How do people lie to themselves?

[uumlau]

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.

To the contrary, I find that really smart people are quite excellent at lying to themselves. The stupid people just happen to be able to get away with stupider lies.

 

[EcK]

How can facts support a delusion?

confirmation bias, you 'listen' to any information that agree with ur opinion and disregard other info.
For example ppl who believe the earth is 6000 years old and saying evolution is not proven despite an immense body of evidence and experimental proof of evolution and yet will automatically see any shody idea or theory going their way as definite proof that they are right

 

[EcK]

To the contrary, I find that really smart people are quite excellent at lying to themselves. The stupid people just happen to be able to get away with stupider lies.

Well, smart people can be stupid. It's not all black and white.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

confirmation bias, you 'listen' to any information that agree with ur opinion and disregard other info.
For example ppl who believe the earth is 6000 years old and saying evolution is not proven despite an immense body of evidence and experimental proof of evolution and yet will automatically see any shody idea or theory going their way as definite proof that they are right

If you read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, you will find a whole range of ways we can deceive ourselves. Excellent book by Nobel prize winning psychologist.....summarizing a career of experimental psychology

 

[uumlau]

Well, smart people can be stupid. It's not all black and white.

Well, by your model, it's "all black and black", because everyone is stupid, and you explain all lies to oneself as "stupidity".

 

[Mane]

distinction: you are been stupid vs. you are a stupid being

(Damn it, the one time I actually need to get been/being correctly...)

 

[EcK]

Well, by your model, it's "all black and black", because everyone is stupid, and you explain all lies to oneself as "stupidity".

a) it's an obvious over simplification. For the sake of debate. Big simplistic 'this is Truth' statements are intjs magnets you see.
b) You're making the classic mistake of mistaking quality for essence. That's quite a biggie as far as syllogisms go.

 

[EcK]

If you read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, you will find a whole range of ways we can deceive ourselves. Excellent book by Nobel prize winning psychologist.....summarizing a career of experimental psychology

I believe the Teaching Company has a pretty good course on the study of effective reasoning, I've listened to it maybe uhh. 7 years ago?? But as far as I remembered it pretty much gave a good summary of all key infos on the topic. Steven pinker is pretty cool too, only 'well published' biologist I've read which doesn't go into polarization of opinions and wow-effect for the sake of readership (which is such an overdone parlor trick, I wonder if these people actually believe what they write frankly). 99% sure steven pinker is an entp. Reading his books feel like someone reading my mind, so it's a pretty safe assumption.

 

[Bush]

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.

If you read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, you will find a whole range of ways we can deceive ourselves. Excellent book by Nobel prize winning psychologist.....summarizing a career of experimental psychology

These books are both fantastic. Required reading.

To the contrary, I find that really smart people are quite excellent at lying to themselves. The stupid people just happen to be able to get away with stupider lies.

This is the most obvious corollary question to the OP -- but screw it; getting here was inevitable anyway: How do people break through self-deception? Does it involve simply being smarter than "really smart," does it involve wisdom, or something else?

Nuts to general character traits, even. What specific mechanisms do people use to break through self-deception? Can those be mapped to type?

I've got my answers, but to type them out to satisfaction would be to write a freakin' tome. I'll do it later.

 

[uumlau]

a) it's an obvious over simplification. For the sake of debate. Big simplistic 'this is Truth' statements are intjs magnets you see.
b) You're making the classic mistake of mistaking quality for essence. That's quite a biggie as far as syllogisms go.

In other words, my "mistake" is to not realize the sheer brilliance of your content-free observation.

 

[cascadeco]

I suppose most of my self deception would fall into not recognizing or maybe equally importantly not wanting to accept needs, not being self honest or aware in a specific moment of true underlying motivations, or repressing feelings. All of this can be done via rationalizing, or focusing on certain things and downplaying other things, or simply doubting myself and my feelings. Or, wishing to be different than I am, maybe, and thinking I can 'grow', while in the meantime not placing enough weight on what I am actually feeling or wanting. Trying to convince myself of something (historically most applicable to jobs, given fact I needed one thus had to rationalize some of the ones I took, even if they didn't really seem like 'me'. I think it can be a fuzzy line though between 'lying' to oneself and being practical and doing what one needs to do to make sense of the world and life. But, that was kinda what was mentioned in the OP, ie we all do it). Probably a combo of both Fi and Ni. The solution for me boils down to constantly listening to myself and not pushing away or ignoring the negative feelings. Listening to my inner voice even if the results of doing so could tip things upside down. Also facing fears.

