Tags: : #🗺️ Links:: [[🏠 My Home]] # Self Deception MOC ## What Is Self Deception? In this context, self-deception occurs when an individual, consciously or unconsciously, biases their [[Recursive Relevance Realization]] process towards information or interpretations that support their desires, beliefs, or self-image, while ignoring or minimizing evidence or interpretations that contradict them. This biased relevance realization leads to a skewed perception of reality, where the individual is not fully aware of, or chooses to overlook, the true nature of their situation or themselves. ## Is Self-Deception Necessarily Bad Or Good? ### Adaptive Aspects of Self-Deception: 1. **Coping Mechanism**: In certain situations, self-deception can serve as a coping mechanism, allowing individuals to manage stress, anxiety, or other negative emotions. By filtering out some harsh realities, it can provide temporary emotional relief or stability. 2. **Enhanced Confidence**: Self-deception can sometimes boost confidence or self-esteem, which could be beneficial in situations requiring bold or decisive action. 3. **Social and Personal Function**: In social contexts, a certain degree of self-deception might aid in maintaining relationships or in self-presentation, where an overly realistic self-view could be detrimental. ### Maladaptive Aspects of Self-Deception: 1. **Distorted Reality**: Persistently deceiving oneself can lead to a distorted perception of reality, which can hinder effective decision-making and problem-solving. 2. **Long-term Negative Consequences**: While offering short-term emotional comfort, self-deception can have long-term negative consequences, including strained relationships, missed opportunities for growth, and perpetuation of harmful behaviors. 3. **Impact on Mental Health**: In the long term, self-deception can contribute to psychological distress and might exacerbate mental health issues like depression or anxiety. ### Context-Dependent Nature: - **Short-term vs. Long-term**: Self-deception might be beneficial in the short term but detrimental in the long term, or vice versa. - **Individual Differences**: The impact of self-deception can vary greatly among individuals, depending on their personality, life circumstances, and coping mechanisms. - **Environmental Factors**: The role of self-deception can also be influenced by external factors, such as societal norms, cultural expectations, and specific situational demands. 1. **Perception and Reality:** - We perceive the world differently then others - [[Our memories of the past are inaccurate]] - [[Our perceptions of the present are skewed]] - [[Our imaginations of the future are often wrong]] - [[Naive realism]] 2. **Cognitive Biases and Errors:** - [[Human Biases, Heuristics, and Emotional Tendencies MOC]] 3. **Epistemology and Belief:** - Believing in anything objectively. Socrates once said "The one thing I know is that I know nothing." Seeing the scientific method as the ultimate objective is a form of self-deception itself. 4. **Social and Group Dynamics:** - [[Imagined versus natural orders]] - [[Socialization MOC]] - [[Groupthink]] - [[Pluralistic ignorance]] - [[Fundamental attribution error]] 5. **Language and Labeling:** - [[To act in the world, we must label things]] - [[The problems with labelling things]] 6. **Psychological and Emotional Aspects:** - The belief that negative emotions are bad - [[The untruth of fragility, what doesn't kill you makes you weaker]] - [[The untruth of fragility, what doesn't kill you makes you weaker]] 7. **Historical and Societal Perspectives:** - Not seeing historical meta-narratives. 8. **Modes of Thinking:** - Prioritizing Propositional and Procedural knowing over Participatory and Perspectival. Intelligence isn't the same as wisdom. ## History Of The Discussion Around Self Deception - [[The three people that exposed peoples tendencies for self deception]] # How To Navigate Self Deception ### Mindsets To Adopt - Take an outside perspective on things: [[The Solomon effect]] - Be willing to [[Transframing|transframe]] - People are perspectives - You are the awareness - Learned Ignorance - Open Mindedness - Curiosity ### Learn More About Yourself - [[Lifestyle Design MOC]] - [[Meta knowledge of your tendencies for self-deception is the most powerful knowledge you can have]] ### Be More Mindful In Interactions - Surround yourself with what Adam Grant in [[Think Again Book Summary|Think Again]] calls a Challenge Group. - [[Others might be a more reliable and valid indicator for how a future thing might make us feel then ourselves]] ### Navigating Self Deception On A Group Scale - Laws, regulations, and rules, are a method of stopping self-deception. ## Future research question: How can we recognize, prepare, and navigate our and others self deceptive natures? - [x] [[Behave By Robert B Sapolsky]] - [x] [[Sapiens A Brief History Of Everything]] - [x] [[Dopamine Nation]] - [ ] [[Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]] - [ ] [[Attitude Is Everything 1]] - [ ] [[Indistractable]] - [ ] [[Everyday Zen]] - [ ] [[Buddhism MOC]] - [ ] [[The Social Animal]] - [ ] [[Happiness Beyond Thought]] - [ ] [[The Bias That Divides Us]] - [ ] [[Enchiridion]] - [ ] [[Stumbling on Happiness]] - [ ] [[Rationality]] - [ ] [[Awareness Conversations With The Mystics]] - [ ] [[Siddhartha]] - [ ] [[The Untethered Soul]] - [ ] [[The Selfish Gene]] - [ ] [[Think Again Book Summary]] - [ ] [[Predictably Irrational]] - [ ] The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson - [ ] Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (This classic novel delves deeply into the human psyche and the ways in which we justify our actions to ourselves). - [ ] - _"The Deceptive Brain"_ by David L. Carmel and Jason P. Davis. - [ ] _"The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity"_ by Bruce Hood. - [ ] - _The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life"_ by Robert Trivers. - [ ] _"Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It"_ by Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel. - [ ] - _"On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not"_ by Robert A. Burton. - [ ] _"Self-Deception Unmasked"_ by Alfred R. Mele. - [ ] _"Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception"_ by Daniel Goleman. - [ ] The Rationality Qoutient ## Related MOCs ```dataview list from #🗺️ and [[]] and !outgoing([[]]) sort file.mtime desc ``` ## Related Concepts ```dataview table Status from [[]] and !outgoing([[]]) and !#🗺️ sort file.mtime desc ```