Patterson Richard, Operskalski Joachim T, Barbey Aron K
Department of Philosophy, Emory University Atlanta, GA, USA.
Decision Neuroscience Laboratory, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL, USA.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2015 Oct 16;9:559. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00559. eCollection 2015.
Although motivation is a well-established field of study in its own right, and has been fruitfully studied in connection with attribution theory and belief formation under the heading of "motivated thinking," its powerful and pervasive influence on specifically explanatory processes is less well explored. Where one has a strong motivation to understand some event correctly, one is thereby motivated to adhere as best one can to normative or "epistemic" criteria for correct or accurate explanation, even if one does not consciously formulate or apply such criteria. By contrast, many of our motivations to explain introduce bias into the processes involved in generating, evaluating, or giving explanations. Non-epistemic explanatory motivations, or following Kunda's usage, "directional" motivations, include self-justification, resolution of cognitive dissonance, deliberate deception, teaching, and many more. Some of these motivations lead to the relaxation or violation of epistemic norms; others enhance epistemic motivation, so that one engages in more careful and thorough generational and evaluative processes. We propose that "real life" explanatory processes are often constrained by multiple goals, epistemic and directional, where these goals may mutually reinforce one another or may conflict, and where our explanations emerge as a matter of weighing and satisfying those goals. We review emerging evidence from psychology and neuroscience to support this framework and to elucidate the central role of motivation in human thought and explanation.
尽管动机本身就是一个成熟的研究领域，并且在“动机性思维”的标题下，已经与归因理论和信念形成相关联并得到了富有成效的研究，但其对具体解释过程的强大而普遍的影响却较少被探讨。当一个人有强烈的动机去正确理解某个事件时，他就会因此受到激励，尽可能地遵循正确或准确解释的规范或“认知”标准，即使他没有有意识地制定或应用这些标准。相比之下，我们许多解释的动机在生成、评估或给出解释的过程中引入了偏差。非认知性解释动机，或者按照昆达的用法，“定向性动机”，包括自我辩护、认知失调的解决、蓄意欺骗、教学等等。其中一些动机导致认知规范的放松或违反；另一些则增强了认知动机，从而使人进行更仔细、更彻底的生成和评估过程。我们认为，“现实生活”中的解释过程往往受到认知和定向等多种目标的制约，这些目标可能相互加强，也可能相互冲突，而我们的解释则是权衡和满足这些目标的结果。我们回顾了来自心理学和神经科学的新证据，以支持这一框架，并阐明动机在人类思维和解释中的核心作用。
