The Dark Arts of Rationality series and its compartmentalization and inconsistency techniques. I’m toying with that a bit, but I don’t have a good account to give yet.
The fact (apparently) that placebo work even if you know they are placebo.
So I’d say that clearly many people are getting self-reported benefits from self-deception.
Key in understanding the phenomenon is the system 1 / system 2 (fast / slow) distinction. Typically you know in system 2 that you are deceiving yourself but you act out the deception in system 1.
Brings two things to mind:
The Dark Arts of Rationality series and its compartmentalization and inconsistency techniques. I’m toying with that a bit, but I don’t have a good account to give yet.
The fact (apparently) that placebo work even if you know they are placebo.
So I’d say that clearly many people are getting self-reported benefits from self-deception.
Key in understanding the phenomenon is the system 1 / system 2 (fast / slow) distinction. Typically you know in system 2 that you are deceiving yourself but you act out the deception in system 1.