Can You Choose Your Beliefs to Find Happiness?

Belief utility, motivated reasoning, and the pursuit of happiness.

Reviewed by Devon Frye

Key points

• One’s beliefs can be sources of pleasure and pain.
• Neo-classical economics understands beliefs as probability estimates.
• Motivated reasoning gives people leeway to manage their beliefs.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. —Adam Smith on motivated reasoning

The road to happiness is rocky. Some folk psychologists argue that happiness is a choice—that it is up to you, that you can find happiness in your beliefs, that you may believe ideas that bring pleasure or peace, and that there is utility in what you believe. The philosopher and economist Adam Smith took a more skeptical view on such motivated reasoning, rhetorically asking, “What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”

Let’s begin with the term “utility.” Utility is the economist’s term for happiness. Utility maximizers are those who seek the greatest happiness.

Unlike the vernacular word “happiness,” the term “utility” has instrumental implications. It means that something can be “used” in order to satisfy a desire or interest. The word “happiness” is broader. It allows you to just sit and be “happy.”

The neo-liberal lexicon does not have an adjective for “utility.” The word “utilitarian” will not do as it refers only to choices and the process of choosing, but not to the states that result from these choices (n.b., some utility modelers will disagree with this statement). You cannot just sit and feel “utilitarian.” Utilitarianism requires action.

With the rise of behavioral economics, psychology has returned to inform economic thinking. One of the pioneers of behavioral (i.e., psychological) economics is George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University. Among his many contributions is the resuscitation of the idea of “belief utility.” Recently, Molnar and Loewenstein (hereafter ML) published a concise summary of this effort (2022). The present essay is a selective summary of that summary, with a bit of commentary.

ML argue that beliefs can have their own utility, or subjective value, and this should not be surprising because the godfathers of classical economics, especially Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, asserted that they can. Smith (1759), in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, noted humans’ keen interest in their own reputation: “To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages we can propose to derive from it.”

Although people generally prefer accurate to false beliefs, they have many biases (i.e., preferences) strong enough to bend the perception of the truth. This is where the concept of belief utility comes in.

Only if people care about their reputation enough to inflate their own perceived social standing can we be sure that belief utility is at play. Individuals who correctly believe they have a good social reputation cannot be charged with wanting to hold such a positive reflected self-image (Heck & Krueger, 2015). If they simply perceive reality as it is, then delighting in this perception is of no unique economic or psychological consequence. In short, claims of belief utility require claims of motivated (and biased) reasoning.

The difference between the (resuscitated) classical definition of belief utility and the reductionist neo-liberal definition of belief, as presented by ML, is instructive. According to the neo-classical (and now conventional) definition, “beliefs are subjective probability assessments or expectations over outcomes or states of the world” (ML). Notice that the term “belief” here exclusively refers to probability estimation, not to any assessment of value.

In contrast, the classical (and psychologically sensitive) definition says that “belief-based utility [is] the utility derived directly from holding beliefs, whether or not they are accurate” (p. 4). Here, the notion of belief is attached to the value of the target (commodity, service, or belief).

What is the nature of this attachment? ML follow Bentham in arguing “that people derive utility—pleasure and pain—directly from their beliefs.” Because the process of derivation remains unexplored, we run into a problem.

In some cases, such as high self-esteem, the belief itself encapsulates the valuation. There is no prior belief from which a sense of pleasure can be derived. Having high self-esteem is to feel pleasure. There is no need to find pleasure in having the belief that one has high self-esteem.

In other cases, a derivation is possible. If Tony Soprano believes he runs North Jersey, he can go on and derive pleasure from this believed fact. In step one, Tony realizes that he runs North Jersey; in step two, he delights in this knowledge.

Like Smith and Bentham, ML hold that reputational beliefs loom particularly large. It is a pleasure to think that one is respected by one’s peers. Again, however, the belief and its attendant utility are smooshed up into the same thing. The utility is baked into the belief itself.

Yet motivated reasoning can take a hand in how the belief is preserved by deftly managing learning and memory. The most straightforward tools for belief management are confirmation bias and “deliberate ignorance” (Krueger et al., 2020). Believers can choose to forego potentially falsifying information they might obtain for free. The perception of one’s high social standing can be shored up by cutting contact with those acquaintances who occasionally raise a critical voice. This kind of information avoidance is a consequence of belief utility; it is not a feature of belief utility itself.

ML’s theory and similar theories of motivated reasoning skirt the problem of the tipping point. Just how flexible is the motivated reasoning system? How bent or biased may a belief be in the service of hedonic gratification before reality asserts itself?

ML note that there are constraints. We cannot choose our beliefs willy-nilly, and believe whatever makes us happy. Nature denies it. If such mental gymnastics were possible, the most fanciful and ego-pleasing believers would be mad, and they would miss reproductive opportunities.

We cannot choose a belief much like we cannot choose to have a particular thought. This impossibility recalls Hobbes’s observation that although we can do what our will demands, we cannot choose what that will is (Krueger & Grüning, 2025). A belief can only emerge from exposure to relevant information or persuasive communication. A belief can be coaxed into existence by such indirect means. It cannot be brought forth by pure assertion. The bulk of the social-psychological science of attitudes and attitude change is staked on this point.

Returning to ML, and setting aside the thorny question of how people may—within limits—manage and manipulate their own values and beliefs, we can observe the following: According to the conventional neo-classical view, the value of an outcome and the probability with which it will occur are conceptually and causally independent, even if both are judged subjectively. ML’s theory rejects this assumption of independence.

With motivated reasoning, people can inflate their subjective probability of a valued outcome to be obtained—even if they cannot bend the belief itself. Stated this way, the theory no longer needs to grapple with the embarrassing question of how a positive belief might deliver pleasure beyond its already stated positivity, and regardless of its probability.

Where lies happiness? Perhaps we can enhance it with motivated reasoning and within reason.

Nachgedanken. Having posted this essay and reading it again, I wonder if there's anything in there that speaks to the ill-fated pursuit of fame as a ticket to happiness. It seems to me that the evidence against the fame-to-happiness hypothesis is very strong, but having the love and respect of family, friends, neighbors, & colleagues goes a long way. Happiness, in other word, is local.