Robert Trivers begins this chapter of The Folly of Fools by describing his efforts in the early 1970s to construct social theory based on natural selection. He aimed to understand the evolution of basic social relationships like parent/offspring, male/female, and in-group/out-group dynamics. Natural selection, which refers to the fact that individuals who leave more surviving offspring tend to pass on their genetic traits, was key to understanding how organisms evolve to maximize their reproductive success.
When applied to social behavior, natural selection predicts a mixture of conflicting emotions and behaviors. For example, parent-offspring relations are not expected to be free of conflict, even in the womb. Reciprocal relations can be exploited by cheaters, leading to the evolution of a sense of fairness. Sex differences can be understood through concepts like relative parental investment.
However, Trivers encountered a paradox when considering human mental processes - we seem to seek out information and then act to destroy it. Our sensory organs have evolved to give us an accurate view of reality, which is adaptive for navigating the world effectively. But once information reaches our brains, it is often distorted in our conscious minds through denial, projection, rationalization, and other ego-defense mechanisms. This raises the question: why would natural selection favor accurate sensory organs only to have us distort that information?
Trivers proposes that self-deception evolved primarily to facilitate the deception of others. The key insight was that deception of others could provide the evolutionary force to drive self-deception. Self-deception allows us to hide the signs of conscious deception, makes the actual process of deception less cognitively demanding, and provides an easy defense against accusations of deception (i.e. "I was unconscious of my actions").
The author argues that deceit and self-deception should be treated as a unitary subject, with each feeding into the other. Self-deception occurs because we hide reality from our conscious minds in order to hide it from others. This arrangement exists to manipulate others more effectively.
Trivers takes an evolutionary approach, asking how self-deception provides a biological advantage in terms of survival and reproduction. He contrasts this with psychological approaches that view self-deception as a way to feel better or be happier. While there may be some truth to the psychological view, Trivers argues it doesn't explain why we would use such a costly and potentially dangerous mechanism as self-deception to regulate happiness.
The central claim of the book is that self-deception evolves in the service of deception - to better fool others. It does this in three key ways:
By hiding the cues associated with conscious deception
By reducing the cognitive load involved in deception
By providing an easy defense against accusations of deception
Trivers notes that deception is pervasive throughout nature, occurring at all levels from genes to cells to individuals to groups. It infects fundamental relationships like parasite-host, predator-prey, plant-animal, male-female, neighbor-neighbor, parent-offspring, and even an organism's relationship to itself. Deception tends to take the lead evolutionarily, with detection of deception playing catch-up.
The author defines self-deception as occurring when the conscious mind is kept in the dark, with true information preferentially excluded from consciousness. False information is put into the conscious mind, which seems counterintuitive but exists to better manipulate others. We hide reality from our conscious minds to better hide it from onlookers.
Trivers then discusses how humans detect consciously propagated deception, focusing on three key cues:
Nervousness
Control/overcontrol
Cognitive load
Of these, cognitive load appears to be the most critical variable. Lying is cognitively demanding - one must suppress the truth, construct a plausible falsehood, tell it convincingly, and remember the fabricated story. This cognitive burden produces detectable effects like reduced blinking, less fidgeting, fewer hand gestures, longer pauses in speech, and higher pitch of voice.
Importantly, there is often no easy way to reduce the cognitive expense of lying other than to increase unconscious control through mechanisms like denial and repression. This highlights the adaptive value of self-deception in making deception less detectable.
Trivers argues that self-deception is likely much older evolutionarily than language. He gives the example of inflated self-confidence, which can be used to deceive others about one's abilities or likelihood of success in competitive situations. This feature likely extends far back in our animal ancestry. Language greatly expanded the opportunities for deceit and self-deception in humans, but is not required for the phenomenon to occur.
The author then outlines nine categories or manifestations of self-deception:
Self-inflation: This is the dominant style in human psychological life. We routinely put ourselves in the top half of positive distributions and the bottom half of negative ones. For example, 94% of professors rated themselves in the top half of their profession in one survey.
Derogation of others: This is closely linked to self-inflation, making oneself look better by comparison. It often emerges as a defensive strategy when one's self-image is threatened.
In-group/out-group biases: We quickly form in-group preferences and out-group derogation, even with arbitrary groupings. This bias starts early in childhood and has also been demonstrated in monkeys.
Biases of power: Inducing even temporary feelings of power in people makes them less likely to take others' perspectives and more self-focused. This reduces their ability to comprehend how others think and feel.
Moral superiority: We tend to judge others more harshly for moral infractions than we judge ourselves. This moral hypocrisy appears to be a deep part of human nature.
Illusion of control: We often believe we have greater ability to affect outcomes than we actually do. This can lead to poorer performance in domains like stock trading.
Biased social theories: We construct theories about our social reality that are often self-serving and biased. These can relate to our relationships, work situations, or views on society at large.
