The Evolution of Self-Deceit

Eric R. Pianka

"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens
to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth
within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself
and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love."

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


Recent studies with young children have shown that the leaders among children are those who can lie more convincingly. Interestingly, the correlation between leadership and ability to be dishonest did not hold among adult women, although it does among adult males. These startling new discoveries have obvious implications in politics!

Deceit of others is fairly straightforward but self-deceit is an extremely interesting phenomenon worth closer scrutiny. We like to think that we perceive the world around us accurately. In a series of experiments, voices of human subjects were taped and played back to subjects who were wired to a polygraph "lie detector." The polygraph measures electrical conductance across the skin's surface based on perspiration. Our skins, and presumably our subconscious minds, virtually always recognize tape recordings of one's own voice accurately. However, these experiments demonstrated two different forms of self-deception. Sometimes, the conscious response of a subject to hearing his/her own voice is "No, that's not me," but electrical conductance in their own skin shows otherwise (the subconscious recognizes one's own voice). Other times, a "Yes, that's me!" to the voice of another person, but skin conductance indicates that the subconscious knows otherwise (i. e., the truth). People who fail to recognize their own voices and who project themselves into another person's voice typically have poor self-images. Presumably, these people were being quite "honest" and genuinely felt that they were giving correct answers. In both situations, the person's conscious mind was deceiving itself while the subconscious mind retained accurate information.

What possible adaptive value could such complex self-deception have? The rather startling possibility is that self-deceit makes one a more effective "liar," enabling one to persuade other humans of some misinformation (imagine the benefits in politics and in litigation!).

Indeed, the evolution of the subconscious mind itself would seem to be necessary precursor for self-deceit to even become possible. What the subconscious mind actually does with its veritable treasure trove of accurate perceptions remains an open question. My guess is that such information is exploited to maximize the reproductive success of individuals (without their own "knowledge")! The profound implications of self-deceit for politics are disturbing.

References

Gur, C. R. and H. A. Sackeim. 1979. Self-deception: a concept in search of a phenomenon. J. Personality and Social Psychology 37: 147-169.

Trivers, R. L. 1985. Social evolution. Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, California.

Trivers, R. L. 2011. The Folly of Fools. The Logic of Self Deceit. Fool yourself to better fool others. Basic Books.