How do people lie to themselves?

[Mane]

Guys ...

While these last 8 posts are so aren't exactly off topic, they really aren't ON topic, either. They are a bunch of complaints about things you don't like about certain types, how stupid certain types are, how unreasonable certain types are. This is getting perilously close to the "bashing of other types" that I said I didn't want to be part of the discussion.

That's dumb.

I've tried accounting for what I've seen as common patterns with ENFPs but my post was mostly about lies ENTPs - people of my own type tell themselves - largely inspired by legitimate complaints people who have been close to Ne doms have had, based on behavior's I've seen as well as self-examination.

If you feel they don't qualify because they don't work by the same operation of "being true from a certain perspective" (and sticking to it), then you are countering the point of your own thread - asking for how different types lie to themselves and then filtering it by how similar it is to when your own type lies to themselves is pretty counter productive.

You are correct that Ni doms lie to themselves by forming a perspective from which they appear to themselves as correct and then refusing to see any other perspective, but how long does any Ne dom sticks by any perspective? By that standards we'd be perfect vessels of honesty, except we are far from it because we have an entire collection of our own strategies that are reliant on that very indecisiveness, because the support beams holding our lies are "It could be true". The lie is always going to be a result of how the person interacts with reality at large.

But I did just call out what you are doing on being dumb, so you know, do your hobby/volunteerjob the way you guys usually do and let prplchknz & poki continue to bring the thread back to "topic". Shame - I was actually excited - it was a thread concept with a lot of potential.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

If you feel they don't qualify because they don't work by the same operation of "being true from a certain perspective" (and sticking to it), then you are countering the point of your own thread - asking for how different types lie to themselves and then filtering it by how similar it is to when your own type lies to themselves is pretty counter productive.

You are correct that Ni doms lie to themselves by forming a perspective from which they appear to themselves as correct and then refusing to see any other perspective, but how long does any Ne dom sticks by any perspective? By that standards we'd be perfect vessels of honesty, except we are far from it because we have an entire collection of our own strategies that are reliant on that very indecisiveness, because the support beams holding our lies are "It could be true". The lie is always going to be a result of how the person interacts with reality at large.

INTP, but I relate to this. I see myself as honest, but other people might see things differently. I tend to take an Obi-Wan Kenobi approach of "it being true from a certain point of view."

 

[Mane]

INTP, but I relate to this. I see myself as honest, but other people might see things differently. I tend to take an Obi-Wan Kenobi approach of "it being true from a certain point of view."

Interesting. Do you find yourself refusing and slamming away perspectives that contradict it?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Interesting. Do you find yourself refusing and slamming away perspectives that contradict it?

No. There are some things I consider to be objectively distasteful, though.

 

[Poki]

There are certain things I refuse to believe. I am complimented alot, but I refuse to completely believe them because I don't want to become overly cocky, overly confident, or believe that I don't need to grow any further. So while I may play with my cocky, confident, etc. It's all driven from what others say, I question my abilities because I don't want to become that over confident, over cocky person as if I am the shit, so I hold my beliefs at a certain level by causing myself to question myself. I think that's a form of lying to myself.

 

[Mane]

No. There are some things I consider to be objectively distasteful, though.

Me too actually, even though it sounds like it should be an oxymoron (Because of taste), though I don't know if that relates to lying to yourself or t the mechanism of "True from a certain perspective" - it's usually when I figure that something depends on the circumstances and human nature at large rather then the actual person. Its not so much objective but rather... A low enough common denominator of human subjectivity. I.E. "Any person in situation X would be hurt by Y" - even though it's a subjective emotional reaction it can still be innate enough to human nature to apply it as an objective fact as long as you are dealing with humans (Vulcans I am not sure of). I think one of the greatest minds today for seen those situations is Loui C.K - half of his material is about that in some form or another.

So... Ok, I'll ask: How does seen certain things as objectively distasteful relate to lying to yourself?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

So... Ok, I'll ask: How does seen certin things as objectively distasteful relate to lying to yourself?

I would say it includes holding your own perspective and beliefs as more important than the lives of others. This is a rule I apply across the board. I can deal with someone being proud of their culture, ideology or religion, but I dismiss the concept that such a thing is more important than human lives. But anyway, I don't see why it matters.

 

[BadOctopus]

My self-delusion is mostly limited to telling myself that I'm fine when I'm not fine. Or as Voltaire put it rather nicely, "Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable."

 

[Mane]

I would say it includes holding your own perspective and beliefs as more important than the lives of others. This is a rule I apply across the board. I can deal with someone being proud of their culture, ideology or religion, but I dismiss the concept that such a thing is more important than human lives. But anyway, I don't see why it matters.

