Motivated Reasoning and Angel Hernandez

Source: Tumisu/Pixabay

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently granted summary judgment for Major League Baseball (MLB) in the discrimination claim put forth by umpire Angel Hernandez (the full ruling can be found here). The case itself and the granting of summary judgment highlight a danger we all face, the danger of motivated reasoning.

Motivated reasoning

All reasoning is influenced by motivation, but that motivation may vary. Kunda (1990), in her seminal work on motivated reasoning, argued that there is a difference between being motivated to reach an accurate conclusion and being motivated to reach the desired conclusion. Though accuracy is often the stated goal of reasoning, we may actually be motivated to derive a particular conclusion, constructing “a justification of [our] desired conclusion that would persuade a dispassionate observer” (pp. 482-483). That is, we’re likely to try reasoning our way into a self-serving conclusion, but “only if [we] can muster up the evidence needed to support [that reasoning]” (p. 483).

An accurate conclusion is often self-serving, and in such situations, there's no apparent conflict. However, the motivation to be accurate can very much conflict with the motivation to reach the desired conclusion, especially when the more accurate conclusion is incompatible with deeply held beliefs important to our sense of self or group identity. The motivation to maintain those beliefs may make it difficult for us to reach an accurate conclusion^[1].

It's important to recognize that sacrificing accuracy for the sake of preserving strongly held beliefs doesn’t always result in adverse consequences for us, and when it does, we may accept those adverse consequences because the costs are small relative to the benefits we obtain. For example, you might be motivated to make a small wager on your favorite team winning the league championship even when all evidence suggests the probability of that team winning is low^[2]. In such a situation, the benefits of maintaining your belief in your team override the costs you’ll incur if and when the decision does not work out in your favor.

On the flip side, there are times when defending our deeply held beliefs rather than reaching an accurate conclusion can present significant possible consequences. That appears to be what happened to Angel Hernandez.

Angel Hernandez and motivated reasoning

Angel Hernandez—a Cuban-born Latino—claimed he was the victim of racial discrimination. He reached this conclusion, in part, due to the fact that since Joe Torre was hired to oversee major league umpires in 2011, Hernandez had been passed over for a World Series assignment in favor of white umpires with less seniority. He also applied for promotion to crew chief during five of those years, but white umpires with less seniority were given the promotions instead of him each time. Thus, he concluded that racial discrimination was the reason for his failure to receive a World Series assignment and his failure to successfully be promoted to crew chief.

On its face, this might seem like a plausible conclusion, especially given that prior to 2011, Hernandez had been selected to umpire in the World Series twice (2002 and 2005)^[3]. Yet, it is important to note that each year only 7 umpires out of 68 (10.3 percent) from 2011-2013 and 7 out of 76 (9.2 percent) since 2014^[4] have been selected to work the World Series, with the assignment based on a combination of umpiring experience and umpire performance that season.

In terms of promotion to crew chief, each crew is composed of four umpires, so 25 percent of the umpires in the league are designated as crew chiefs^[5]. The criteria for being selected for crew chief is more complex (and more subjective) than the criteria for being assigned to the post-season or World Series and includes leadership skills and willingness to mentor junior umpires in addition to actual umpire performance.

Hernandez had already spent 25 years as a major league umpire at the time his case was filed. I’ve never been a Major League umpire, but I suspect those who have been for 25 years (1) have at least a reasonably strong identification with their umpire role (i.e., being an umpire is part of their identity) and (2) believe themselves to be highly competent in what they do. Repeatedly being denied a World Series assignment or a promotion to crew chief thus created a situation in which Hernandez (or any umpire) would be motivated to look for (and find) a plausible explanation that protects his sense of identity.

In doing so, Hernandez constructed an explanation (i.e., racial discrimination^[6]) he could justify with selected examples. However, as Judge Oetken explained in his ruling, to accept Hernandez’s claim would be tantamount to looking only for evidence to support that claim and not for evidence that might indicate the claim lacked merit.

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As one example, Hernandez claimed he was never assigned to the World Series under Torre, but he discounts the fact he was assigned to other post-season games in six of those years. Thus, if racial discrimination were at play, why not exclude him from the post-season completely? Finally, Hernandez failed to note that, while he may not have received a World Series assignment, a Latino umpire was assigned to the World Series in 2011 and in 2015.

As a second example, Hernandez claimed he was passed over for promotion in favor of white umpires with less seniority. However, as Judge Oetken noted, Torre also repeatedly rejected white umpires with more seniority when it came to crew chief promotions. In addition, Hernandez failed to show that his performance was equal to or better than the umpires who were promoted.

Thus, if you read the judgment, it seems evident Hernandez’s claim of racial discrimination was not founded on an accurate review of the evidence, but was, instead, founded on the evidence that, when selectively considered, allowed him to reach a self-serving conclusion, one that protected his identity as a competent, Major League umpire.

So what?

Hernandez seems to have succumbed to his motivation to reach the desired conclusion at the expense of accuracy. Maintaining this belief likely cost Hernandez in terms of time, energy, and money^[7]. However, one might pose the question of whether these costs were worth protecting his strongly held beliefs. That is a clearly debatable question and one I cannot answer.

What I will suggest is that Hernandez is not unlike the rest of us. We all have beliefs we value immensely, beliefs we'll expend an enormous amount of effort to protect. The stronger our beliefs, the more likely those beliefs are to interfere with our ability to reach conclusions incompatible with those beliefs.

When we're extremely passionate about some cause or a part of our identity is threatened in some way, we’re substantially more likely to make decisions that might not work out in our favor. Learning to be more attentive to these motivational conflicts, seeking counsel from someone who might be less likely to have such conflicts, and being willing to entertain less certainty in the accuracy of our conclusions can help us to at least decrease the likelihood of reaching a conclusion that could have significant negative consequences.