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Distal versus proximal mechanisms of “real” self-deception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1997

Joan S. Lockard
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 jsl@u.washington.edu

Abstract

There is little fear that the concept of motivational bias as proposed by Mele is likely to dampen the current academic ferment (see Mele's Introduction) with respect to self-deception for several reasons: (a) like philosophy, science has more recently abandoned the heuristic of a rational human mind; (b) the concept is parsimonious, applicable to many research topics other than self-deception, and, therefore, scientifically serviceable; (c) as a proximal mechanism it addresses process rather than function, that is, how rather than why questions; (d) it is not as interesting a question as why there is a high prevalence of “real” self-deception (i.e., “garden-variety self-deception” as described by Mele, see sect. 6); and (e) a more penetrating issue is whether “real” self-deception is adaptive.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press

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