Then I refer back to the king (1 minute 44 seconds in)

 

[1487610420]

INTP, but I relate to this. I see myself as honest, but other people might see things differently. I tend to take an Obi-Wan Kenobi approach of "it being true from a certain point of view."

Isn't that what Ni is being portrayed like?

 

[Bush]

Lying to oneself. The psychology behind that one is pretty neat.

First thought.

Self-deception is usually done via two simple actions: perspective-shifting and cherry-picking.

You can fit any curve you want -- any perspective -- to any set of data points that you have. The more intricate lies require more complex maneuvering, but it's still possible to fit what you want to what you have. Someone who's "too smart for their own good" can easily weave the more intricate threads, perform the toughest mental gymnastics, and just plain rationalize to get the job done.

Cherry-picking the facts makes the job easier, as it makes for fewer points to consider. And ignoring outside feedback keeps inconvenient facts from leaking in.

Shifting perspective on individual facts can also solidify the lie. Sometimes, we ignore outside feedback -- but sometimes we actively ask for outside feedback to gather up some new facts, then spin those facts in a way that's convenient for our narrative. That has the "advantage" of giving us a huge collection of facts to support the delusion.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

Guys ...

While these last 8 posts are so aren't exactly off topic, they really aren't ON topic, either. They are a bunch of complaints about things you don't like about certain types, how stupid certain types are, how unreasonable certain types are. This is getting perilously close to the "bashing of other types" that I said I didn't want to be part of the discussion.

Lying to yourself is way, way, way more subtle than what you've been talking about, here. It isn't just being wrong about something. It isn't being stupid about something. It isn't being unreasonable about something.

The lies I'm talking about sound very, very reasonable, both to oneself and to others. They aren't "You're a guy, and guys can fix cars, therefore you can fix my car."

YOU might manage to detect a close friend's lies to himself or herself, MAYBE. Your friend won't be able to detect their own lies to themselves, because everyone is an expert at lying to oneself. They're lies such as saying you aren't really angry about something, or that everything will work out fine and ignoring problems because that maintains an illusion of control.

The Enneagram types are built around the kinds of lies people tell themselves: type 4s imagine if they find that one true love, everything will work out; type 5s imagine that if they master a topic, that they have control; type 7s imagine that the grass is greener over there ... and so on.

I'm partly interested in the Jungian function versions of these various lies, because I think it matters not just what the lie is (Enneagram type) it also matters how we lie to ourselves (and others) so very convincingly.




I think that substantially they work the same way, but superficially they're different. An INFJ might say that they're avoiding a topic in order to not make someone else uncomfortable, when the real reason is that it makes the INFJ uncomfortable. An INTJ might instead say that a particular choice they're forced by circumstance to take is really a choice they made willingly. The similarity is that both versions of the truth in these examples are true "from a particular point of view" as Obi Wan might say.

The INFJ is genuinely concerned about making others feel uncomfortable, and the INTJ is very practical and will happily work with circumstances not of their own making ... if these things weren't true, the lies wouldn't work. The lies provide truths that act to conceal other truths. These Ni versions lies to oneself WORK because the incomplete truth is still true, so it ends up sounding reasonable to oneself and everyone else precisely because it is true, and thus prevents further self-reflection that might reveal the other truth.

Okay, in that case you could probably go to Transactional Analysis, specifically the book "Games People Play" by Eric Berne. It's a whole book about little passive-aggressive (or enabling or narcissistic or whatever) games and rip-offs and lies that people use in their interactions with others (both in terms of the lies they tell others and the lies they tell themselves). You know, the standard, daily "little white lies" and petty manipulations that everyone tells themselves and others. These rip-offs and lies are all categorized, labelled and analyzed. You could take the list and assign them to the various JCFs and enenagram types.

But I think of those kinds of lies and interactions as universal. INFPs can be passive-aggressive, INTPs can be passive-aggressive, INTJs can be passive-aggressive, and so on. And the *same* personality types can also be narcissistic. And the *same* types can also act as enablers. And so on. IOW, those kinds of lies and behaviors aren't type-specific; they're just daily, petty rip-offs that people get trained to do by their parents and environment, separately from how their personality develops.

Maybe a connoisseur of passive-aggressiveness could assign distinct "flavors" of passive-aggressiveness to each separate type. But it would probably result in a lot of argument, and eventually you would have to get back to discussing the "nature" of each type (as I did in my previous posts) to justify why they're prone to *this* flavor of passive-aggressiveness rather than *that* flavor of passive-aggressiveness. That is, you would have to refer back to the "nature" of each type to justify why *this* particular lie is intrinsic to *this* particular type rather than just some common rip-off or "little white lie" they just use out of common convenience.

