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 motiv...

Men and women systematically differ in their beliefs about performance relative to others; particular, men tend be more overconfident. This paper provides support for one explanation gender differences overconfidence, performance-motivated reasoning, which people distort how they process new information ways that make them believe outperformed others. Using a large online experiment, I find mal...