Dissertation Defense: Kun Qian

Dissertation on Motivated Beliefs

Thursday, April 11, 2024 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT
Vernon Smith Hall (formerly Metropolitan Building), 5075 (ICES Classroom)

 

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to announce the following dissertation defense:

Kun Qian
Economics
Advisor: Dr. Daniel E Houser

Dissertation on Motivated Beliefs

Thursday, April 11, 2024
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
George Mason University, Arlington Campus
Vernon Smith Hall (formerly Metropolitan Building), Room 5075

 

Motivated reasoning and self-serving bias have important implications in various contexts. People can have strong motivations to manipulate their beliefs self-servingly. In the dissertation, I theoretically and experimentally investigate motivated beliefs and explore the underlying mechanisms.

Key questions in the motivated beliefs are what motivates people’s beliefs and how the belief updating patterns are influenced. In this dissertation, I develop the theory and design an experiment to investigate the role of future desired effort in motivated beliefs and self-serving bias. I examine the relationship between future desired effort and motivated beliefs by exogenously controlling the situations of the second section of the task. I investigate three situations in which the effect of negative feedback on beliefs can be magnified: (1) when the future task becomes more difficult, (2) when the cost of effort in the future task becomes higher, and (3) when the future task is one month later. The study explores how beliefs are maintained under the motivation-based theory and provides support for defensive pessimism. The findings offer insights on the importance of the influence of future desired efforts on belief maintenance.

All members of the George Mason University community are invited to attend.