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REVIEW

When Identity Meets Rationality: The Arousal of Motivated System 2 Reasoning

Hongyang Liu1* ,  Jana Kvintova1 ,  Justyna Dockalova1 ,  Lucie Vachova1 ,  Irena Plevova1
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1 Department of Psychology and Abnormal Psychology, Faculty of Education, Palacky University, Olomouc, Moravia 777 11, Czech Republic
HPR, 0326 https://doi.org/10.36922/hpr.0326
Received: 9 October 2025 | Revised: 5 January 2026 | Accepted: 12 January 2026 | Published online: 4 May 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Background

Classical dual-process theories assume that fast, intuitive System 1 often produces bias, whereas slow, deliberative System 2 corrects it. Evidence on motivated reasoning suggests a refinement: when beliefs are tied to identity, deliberation can intensify rather than reduce bias (motivated System 2 reasoning; MS2R).

Objective

To synthesize theory and evidence on when and why analytic reasoning amplifies identity-consistent judgments, and to highlight implications for health-related beliefs and misinformation.

Methods

Focused narrative review integrating findings from political, science-communication, and health literatures, including high-powered replications and resource-rational/approximate Bayesian models, to organize MS2R mechanisms, boundary conditions, and countermeasures. Identity-congruent evaluation of information is robust across domains (e.g., climate risk, vaccination, gun policy), whereas the strong claim that greater cognitive ability uniformly amplifies bias receives mixed support. We organized five proximate mechanisms that can yield MS2R: confirmation bias/motivated skepticism, cognitive dissonance rationalization, identity-protective cognition, expressive responding/instrumental rationality, and bounded resource-rational selective trust. MS2R is most likely when identity stakes are high, evidence is ambiguous, accuracy incentives are weak, affective threat gates processing, audiences are salient, and information ecologies encourage selective trust. In health psychology, these dynamics help explain the persistence of vaccine hesitancy and health misinformation despite deliberation. We outlined countermeasures that realign deliberation toward accuracy, including accuracy prompts/incentives, identity-safe and value-concordant framing (including self-affirmation), structured symmetric scrutiny, probabilistic forecasting with feedback, prebunking, and interventions that recalibrate source reliability.

Conclusion

System 2 is not inherently corrective: when identity stakes dominate, deliberation can intensify bias. Health interventions should reduce threat, align values, and incentivize accuracy to curb misinformation.

Keywords
Motivated reasoning
System 2
Dual-process theory
Identity-protective cognition
Expressive responding
Bounded/resource-rationality
Polarization
De-biasing
Funding
This study is supported by Faculty of Education, Palacky University under an institutional research grant ‘Selected topics of psycho-logical research in the field of educational psychology’ (IGA_2025_013).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
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