Where do I go from here? Motivated reasoning in construction decisions

Richard F. Fellows and Anita M. M. Liu

Construction Management and Economics, 2018, vol. 36, issue 11, 623-634

Abstract: Early stage decisions have the greatest impact on construction projects and so, attention at conception and realization of projects is imperative. Decisions are influenced by actors’ interdependencies, thus, it is important to understand how actors determine meanings of their situations and actions. Meaning is derived from situational cues that are contextually bounded and, through actions, determines decisions’ outcomes via sensemaking. The objectives of this critical essay are to examine the impact of motivated reasoning on sensemaking and, thus, decision-making through scrutinising how actors make sense of projects and contexts to yield meanings. The focus of the discussion is on the human interactional aspects of decisions to examine potential bias, effected through the vague goals held by the actors, and the assumption of rationality, extending to bounded rationality, and how that leads to traps/pitfalls in decision-making. The discussion encompasses the concepts of sensemaking and of motivated reasoning in construction decisions from the perspectives of the dominant logic and the dynamic states of flux in the construction environment – in particular, the aspects of open-mindedness and directional bias, over-optimism, and attitudinal predispositions which impact on motivated reasoning of decision-makers in construction projects. This essay concludes that motivated reasoning, as a bias vector, operates to influence how actors arrive at understandings, reach decisions and behave to generate outcomes. The motivated reasoning perspective gives insight into the nature of decision-making in many project processes and the outcomes achieved.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/01446193.2018.1472386

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