Self-Deception: Deceiving Yourself to Better Deceive Others

Self-Deceived Individuals Are Better at Deceiving Others

Self-deception is widespread in humans even though it can lead to disastrous consequences such as airplane crashes and financial meltdowns. Why is this potentially harmful trait so common? A controversial theory proposes that self-deception evolved to facilitate the deception of others. We test this hypothesis in the real world and find support for it: Overconfident individuals are overrated by...

To Deceive or Not to Deceive? Mimicry, Deception & Regimes in Tag-based Models

The tag-based computational model of cooperation described in Riolo et al. (2001) was extended in a series of experiments that examined the impact of tactical deceptive mimicry on cooperation, tolerance, and the emergence of regimes. Under all conditions, tactical deceptive mimicry increased the population cooperation above that of the base case. Allowing deceptive tolerance or deceptive propen...

People avoid situations that enable them to deceive others

Dissociative identity disorder: adaptive deception of self and others.

Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality) is increasingly diagnosed, often follows childhood trauma, and is characterized by rigidification of phenomena that resemble hypnosis. To interpret dissociated aspects of selfhood as autonomous entities is a useful heuristic; but when taken too literally, it leads to three kinds of anomaly: (1) legal: dissociators remain culpable for misdeed...

Deceiving Others: Distinct Neural Responses of the Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala in Simple Fabrication and Deception with Social Interactions

Brain mechanisms for telling lies have been investigated recently using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. Although the advent of these techniques has gradually enabled clarification of the functional contributions of the prefrontal cortex in deception with respect to executive function, the specific roles of subregions within...