What if you don't want believe? The problem of motivated investment reasoning

It takes more information to make you believe something you don't want to believe than something you do....

Motivated reasoning is a pervasive tendency of human cognition...People are capable of being thoughtful and rational, but our wishes, hopes, fears and motivations often tip the scales to make us more likely to accept something as true if it supports what we want to believe.

-  Peter Ditto

We often have all the information in front of us, but we just don't want to follow it. We don't want to believe. There is a problem with data that contradicts our narrative. We will not believe it. It must be flawed. It must be an outlier. It should be discarded. We are motivated by what we want to believe not what contradicts our current wisdom., 

From a narrative, investors will often search for information that confirms the story. The opposite is a better approach. Start with data and then form the narrative or story. Unfortunately, the process of moving from data to narrative is often messy because the data is messy. Data will often contradict. There is little clarity. On the other hand, a good narrative or story is consistent and makes sense. We develop this story and then look for the evidence that will be supportive. 

The value of quant work is that there is no motivated reasoning. A trend is either up or down. A signal is yes or no. Of course, there is personality with any model, but the focus is on following the count. If the numbers tell you the odds are favorable, you do the trade. There is a belief - a belief in the system.