It is a classic finding in evolutionary psychology: the person who wants to fool others begins by fooling themselves.
I object to two points here: (1) calling it a finding and (2) calling it evolutionary psychology. It certainly is popular in evolutionary psychology, but I don’t see any argument (certainly not in that link) that it is selected over generations rather than learned over a lifetime. More importantly, it’s a hypothesis, not a “finding.” There’s very little evidence, largely because it’s difficult to test. I also doubt it’s specific enough to test.
Differences between the conscious and unconscious mind should usually correspond to differences between the goals of a person and the “goals” of the genome, or else between subgoals important today and subgoals important in the EEA.
That’s evolutionary psychology and it’s rather at odds at the previous claim! (The first part might be a way of making the original claim more specific, but it’s rather different from what people usually say.)
the person who wants to fool others begins by fooling themselves.
Whatever it may be a finding of, it appears true and it makes great sense. We (or most of us) experience some discomfort in lying or misleading that feels completely different from telling the truth. We also notice such discomfort in people, and when we do, we tend to suspect them of lying. We aren’t always right, but it still draws our suspicion.
the person who wants to fool others begins by fooling themselves
Maybe it’s true, but I’d like to see evidence. Introspection is evidence. But you only claim to conclude from introspection that lying has costs, both internal psychic costs and leakage. That’s very far from claiming that people avoid those costs by fooling themselves. Which is independent of the claim that it’s the best way to do it, which is an evolution-ish claim from the link.
Also, I have no idea what “lie” means in this context. I’m pretty sure from other exchanges on this site that it does not lead to much successful communication. Maybe the general population, or even psychologists, can use the word uniformly clearly. But do they? I did once read a fairly specific EEA just-so story about this where it seemed to be purely about projecting confidence / arete and pretty far from the kind of declarative statement that I associate with lying. “I am the greatest” seems precise enough to be false, but I suspect that appearance is due to my speaking “nerd” rather than English. I don’t think most politicians have specific enough beliefs that they have to change them to say that. (But boxers, yes.)
I object to two points here: (1) calling it a finding and (2) calling it evolutionary psychology. It certainly is popular in evolutionary psychology, but I don’t see any argument (certainly not in that link) that it is selected over generations rather than learned over a lifetime. More importantly, it’s a hypothesis, not a “finding.” There’s very little evidence, largely because it’s difficult to test. I also doubt it’s specific enough to test.
That’s evolutionary psychology and it’s rather at odds at the previous claim! (The first part might be a way of making the original claim more specific, but it’s rather different from what people usually say.)
Whatever it may be a finding of, it appears true and it makes great sense. We (or most of us) experience some discomfort in lying or misleading that feels completely different from telling the truth. We also notice such discomfort in people, and when we do, we tend to suspect them of lying. We aren’t always right, but it still draws our suspicion.
Maybe it’s true, but I’d like to see evidence. Introspection is evidence. But you only claim to conclude from introspection that lying has costs, both internal psychic costs and leakage. That’s very far from claiming that people avoid those costs by fooling themselves. Which is independent of the claim that it’s the best way to do it, which is an evolution-ish claim from the link.
Also, I have no idea what “lie” means in this context. I’m pretty sure from other exchanges on this site that it does not lead to much successful communication. Maybe the general population, or even psychologists, can use the word uniformly clearly. But do they? I did once read a fairly specific EEA just-so story about this where it seemed to be purely about projecting confidence / arete and pretty far from the kind of declarative statement that I associate with lying. “I am the greatest” seems precise enough to be false, but I suspect that appearance is due to my speaking “nerd” rather than English. I don’t think most politicians have specific enough beliefs that they have to change them to say that. (But boxers, yes.)