The Folly of Fools

🧠 Free Recall ❓ Quiz 🔍 Cues 🔮 Simulation 🥷 ShadowBox 📐 Encode Cards

Reasons for Self-Deception
To justify a desired behavior
To justify a stance, opinion, or decision
To protect one's self image/ego/psyche

The Evolutionary Logic of Self-Deception

At the heart of our mental lives, there seemed to be a striking contradiction—we seek out information and then act to destroy it.

Together our sensory systems are organized to give us a detailed and accurate view of reality, exactly as we would expect if truth about the outside world helps us to navigate it more effectively. But once this information arrives in our brains, it is often distorted and biased to our conscious minds. We deny the truth to ourselves. We project onto others traits that are in fact true of ourselves—and then attack them! We repress painful memories, create completely false ones, rationalize immoral behavior, act repeatedly to boost positive self-opinion, and show a suite of ego-defense mechanisms. Why?

Applied more broadly, the general argument is that we deceive ourselves the better to deceive others.

In our own species, deceit and self-deception are two sides of the same coin. If by deception we mean only consciously propagated deception—outright lies—then we miss the much larger category of unconscious deception, including active self-deception. On the other hand, if we look at self-deception and fail to see its roots in deceiving others, we miss its major function. We may be tempted to rationalize self-deception as being defensive in purpose when actually it is usually offensive. Here we will treat deceit and self-deception as a unitary subject, each feeding into the other.

The evidence is clear and overwhelming that both the detection of deception and often its propagation have been major forces favoring the evolution of intelligence. It is perhaps ironic that dishonesty has often been the file against which intellectual tools for truth have been sharpened.

We are hardly surprised to note that nonreligious systems of thought—from biology to economics to psychology—are affected by self-deception according to the rule that the more social a discipline, the more its development is retarded by self-deception

Finally, as individuals, we can choose whether to fight our own self-deceptions or to indulge them. I choose to oppose my own—with very limited success so far

Dishonesty is a byproduct of intelligence

where natural selection for deception is strong, deception can be selected that extracts a substantial net cost (in survival and reproduction)

Deception is the default. Things become better deceptors not better truth seekers

How can the self deceive the self? Does that not require that the self knows what it does not know (p/~p)? This contradiction is easily sidestepped by defining the self as the conscious mind, so that self-deception occurs when the conscious mind is kept in the dark. True and false information may be simultaneously stored, only with the truth stored in the unconscious mind and falsehood in the conscious. Sometimes this involves activities of the conscious mind itself, such as active memory suppression, but usually the processes themselves are unconscious yet act to bias what we are conscious of.

So the key to defining self-deception is that true information is preferentially excluded from consciousness and, if held at all, is held in varying degrees of unconsciousness. If the mind acts quickly enough, no version of the truth need be stored. The counterintuitive fact that needs to be explained is that the false information is put into the conscious mind. What is the point of this? One would think that if we had to store true and false versions of the same event simultaneously, we would store the true version in the conscious mind, the better to enjoy the benefits of consciousness (whatever they may be), while the false information would be kept safely out of sight somewhere in the basement. The hypothesis of this book is that this entire counterintuitive arrangement exists for the benefit of manipulating others. We hide reality from our conscious minds the better to hide it from onlookers. We may or may not store a copy of that information in self, but we certainly act to exclude it from others.

Cognitive load: Lying can be cognitively demanding. You must suppress the truth and construct a falsehood that is plausible on its face and does not contradict anything known by the listener, nor likely to be known. You must tell it in a convincing way and you must remember the story. This usually takes time and concentration, both of which may give off secondary cues and reduce performance on simultaneous tasks.

Cognitive Load symptoms are a dead giveaway for deception

If it is cognitively expensive to lie, there is no obvious way to reduce the expense, other than to increase unconscious control.

Cognitive load has important effects across a broad range of psychological processes, according to the rule that the greater the cognitive load, the more likely the unconscious processes will be revealed.

cognitive load does more than slow down your responses—in a whole host of ways, it tends to reveal unconscious processes. These predominate when conscious degree of control is minimized because of cognitive load.

We cut down on the use of “I” and “me” and increase other pronouns, as if disowning our lie. We cut down on qualifiers, such as “although.” This streamlines the lie, lowering both our immediate cognitive load and later need to remember. A truth teller might say, “Although it was raining, I still walked to the office”; a liar would say, “I walked to the office.” Negative terms are more common, perhaps because of guilt or because lies more frequently involve denial and negation.

