I would definitely agree that people are generally reluctant to blatantly deceive themselves. There is definitely some cost to incorrect beliefs, though it can vary greatly in magnitude depending on the situation.
For instance, just say all of your friends go to one church, and you start suspecting your local minister of being less accurate than others. If you actually don’t trust them, you could either pretend you do and live as such, or be honest and possibly have all of your friends dislike you. You clearly have a strong motivation to believe something specific here, and I think generally incentives trump internal honesty.[1]
On the end part, I don’t think that “hostile talking up” is what the hostile actors want to be seen as doing :) Rather, they would be trying to make it seem like the people previously above them are really below them. To them and their followers, they seem to be at the top of their relevant distribution.
1) There’s been a lot about politics being tribal being discussed recently, and I think it makes a lot of pragmatic sense. link
Good points;
I would definitely agree that people are generally reluctant to blatantly deceive themselves. There is definitely some cost to incorrect beliefs, though it can vary greatly in magnitude depending on the situation.
For instance, just say all of your friends go to one church, and you start suspecting your local minister of being less accurate than others. If you actually don’t trust them, you could either pretend you do and live as such, or be honest and possibly have all of your friends dislike you. You clearly have a strong motivation to believe something specific here, and I think generally incentives trump internal honesty.[1]
On the end part, I don’t think that “hostile talking up” is what the hostile actors want to be seen as doing :) Rather, they would be trying to make it seem like the people previously above them are really below them. To them and their followers, they seem to be at the top of their relevant distribution.
1) There’s been a lot about politics being tribal being discussed recently, and I think it makes a lot of pragmatic sense. link