Essentially, the researcher proposes that motivation influences reasoning not just by adding bias, but by affecting which cognitive strategies (beliefs, rules, memories) people use. Motivated reasoning is constrained; people are better able to reach their desired conclusion when they can construct plausible justifications for it. They are not completely free to conclude anything they like. So even when motivated to be accurate, bias may persist if individuals don’t have or don’t use more appropriate reasoning strategies.
I don’t know the exact papers OOP cited, but here’s one that is strongly supported.
Essentially, the researcher proposes that motivation influences reasoning not just by adding bias, but by affecting which cognitive strategies (beliefs, rules, memories) people use. Motivated reasoning is constrained; people are better able to reach their desired conclusion when they can construct plausible justifications for it. They are not completely free to conclude anything they like. So even when motivated to be accurate, bias may persist if individuals don’t have or don’t use more appropriate reasoning strategies.