To sum up: I get your point. I just think it's going to be very difficult to come to any consensus on which specific *flavor* of passive-aggressiveness (or narcissism or enabling or whatever) gets assigned to which specific type, for the reasons discussed above.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Shifting perspective on individual facts can also solidify the lie. Sometimes, we ignore outside feedback -- but sometimes we actively ask for outside feedback to gather up some new facts, then spin those facts in a way that's convenient for our narrative. That has the "advantage" of giving us a huge collection of facts to support the delusion.

How can facts support a delusion?

 

[Xann]

How can facts support a delusion?

 

[uumlau]

Okay, in that case you could probably go to Transactional Analysis, specifically the book "Games People Play" by Eric Berne. It's a whole book about little passive-aggressive or enabling or narcissisting or whatever games and rip-offs and lies that people use in their interactions with others. These rip-offs and lies are all categorized, labelled and analyzed. You could take the list and assign them to the various JCFs and enenagram types.

But I think of those kinds of lies and interactions as universal. INFPs can be passive-aggressive, INTPs can be passive-aggressive, INTJs can be passive-aggressive, and so on. And the *same* personality types can also be narcissistic. And the *same* types can also act as enablers. IOW, those kinds of lies and behaviors aren't type-specific; they're just petty rip-offs that people get trained to do by their parents and environment, separately from how their personality develops.

Maybe a connoisseur of passive-aggressiveness could assign distinct "flavors" of passive-aggressiveness to each type. But it would probably result in a lot of argument, and eventually you would have to get back to discussing the "nature" of each type (as I did) to justify why they're prone to *this* flavor of passive-aggressiveness rather than *that* flavor of passive-aggressiveness.

To sum up: I get your point. I just think it's going to be very difficult to come to any consensus on which exact *flavor* of passive-aggressiveness (or narcissism or enabling or whatever) gets assigned to which exact type, for the reasons discussed above.

I think we're really talking about two different things. You're talking about classifications of lies in general.

I've seen attempts at classifying DSM personality disorders by MBTI type before, and while there is some degree of superficial behavioral similarity that might seem typical, I don't believe that type strongly indicates a tendency toward or tendency away from any particular DSM classifications.

To be clear, I'm not concerned with behaviors as much as mechanisms. For instance, "passive-aggressive"is a category of behavior. That classification doesn't even begin to answer the question(s) I'm asking. I'm looking more for the patterns behind the patterns. Also, I'm not looking at "kinds of lies" but at the execution of the lies, if that makes sense. I'm looking at why the lies "work".

 

[uumlau]

How can facts support a delusion?

An incomplete set of facts can support a delusion. And no one has all the facts. But if you gather "enough facts" that your assessment seems complete, you can believe in all sorts of things that simply aren't true. Political adversaries don't have different facts, so much as they consider some facts much more important than other facts, and hence draw completely different conclusions - and usually both of those conclusions are wrong.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

I think we're really talking about two different things. You're talking about classifications of lies in general.

I've seen attempts at classifying DSM personality disorders by MBTI type before, and while there is some degree of superficial behavioral similarity that might seem typical, I don't believe that type strongly indicates a tendency toward or tendency away from any particular DSM classifications.

To be clear, I'm not concerned with behaviors as much as mechanisms. For instance, "passive-aggressive"is a category of behavior. That classification doesn't even begin to answer the question(s) I'm asking. I'm looking more for the patterns behind the patterns. Also, I'm not looking at "kinds of lies" but at the execution of the lies, if that makes sense. I'm looking at why the lies "work".

Well, I'm not able to read your blog due to my post count. So I guess I'll just observe this thread and see how this idea works in practice.

 

[Mane]

So we seem to all agree that perception functions are the focus on this, and we have had Ni Si & Ne... What about Se? The function that in JCF is described as the most apt for a simple acknowledgement of what is evident?

 

[Kullervo]

INTP, but I relate to this. I see myself as honest, but other people might see things differently. I tend to take an Obi-Wan Kenobi approach of "it being true from a certain point of view."

I can relate to both approaches. I don't see myself as a model of virtue, though I can of course pretend to be one when it suits me.

I tend to be less fascinated by petty, everyday lies - people lying about having put out the rubbish, for example, which everyone is guilty of - as lies people teach themselves not to notice. For example, somebody could have a serial killer for a brother, but to cope with the pain come to believe that their brother lacked agency, or is "deep down" a good person.

You would be surprised (or maybe not) how often people refuse to see reality to shield themselves emotionally. This tendency has always intrigued me.

 

[EcK]

Because people are bad enough at discerning 'reality' from self serving fantasies. It's not that they lie it's that they're just not that smart, on average, as well as inherently biased as observers due to various physiological, theoretical and cultural phenomenons which then all link back to point 1 (they're just not that smart.) in determining their ability to somewhat take a step back and consider things. which is then again limited by factor 2 (inherent biases) and so on.