Wishful Thinking
Wishful thinking consists of beliefs and decisions made upon the assumption of their veracity that is invested in a subjective preference over and against objective evidence to the contrary. In contrast, hopeful thought may know well the remote possibility of a preferred outcome, but chooses to hope even against the odds. Regardless, it is observed that with all other variables equal, subjects will predict positive outcomes to be more likely than negative outcomes. This is known as "positive outcome bias".
Prominent examples of wishful thinking include:
- Economist Irving Fisher said that "stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau" a few weeks before Stock Market Crash of 1929, which was followed by the Great Depression.
- 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 Invasion.
While being a poor method for making decisions, wishful thinking is commonly held to be a particular form of logical fallacywhen it is assumed that because we wish something to be true or false that it is actually true or false. This fallacy has the form "I wish that P is true/false, therefore P is true/false."[1] Wishful thinking, if this were true, would underlie appeals to emotion.
The charge of "wishful thinking" itself can be a form of circumstantial ad hominem argument, even a Bulverism.