 

[EcK]

In other words, my "mistake" is to not realize the sheer brilliance of your content-free observation.

It was content-full. Only most of it was implied, the rest was meant to get people to say something. Or the other way around. depends how you see it.

 

[uumlau]

It was content-full.

If you have to SAY that your post has content, it probably doesn't.

Only most of it was implied,

Teacher: Eck, why does your essay assignment have only one sentence? Do you have nothing to say?
Eck: Oh, I had plenty to say. The rest of the content is implied!
Teacher:

 

[EcK]

To answer the op directly: I don't think people 'lie' to themselves. By which I mean we are all the heroes of our own stories, we are biased against seeing 'the bad and the ugly' (which is in turn relative to the viewer), we can at some point realise we were wrong, or mistaken, or simply an unconscious of unexamined behavior or thought pattern can be seen as unoptimal or however we want to call it.

We can run away from pain and obscure some perceptions and thoughts.

But do we really lie as in trick ourselves into believing a or b. Let's take FRAMING for example. When in a bad mood someone can 'frame' him or herself into lifting their mood up.
Is that a lie? I think it's more akin to connecting the affects from situation A to situation B, it's a 'mechanical' process based on exploiting how our brains work. But it also begs the question of the relevance of our mental states when talking about 'what is real'.

Were you 'really in a bad spot' and 'lied to yourself' into believing all was cool and fluffy? Not really.
When say, a woman is in 'a bad relationship' and lies to herself about her level of happiness. Is she in fact doing that? Or is that an external point of view (someone else's), or is it what she thinks afterwards (lets say after breaking up). etc.

Isn't it simply that our lives are complex and when putting 'words' onto it we have to simplify to a high degree, therefore the same situation from a different perspective might seem 'different' when it's all a coherent whole. No lies, just different points of views.

I think 'truth' is such a time, experience and other contexts relative term that we might need a better term than 'lying' when defining self delusion.

When you think of it most of human knowledge is a form of self delusion:

1. - no we do not KNOW the door is solid, we just trust the weight of experience we have to assume it reflects an outside reality.
2. - that is akin to someone hitting her foot every time she passes a furniture and assuming it's a universal human reality that everyone will hit their foot on that same furniture. The fact that 'door solidity' is far more reliable doesn't make it different in essence.
3. - Don't get me started on religion: whether god(s) exist or not I don't think we can honestly say that there's anything objective or reasonable about people believing that THIS BOOK is so special everything it says is true but all the other books are just fantasy. Including some or all other books stating they are the only real book about real miracles no one alive has witnessed/that fall into normal statistical variation.
4. - no colors are not 'real' they're perceptions. A tool hard-coded into us. We're not lying to ourselves about redness, it's just how we perceive it.
5. - every human being tends to believe they are somewhat special. Everyone knows only entps are special.
6. - superstitious / magical beliefs with no basis in experience (being 'afraid in the dark' doesn't mean there are invisible ghosts out to get you)
7. - no you don't 'always miss the bus', the bus arrives regularly. It's not out to get you.
8. - there is no 'pattern' in the slot machine generally. It's designed to play on your biases to keep you p (l) aying.
9. - etc

 

[EcK]

If you have to SAY that your post has content, it probably doesn't.


Teacher: Eck, why does your essay assignment have only one sentence? Do you have nothing to say?
Eck: Oh, I had plenty to say. The rest of the content is implied!
Teacher:

Why? If I were a philosophy teacher you'd assume that any one liner I give is full of depth. So what makes you think I'm not considering a plethora of factors when saying something mundane sounding? Perhaps I just don't have the patience to explain my thoughts in details and perhaps If i did I'd have to explain 10 different perspectives at once and then would go off in tangents ad eternam. *shrugs*

Perhaps I wanted to generate short bursts of feedback as these are better at maintaining my fleeting attention and so my post(s) did exactly what I intended them to do.

And yes my philosophy teacher in high school hated my guts for making fun of all his essay assignments as simplistic/flawed reasoning when expanding onto the logic/ seeing them from outside of the pre-determined essay assignment box. Entps. ya know. Brats. I liked to answer philosophical questions with neurology cum rethorics.

Also most of human communication is pretty void of 'meaningful' data. What do you make of that?
(we just like to chat, drive for socialization and verbalization etc. )

 

[uumlau]

Why? If I were a philosophy teacher you'd assume that any one liner I give is full of depth.

No, I'd regard such one-liners as intellectual posturing. I see enough of that on social media that I can only roll my eyes at more of it.

