Denial and its reasoning

Abstract

This work is aimed at analysing the motivated reasoning underlying denial of some piece of information. Denial is first distinguished from both repression and biased interpretation; then an analysis is provided of the reasoning devices typical of denial. The rules on which reasoned denial is based are similar to those governing the individual's normal cognitive activity. Reasoned denial is here represented in the form of if-then implications, where the to-be-denied belief plays the role of a consequence drawn from a given premise. So, in order to deny such a consequence one may either deny its premise, or search an alternative consequence, or search an alternative premise, or deny the very relation of implication, and so on. Each type of reasoning is logically biased, while at the same time psychologically plausible and convincing. A typical feature shared by all the reasoning strategies considered is the identification of 'unproven' with 'false'.