False personal narratives: We create biased histories of our own behavior and motivations. For example, people tend to push memories of negative moral actions further into their past than positive ones.
Unconscious modules devoted to deception: Trivers gives a personal example of being an unconscious petty thief, suggesting we may have specialized unconscious modules devoted to specific deceptive behaviors.
The hallmarks of self-deception in service of deceit include:
Denial of deception
Unconscious running of selfish and deceitful ploys
Creation of a public persona as an altruist
Creation of self-serving social theories and biased narratives
A biased system of information flow within the mind
Trivers notes that it's usually advantageous for the truth to be registered somewhere in the mind, so mechanisms of self-deception often exist alongside mechanisms for correctly apprehending reality. This results in a complex mental architecture split into public and private portions.
The general costs of self-deception include misapprehension of reality (especially social reality) and an inefficient, fragmented mental system. There are also important immune system costs, which Trivers explores later in the book.
The author then delves deeper into some key aspects and examples of self-deception:
Self-inflation appears to be the default mode in human psychology. We engage in what one psychologist called "beneffectance" - appearing to be both beneficial and effective to others. This extends to subtle linguistic choices, like using active voice for positive group effects and passive voice for negative ones.
Recent research has shown that self-inflation operates at an unconscious perceptual level. When shown morphed versions of their own face, people are quickest to recognize a version made 20% more attractive, slightly slower to recognize their actual face, and slowest to recognize a version made 20% less attractive. This suggests self-deception is bounded - 30% more attractive would be implausible, while 10% better fails to gain the full advantage.
An extreme form of self-adulation is found in narcissists, who view themselves as special and unique, entitled to more positive outcomes than others. They are persistent in their delusions, predicting high performance even in the face of past failures.
Derogation of others often emerges as a defensive strategy when one's self-image is threatened. Studies have shown that people who are told they scored low on an IQ test are more likely to subsequently denigrate members of stereotypically intelligent groups or emphasize negative stereotypes about less intelligent groups.
In-group/out-group biases are among the most prominent and quickly formed psychological responses in humans. Even arbitrary groupings like shirt color can induce these effects within 30 minutes. Once we define someone as part of an out-group, a series of mental operations serve to degrade our image of that person compared to an in-group member.
This bias starts early in life. By age three, children prefer to play with in-group members and display negative attitudes toward out-group members. Similar mental architecture regarding in-groups and out-groups has been demonstrated in monkeys, suggesting deep evolutionary roots for this bias.
The biases of power have been demonstrated through priming experiments. When people are induced to feel powerful, they become less able to take others' perspectives and more self-focused. This reduces their ability to comprehend how others think and feel. Since powerful men often make decisions about war, this built-in bias can have tragic consequences.
Moral superiority and hypocrisy appear to be deeply ingrained in human nature. We judge others more harshly for moral infractions than we judge ourselves. Interestingly, under cognitive load this bias disappears, suggesting we have a deep mechanism for making universal moral judgments that is overridden by higher faculties painting matters in our favor.
The illusion of control refers to our tendency to believe we have greater ability to affect outcomes than we actually do. In a study of stockbrokers, those with a higher illusion of control were evaluated as less productive by superiors and earned less money. This suggests that in some domains, an inflated sense of control can lead to poorer real-world performance.
We all construct biased social theories about our immediate social reality. These theories help us understand the world and detect cheating, but also allow us to persuade ourselves and others of false realities that benefit us. The unconscious importance of these theories is revealed during arguments, where two whole landscapes of biased information are ready to be deployed.
False personal narratives are continually created as we enhance ourselves and derogate others. Recent evidence suggests that middle-aged adults push memories of negative moral actions about 10 years further into their past than positive ones. There are also asymmetries in how we narrate events where we anger others versus being angered ourselves.
Trivers proposes that we may have unconscious modules devoted to specific deceptive behaviors. He gives a personal example of being an unconscious petty thief, describing it as a little organism within him looking for opportunities to steal small objects. This behavior has persisted despite increased conscious awareness of it, suggesting a deeply ingrained, modular nature.
The author speculates that we may have many such unconscious modules operating in our lives, allowing multiple activities to occur simultaneously with little interference. This could include unconscious ploys to manipulate others in specific ways.
In conclusion, Trivers argues that self-deception is a complex phenomenon with deep evolutionary roots. While it can provide advantages in manipulating others, it comes with significant costs in terms of misapprehending reality and maintaining an inefficient, fragmented mental system. Understanding the evolutionary logic and manifestations of self-deception can provide valuable insights into human behavior and cognition.
The chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book, which will explore self-deception in various domains of life and its implications for individuals and society. Trivers aims to develop a science of self-deception grounded in evolutionary biology, acknowledging that the field is in its infancy and mistakes will be made, but expressing optimism that a mature science can rapidly develop from this foundation.