Ziva Kunda

They immigrated from different parts of Europe to Oudtshoorn to find safety from the persecutions of Jews before and during World War II.

[6] Kunda's 1990 article, "The Case for Motivated Reasoning,[2]" outlines a comprehensive set of research and theory to provide evidence that motivations for a desired outcome affect the process of reasoning, including the formation of impressions, determining one's beliefs and attitudes, evaluating evidence, and making decisions.

Kunda provides evidence to support accuracy-oriented motivated reasoning in which people expend more cognitive effort in the reasoning process when they are motivated to be accurate in making a judgment, such as when they expect to be evaluated, must justify their decision to others, expect to make their judgements public, or when their decisions affect another person's life.

People who are motivated by accuracy spend more time considering the relevant information and rely less on cognitive shortcuts and strategies such as heuristics.

She summarizes research indicating how directional goals may bias three cognitive reasoning processes: Kunda concludes that when one is motivated towards a particular conclusion or outcome, one feels obligated to construct a justification, and in doing so, they only access a biased subset of relevant beliefs and rules to arrive at that desired result.

In 1999, Kunda authored the textbook Social Cognition: Making Sense of People; one of the books she is well known for.

Kunda covers many topics in the book, from stereotyping and emotional effects on cognition to judgements and behavior.

Kunda wrote as an overview of her research: One line of my work examines how stereotypes are activated, used, and modified.