Crossref Citations
This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.
Lu, Hui Jing
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Deceiving Yourself to Better Deceive High-Status Compared to Equal-Status Others.
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Self-Deception Reduces Cognitive Load: The Role of Involuntary Conscious Memory Impairment.
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Sexual Desire of Women With Fast and Slow Life History Throughout the Ovulatory Cycle.
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Self-deception has been studied mainly as an intrapersonal process, representing personality traits (Paulhus & John Reference Paulhus and John1998; Paulhus & Reid Reference Paulhus and Reid1991), motivational biases in information processing (Mele Reference Mele1997; Balcetis Reference Balcetis2008), or inconsistencies between implicit and explicit self-systems (Greenwald Reference Greenwald and Myslobodsky1997). The target article (also see Trivers Reference Trivers and Dawkins1976/2006; Reference Trivers1985; 2000) is among the first to treat self-deception as an interpersonal process by which humans deceive themselves to deceive others. However, the evidence von Hippel & Trivers (VH&T) use to make the interpersonal argument is mainly intrapersonal, given the lack of existing relevant empirical studies. We present interpersonal evidence to augment VH&T's argument. In doing so, we emphasize that, resulting from the interpersonal “arms race” between deception and deception detection, self-deception must respond to social conditions registering detection-varying probabilities. Social status of the deceived and the number of detectors are examples of such social conditions that may also shape the evolution of morality. We also argue that by keeping fitness-enhancing information away from both self and others, self-deception as an adaptation must cease to operate in most instances once the goal of deception is achieved so that truthful information can be retrieved to benefit the self. Such information manipulation makes memory a good target to be co-opted to execute self-deception. Memory research thus provides a good paradigm within which to conduct empirical research on self-deception.
Social status of deceived
The target article (also see Trivers Reference Trivers2000) suggests that by keeping the self unaware of ongoing deception, self-deception may have evolved to avoid detection. Based on this logic, we speculate that self-deception should be sensitive to situations registering different probabilities of detection with individuals being more likely to self-deceive when sensing a higher chance of detection. Social status of the deceived and the number of people to be deceived are examples of variables that affect the chance of being detected and thus the likelihood and activation of self-deception. According to social dominance theory (Cummins Reference Cummins1999), low-status individuals are more motivated to deceive and high-status individuals are more motivated to detect deception, because the latter have more resources to lose, and the former have more to gain in a successful deceptive ploy. However, high-status individuals who have more access to accurate information are more able to detect deception from low-status individuals who are less able although more motivated to deceive. The arms race between deception and deception detection is thus likely to have played out between the low-status individuals as deceivers and the high-status individuals as detectors, and this competition is likely to lead to individuals deceiving themselves to better deceive high- rather than low- or equal-status others. Results from our ongoing research show that low-status individuals unconsciously withhold information from themselves when experimentally motivated to deceive high- but not equal-status others, supporting our view that individuals deceive themselves by keeping information from the consciousness when they sense higher probabilities of detection from the target of deception (Lu & Chang Reference Lu and Chang2010).
Multiple detectors and morality
In addition to status, the number of targets to be deceived also affects the probability of detection. It is generally easier to deceive one rather than multiple targets because each target adds detective pressure to elevate the probability of detection. Using this logic, self-deception is adaptive because, by deceiving one target (the self), it successfully deceives multiple targets (others). We speculate that self-deception is more likely to be used when deceiving multiple targets or groups of individuals than one individual. That is, individuals self-deceive to better group-deceive. A good example of self-deceiving to group-deceiving is self-enhancement in competence or morality, which has so far been studied as intrapersonal processes (Paulhus & John Reference Paulhus and John1998). From an evolutionary point of view, self-enhancement is a form of self-deception that is interpersonally oriented with the deception target being the largest group possible – the public. This group notion about self-deception provides a direction for the understanding of the evolution of morality. In a moral context, self-deception can be seen as an unintentional or unconscious presentation of a falsely moralistic self to avoid public detection of deception. This is in contrast to impression management, which can be seen as straight deception whereby social deceivers intentionally or consciously present a false socially acceptable or laudable self to appease the public. As public pressure for detection eases, for example, when religious congregations or political rallies disperse, the self-deceiver may become more in touch with his or her moral weaknesses and become less critical about moral transgression. Using icons of eyes that have previously been used to represent an audience (Haley & Fessler Reference Haley and Fessler2005) to manipulate fear of detection, we found that individuals were less likely to think of moral issues as the number of eyes was reduced.
The memory system
Either to self-deceive high-status or multiple targets, self-deception may be a temporary state of mind rather than permanent or long-lasting self-ignorance. It has been argued that self-deception cannot be adaptive because one deceives her- or himself by being unaware of the truth, which, being intentionally kept away from others, is fitness enhancing or beneficial to oneself (Leeuwen Reference Leeuwen2007). However, self-deception could be adaptive if it functioned only when deception was ongoing and ceased to operate after the deceiving goal had been achieved. Kept in the unconscious mind, truthful information does not get retrieved while the self-deceiver is deceiving others. When deception ceases, the hidden truth resurfaces so that the self-deceiver benefits from the accuracy of information. The memory system, which has been shown to be a direct target of selection for survival (Nairne et al. Reference Nairne, Pandeirada and Thompson2008), may help to achieve the state of the aforementioned self-deception. By keeping truthful information from the conscious self (i.e., concealing to deceive) or by distorting encoded material (fabricating to deceive), the memory system helps one to honestly offer null or false information to others. This part of self-deception does not achieve a net fitness gain. By later retrieving the truthful information, the memory system helps to complete self-deception to achieve net fitness enhancement. Memory research thus provides a paradigm within which to conduct research on self-deception.