So what makes you think I'm not considering a plethora of factors when saying something mundane sounding?

I'm sure you ARE considering all sorts of things. Ne doms are known for that.

Perhaps I just don't have the patience to explain my thoughts in details and perhaps If i did I'd have to explain 10 different perspectives at once and then would go off in tangents ad eternam.

I sympathize. I'm just teasing you. Mostly.

 

[EcK]

No, I'd regard such one-liners as intellectual posturing. I see enough of that on social media that I can only roll my eyes at more of it.


I'm sure you ARE considering all sorts of things. Ne doms are known for that.



I sympathize. I'm just teasing you. Mostly.

Stay on OP please [MENTION=9310]uumlau[/MENTION]

ps:
It's really difficult to always triple think about everything. I think we need to create an entp trustfund to help those poor buggers.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Can you two take a breather...... this interesting topic is getting derailed in a pissing contest

 

[EcK]

I suppose most of my self deception would fall into not recognizing or maybe equally importantly not wanting to accept needs, not being self honest or aware in a specific moment of true underlying motivations, or repressing feelings. All of this can be done via rationalizing, or focusing on certain things and downplaying other things, or simply doubting myself and my feelings. Or, wishing to be different than I am, maybe, and thinking I can 'grow', while in the meantime not placing enough weight on what I am actually feeling or wanting. Trying to convince myself of something (historically most applicable to jobs, given fact I needed one thus had to rationalize some of the ones I took, even if they didn't really seem like 'me'. I think it can be a fuzzy line though between 'lying' to oneself and being practical and doing what one needs to do to make sense of the world and life. But, that was kinda what was mentioned in the OP, ie we all do it). Probably a combo of both Fi and Ni. The solution for me boils down to constantly listening to myself and not pushing away or ignoring the negative feelings. Listening to my inner voice even if the results of doing so could tip things upside down. Also facing fears.

Yeah but if you're recognizing it. Then how are you lying to yourself? I'm assuming you don't have split personality. In case you do I hope it's not like in that Psycho movie (if it is I'll be waiting for the movie)

In my dealings with my local friendly INFJ fiend I've noticed, from my perspective, that she tends to 'workout' how things are and then not be flexible to new input. Though after a while she'll start 'cooling down' and see at least part of my perspective. Though of course I could be the one who's wrong so I don't start off assuming my statement must be right.

So in the same way 'decisions' you make perhaps influence how you view what is 'true'. Then I would have to assume that things you call "lying to yourself' are related with paths you've taken which don't fully satisfy you result wise.

But that's just human nature, we don't know everything. It doesn't make us 'flawed' or 'liars'.

bottom line: live and learn, love yourself, love the person who says you're wrong because that's an opportunity to learn something.

Can you two take a breather...... this interesting topic is getting derailed in a pissing contest

He started it!

 

[cascadeco]

Yeah but if you're recognizing it. Then how are you lying to yourself? I'm assuming you don't have split personality. In case you do I hope it's not like in that Psycho movie (if it is I'll be waiting for the movie)

In my dealings with my local friendly INFJ fiend I've noticed, from my perspective, that she tends to 'workout' how things are and then not be flexible to new input. Though after a while she'll start 'cooling down' and see at least part of my perspective. Though of course I could be the one who's wrong so I don't start off assuming my statement must be right.

So in the same way 'decisions' you make perhaps influence how you view what is 'true'. Then I would have to assume that things you call "lying to yourself' are related with paths you've taken which don't fully satisfy you result wise.

Well maybe as you mentioned, it boils down to all of us weaving stories for ourselves, stories about our lives and why we're doing things and how we are. I suppose it can then become subjective, other people looking on us, seeing something different, thereby judging us as 'lying' to ourselves, or, we'll at a later date decide we were 'lying', due to us discovering new info, or switching a perspective, or maybe simplest, we're deemed truthful if as you say we are satisfied with the results. But that opens a can of worms, as you mentioned earlier, many people may be quite happy and ignorant maintaining their belief in something that is utterly untrue, to most outsiders they're totally lying to themselves, but they're super happy. Cue Ignorance is Bliss phrase. Maybe as [MENTION=9310]uumlau[/MENTION] said, it starts becoming a real problem when it adversely impacts ones life and psychae, over and over again; becoming circular. That has happened to me before, and the reasons for it are what I mentioned I think my own things are.

But that's just human nature, we don't know everything. It doesn't make us 'flawed' or 'liars'.

bottom line: live and learn, love yourself, love the person who says you're wrong because that's an opportunity to learn something.

Totally agree