ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND HUMAN DECISION PROCESSES Vol. 72, No. 1, October, pp. 1–24, 1997 ARTICLE NO. OB972729 Instrumental Bias in Motivated Reasoning: More When More Is Needed Lindsley G. Boiney George Mason University and Jane Kennedy and Pete Nye University of Washington Decision makers must often make judgments in an environment in which they have a strong motivation to reach a particular conclusion. While normative theory would indicate that they should use available information to make their most accurate judgment without being influenced by the conclusion or outcome it may imply, evidence from the social judgment literature sug- gests that motivation does bias the judgment process. Specifi- cally, decision makers motivated to support a particular conclusion tend to adopt information processing strategies most likely to yield the desired conclusion. We propose and empirically demonstrate two extensions to the motivation literature. First, we argue that motivated reasoning is instrumental, meaning motivated decision makers bias their judgments more or less as needed to support the desired conclusion, subject to “reasonable- ness” constraints. Second, we propose that motivated decision makers exhibit confidence bolstering and thereby remain at least as confident as non-motivated decision makers in their biased estimates. We illustrate that motivated subjects even report confi- dence in utilizing these estimates outside the original motivating context. We investigate motivational effects within a business context involving forecasting, strategic decision making, and new product introductions. We explore the impact of motivation The authors thank Jim Bettman, John Payne, Terry Mitchell, Linda Christie, Jennifer Lee, John Boiney, Mary Frances Luce, Mark Peecher, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Lindsley G. Boiney, MSN 5F4, School of Management, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444. Fax: (703)993-1809. E-mail: lboiney@som.gmu.edu. 1 0749-5978/97 $25.00 Copyright  1997 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.