People continue to believe that calorie-reducing diets are an effective long-term treatment for obesity primarily because the scientific evidence strongly supports this claim.

The widespread belief that calorie-reducing diets are an effective long-term treatment for obesity serves as an example of motivational bias. Even though scientific evidence contradicts this claim, people persist in believing it because it offers hope for weight loss or makes them feel good about exhibiting self-control.

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Motivational bias is the cognitive tendency to hold onto incorrect intuitive beliefs simply because it is emotionally pleasing or comforting if they were true. People maintain these incorrect beliefs, often despite a lack of empirical evidence, because the beliefs provide hope or foster positive feelings about themselves.

Motivational Bias

https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/

KPU Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition

A primary drawback of relying on intuition is that intuitive judgments are frequently incorrect. This vulnerability arises because instinctual decisions are driven by cognitive and motivational biases rather than being grounded in logical reasoning, objective facts, or scientific evidence.

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