Desire Controls What We Perceive, Study Finds

Posted on Jul 16, 2006

From Live Science: “Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.”

This may explain, for example, why people on different sides of an argument remember wildly different aspects of the confrontation.

Live Science:

Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.

“There is an age old hypothesis in psychology that a person’s wishes, hopes and desires can influence what they see,” said David Dunning, Cornell University psychologist and co-author of the study. “This theory had lay dormant for about 40 years, though, without any supporting evidence. We wanted to test the murky waters again.”