Consider self-confidence, a personal variable that others can measure. It can be inflated to deceive them, with self-deception making the act more plausible. This feature probably extends far back in our animal past.

Those who believe their self-enhancement are probably more likely to get their opponent to back down than those who know they are only posing.

overconfidence is one of the oldest and most dangerous forms of self-deception—both in our personal lives and in global decisions, such as going to war.

A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge—that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she maybe.

Nine Categories of Self-Deception
Self-Inflation - Inflating one's performance, ability, or appearance
Derogation - deflating other's performance, ability, or appearance
In-Group/Out-Group Associations - Inflating/Deflating by in-group out-group status
Power - People with power ignoring the contributions of others and how they see, think, and feel
Moral Superiority - Moral hypocrisy: the tendency to judge others more harshly for the same moral infraction than we judge ourselves—or to do so for members of other groups compared to members of our own group.
The Illusion of Control - we believe we have greater ability to affect outcomes than we actually do.
Social Theory - Theories/beliefs we have about our social lives
False Personal Narratives - False personal narratives about one's life story
Unconscious Modules Devoted to Deception - Habits devoted to deception

Self-Inflation

Derogation
In-Group/Out-Group Associations
Power
Moral Superiority
The Illusion of Control
Social Theory
False Personal Narratives
Unconscious Modules Devoted to Deception

The scary thing about self-deception is the emergent effects of a population that practices self-deception (Markets)

Deception In Nature

The most important general principle is that deceiver and deceived are locked into a coevolutionary struggle. Since the interests of the two are almost always contrary—what one gains by perpetrating a falsehood, the other loses by believing it—a struggle (over evolutionary time) takes place in which genetic improvements on one side favor improvements on the other. One key is that these effects are “frequency dependent”—deception fares well when rare and poorly when frequent. And detection of deception fares well when deception is frequent but not when it is rare. This means that deceiver and deceived are locked into a cyclic relationship, in the sense that neither can drive the other extinct.

The Psychology of Self-Deception

from its biased arrival, to its biased encoding, to organizing it around false logic, to misremembering and then misrepresenting it to others, the mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of the usual good goal of appearing better than one really is—beneffective to others, for example.

Misrepresentation of self to others is believed to be the primary force behind misrepresentation of self to self.

This is self-deception, a series of biasing procedures that affect every aspect of information acquisition and analysis. It is systematic deformation of the truth at each stage of the psychological process. This is why psychology is both the study of information acquisition and analysis and also the study of its continual degradation and destruction.

One important fact is worth stressing at the outset. Self-deception does not require that the truth and falsehood regarding something be simultaneously stored—as in our example of voice recognition (Chapter 3). Falsehood alone may be stored. As we saw for the old-age positivity bias (Chapter 6), the earlier the information is shunted aside—or indeed entirely avoided—the less storage of truth occurs and the less need there will be for (potentially costly) suppression later on. At the same time, since less information is stored, there are greater potential costs associated with complete ignorance. As time after acquisition increases, the choice between suppressing and retaining the truth should be more subtle and complex.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (p. 140). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

AVOIDING SOME INFORMATION AND SEEKING OUT OTHER

However much we champion freedom of thought, we actually spend much of our time censoring input. We seek out publications that mirror or support our prior views and largely avoid those that don’t.

I smoke marijuana, so I am interested in its effects—and serves self-deception, because I hype the positive and neglect the negative, the better to defend the behavior from my own inspection and that of others.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (pp. 140-141). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

It is also not surprising that those who feel more secure about themselves are more willing to consider negative information. In short, we actively avoid learning negative information about ourselves, especially when it can’t lead to any useful counteraction and when we feel otherwise insecure about ourselves. Self-deception is here acting in service of maintaining and projecting a positive self-view.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (p. 141). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

biased processes of information-gathering may work early enough to leave no information at all that may later need to be hidden. In one experiment, people were convinced that they were likely—or highly unlikely—to be chosen for a prospective date. If yes, they spent slightly more time studying the positive rather than negative attributes of the prospective date, but if no, they spent more time looking at the negative, as if already rationalizing their pending disappointment.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (pp. 141-142). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

BIASED ENCODING AND INTERPRETATION OF INFORMATION

our perceptual systems are set up to orient very quickly toward preferred information—

the same quick-biasing procedure is available to us when the information is preferred because it boosts our self-esteem, or our ability to fool others. There are few more powerful forces in the service of self-deception than personal fantasies, so when these are aroused, selective attention is expected to be especially intense.

think better of yourself, you practice less self-deception.

