Hostname: page-component-7f64f4797f-42qgm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-04T08:18:18.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Self-deception: Adaptation or by-product?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Hugo Mercier
Hugo Mercier
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. hmercier@sas.upenn.edu http://sites.google.com/site/hugomercier/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

By systematically biasing our beliefs, self-deception can endanger our ability to successfully convey our messages. It can also lead lies to degenerate into more severe damages in relationships. Accordingly, I suggest that the biases reviewed in the target article do not aim at self-deception but instead are the by-products of several other mechanisms: our natural tendency to self-enhance, the confirmation bias inherent in reasoning, and the lack of access to our unconscious minds.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Carruthers, P. (2009b) How we know our own minds: The relationship between mindreading and metacognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32(2):121–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K. & Cooper, H. (2003) Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin 129(1):74–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D. & Dirks, K. T. (2004) Removing the shadow of suspicion: The effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence-versus integrity-based trust violations. Journal of Applied Psychology 89(1):104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercier, H. & Landemore, H. (in press) Reasoning is for arguing: Understanding the successes and failures of deliberation. Political Psychology.Google Scholar
Mercier, H. & Sperber, D. (in press) Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R. S. (1998) Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomena in many guises. Review of General Psychology 2:175–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raghunathan, R. & Trope, Y. (2002) Walking the tightrope between feeling good and being accurate: Mood as a resource in processing persuasive messages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3):510–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwarz, N. & Skurnik, I. (2003) Feeling and thinking: Implications for problem solving. In: The nature of problem solving, ed. Davidson, J. & Sternberg, R. J., pp. 263–92. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schweitzer, M. E., Hershey, J. & Bradlow, E. (2006) Promises and lies: Restoring violated trust. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101:1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., Clément, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G. & Wilson, D. (2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind & Language 25(4):359–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar