Wishful thinking

Wishful thinking is both a cognitive bias and a logical fallacy. It consists of believing something, or believing something to be more likely than it in fact is, because one wants it to be true.

As a logical fallacy, it it similar to the appeal to emotion, except that the appeal is to one's own emotion rather than only to the emotions of the audience. The fallacy makes a desire for the conclusion to be a premise; that is, it takes the following form:

• I want P to be true.
• Therefore, P.

A person engaging in wishful thinking almost never states it so bluntly, however. Instead, that person may cherry-pick the evidence or otherwise distort reality to support the desired conclusion

There is also reverse wishful thinking, which is Murphy's law as a cognitive bias.