Wishful thinking

Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence or rationality.

Related Topics:
Belief - Evidence - Rationality

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Studies have consistently shown that, holding all else equal, subjects will predict positive outcomes to be more likely than negative outcomes. See positive outcome bias.

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Prominent examples of wishful thinking include:

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• Economist Irving Fisher said that "stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau" a few weeks before Black Thursday in 1929, which helped to trigger the Great Depression.
• Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's plan for the invasion of Russia.
• President John F. Kennedy believed that, if overpowered by Cuban forces, the CIA-backed rebels could "escape destruction by melting into the countryside" in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
 
Wishful thinking: Logical fallacy ►