pattern: more complex issues elicit greater motivated reasoning; simpler ones elicit less. In addition, overconfidence reduces responsiveness to new information, contributing to the persistence of misperceptions. Higher institutional trust appears to weaken motivated reasoning, suggesting that institutional quality may play an important role in constraining opinion polarization.