BIASED MEMORY

There are also many processes of memory that can be biased to produce welcome results. We more easily remember positive information about ourselves and either forget the negative or, with time, transmute it to be neutral or even positive.

we know that memory is both reconstructive and easily manipulated. That is, people continually re-create their own memories, and it is relatively easy to affect this process in another person.

we know that memory is both reconstructive and easily manipulated. That is, people continually re-create their own memories, and it is relatively easy to affect this process in another person.
 
In arguments with other people, lab work shows that we naturally tend to remember the good arguments on our side and the poor ones on the other, and to forget those that turn out badly for us and good for the other. This bolsters our own side and image, of course, which presumably is its function. Memory distortions are more powerful the more they are motivated to maintain our self-esteem, to excuse failures or bad decisions, and to push into the deeper past causes of current problems. Thus, most people maintain the illusion of improvement, where such mistakes as must be acknowledged can at least be attributed to the failings of an earlier version of oneself.

RATIONALIZATION AND BIASED REPORTING

We reconstruct internal motives and narratives to rationalize otherwise bad or questionable behavior. We can attribute behavior to external contingencies rather than internal, thereby helping defend ourselves. So a general belief that cheating is not bad—or is unintentional or occurs in a world without free will—will all serve to rationalize our cheating, as indeed they do.

A belief in determinism can provide a ready excuse for misbehavior, just as can unconsciousness: the “I had no choice” defense. Relatively deterministic views of human behavior may provide some cover for socially malevolent behavior.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (p. 146). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

PREDICTING FUTURE FEELINGS

It is an interesting fact that we show systematic biases in our ability to predict our own future feelings. We make systematic errors in the process, under the general rule that what we are feeling at the present will extend into the future.

When imagining a good outcome, we overestimate our future happiness, and vice versa for a bad one. It is as if we assay our current feelings and then project them into the future.

We project easily into the future because it expresses our current emotional state.

DENIAL AND PROJECTION

Denial and projection are fundamental psychological processes—the deletion (or negation) of reality and the creation of new reality.

DENIAL IS SELF-REINFORCING

Denial is also self-reinforcing—once you make that first denial, you tend to commit to it: you will deny, deny the denial, deny that, and so on.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND SELF-JUSTIFICATION

Cognitive dissonance refers to an internal psychological contradiction that is experienced as a state of tension or discomfort ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish. Thus, people will often act to reduce cognitive dissonance. The individual is seen to hold two cognitions—ideas, attitudes, or beliefs—that are inconsistent: “Smoking will kill you, and I smoke two packs a day.” The contradiction could be resolved by stopping cigarettes or by rationalizing their use: “They relax me, and they prevent weight gain.” Most people jump to the latter task and start generating self-justification in the face of a much more difficult (if healthier) choice. But sometimes there is only one choice, because the cost has already been suffered: you can rationalize it or live with the truth.

The need to reduce cognitive dissonance also strongly affects our reaction to new information. We like our biases confirmed and we are willing to manipulate and ignore incoming information to bring about that blessed state. This is so regular and strong as to have a name—the confirmation bias.

So powerful is our tendency to rationalize that negative evidence is often immediately greeted with criticism, distortion, and dismissal so that not much dissonance need be suffered, nor change of opinion required.

One important factor affecting the need for cognitive dissonance reduction is post-hoc rationalization of decisions that can no longer be changed.

One might think that giving a gift to another would be the best way to start a relationship of mutual giving and cooperation. But it is the other way around—getting the other person to give you a gift is often the better way of inducing positive feelings toward you, if for no other reason than to justify the initial gift. This has been shown experimentally where subjects cajoled into giving a person a gift later rate that person more highly than those not so cajoled. The following folk expression from more than two hundred years ago captures the counterintuitive form of the argument (given reciprocal altruism): He that has once done you a kindness
will be more ready to do you another
than he whom you yourself have obliged.

Trivers, Robert. The Folly of Fools (p. 155). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.

Unstarred

Dunk (exclude from study)

The Folly of Fools

Why is Risk/Reward is Important to Think About When Making Business Decisions

Review Questions

Todos

Sensemaker