The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life DI Robert Trivers - La teoria generale
- Programmino: the time is ripe for a general theory of deceit and self-deception based on evolutionary logic,
- Tesi: We are thoroughgoing liars, even to ourselves. Our most prized possession—language—not only strengthens our ability to lie but greatly extends its range.
- Scopo: we lie to ourselves the better to lie to others—but
- Scienza triste: The topic is a negative one. This book is about untruth, about falsehoods, about lies, inward and outward. At times, it is a depressing subject
- CHAPTER 1 The Evolutionary Logic of Self-Deception
- Natural selection refers to the fact that in every species, some individuals leave more surviving offspring than do others, so that the genetic traits of the reproductively successful tend to become more frequent over time.
- reciprocal relations are easily exploited by cheaters, that is, non-reciprocators, so that a sense of fairness may naturally evolve to regulate such relations in a protective manner.
- At the heart of our mental lives, there seemed to be a striking contradiction—we seek out information and then act to destroy
- Abbiamo occho d'aquila: together our sensory systems are organized to give us a detailed and accurate view of reality. E menti diaboliche: But once this information arrives in our brains, it is often distorted and biased to our conscious minds.
- We repress painful memories, create completely false ones, rationalize immoral behavior, act repeatedly to boost positive self-opinion, and show a suite of ego-defense mechanisms.
- Tesi biologica: Applied more broadly, the general argument is that we deceive ourselves the better to deceive others. the primary function of self-deception is offensive—measured
- THE EVOLUTION OF SELF-DECEPTION
- Due teorie concorrenti: biological approach defines “advantage”in terms of survival and reproduction, the psychological approach often defines “advantage”as feeling better,
- The central claim of this book is that self-deception evolves in the service of deception—the better to fool others. Sometimes it also benefits deception by saving on cognitive load during the act, and at times it also provides an easy defense against accusations of deception (namely, I was unconscious of my actions).
- Carico cognitivo. That is, the brain can act more efficiently when it is unaware of the ongoing contradiction.
- Non siamo soli. The dynamics of deception and its detection have been studied in a broad range of other species
- Una teoria dell'intelligenza. Deceiver and deceived are trapped in a coevolutionary struggle that continually improves adaptations on both sides. One such adaptation is intelligence itself.
- The classic experiment demonstrating human self-deception shows that we often unconsciously recognize our own voices while consciously failing to do
- self-deception is often associated with major immune effects,
- Self-deception is intimately tied to false historical narratives, lies we tell ourselves about our past, usually in the service of self-forgiveness
- religion, which acts as both an antidote to self-deception and an accelerant
- Scienze sociali. the more social a discipline, the more its development is retarded by self-deception
- DECEPTION IS EVERYWHERE
- When I say that deception occurs at all levels of life, I mean that viruses practice it, as do bacteria, plants, insects, and a wide range of other animals.
- L' ingenua fiducia dei mercati. It always amazes me to hear some economists say that the costs of deceptive excesses in our economy (including white-collar crime) will naturally be checked by market forces.
- Disonestà che dirano 50mln di anni. consider the case of stick insects. These forms have existed for at least fifty million years
- WHAT IS SELF-DECEPTION?
- Filosofia. Some philosophers have imagined that self-deception is a contradiction in terms,
- L' invenzione dell'inconscio: This contradiction is easily sidestepped by defining the self as the conscious mind,
- So the key to defining self-deception is that true information is preferentially excluded from consciousness
- DETECTING DECEPTION IN HUMANS VIA COGNITIVE LOAD
- Cosa indaga la macchina della verità
- Nervousness: is one of the negative consequences of being detected,
- Control: In response to concern over appearing nervous (or concentrating too hard) people may exert control, trying to suppress behavior, with possible detectable side effects such as overacting,
- Cognitive load: Lying can be cognitively demanding. This usually takes time and concentration, both of which may give off secondary cues and reduce performance on simultaneous tasks.
- Prevalenza dell'overeaction. we blink less under increasing cognitive load (for example, while solving arithmetic problems). Recent studies of deception suggest that we blink less when deceiving... Nervousness is almost universally cited as a factor associated with deception, both by those trying to detect it as well as by those trying to avoid it, yet surprisingly enough, it is one of the weaker factors in predicting deception in scientific work.
- Again, contra usual expectation, people often fidget less in deceptive situations.
- men use fewer hand gestures while deceiving and both sexes often employ longer pauses when speaking deceptively.
- there is by no means always a delay prior to lying.
- Deceivers tend to have higher-pitched voices.
- Another effect of suppression is the production of displacement activities.
- the blocked energy easily activates irrelevant behavior
- Il linguaggio dei bugiardi. We cut down on the use of “I”and “me”and increase other pronouns, as if disowning our
- Il tuttavia del bugiardo. A truth teller might say, “Although it was raining, I still walked to the office”; a liar would say, “I walked to the office.”
- Entra in scena l'aitoinganno. If it is cognitively expensive to lie, there is no obvious way to reduce the expense, other than to increase unconscious control.
- SELF-DECEPTION IS OLDER THAN LANGUAGE
- .in at least two widespread contexts—aggressive conflict and courtship—selection for deception may easily favor self-deception even when no language is involved.
- Una teoria deprimente del linguaggio. On the other hand, language certainly greatly expanded the opportunities for deceit and self-deception in our own lineage.
- Il dovere di ignorare. A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge—that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she maybe.
- Un esempio. testimony—witnesses who are more mistaken in eyewitness identification and more confident that they are right, and this in turn has a positive effect on jurors.
- NINE CATEGORIES OF SELF-DECEPTION
- Self-Inflation Is the Rule in Life
- Racconto tipo: the man in San Francisco in 1977 who ran his car into a pole and claimed afterward, as recorded by the police: “The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way, when it struck my front end.”
- In-Group/Out-Group Associations Among Most Prominent
- La cosa più semplice è dividere il mondo in gruppi in modo da collocarsi in quello giusto. Just make some wear blue shirts and others red and within a half-hour you will induce in-group and out-group feelings based on shirt color. Once we define an individual as belonging to an out-group, a series of mental operations are induced that, often quite unconsciously, serve to degrade our image
- Lunguaggio e gruppi. For example, if an out-group member steps on my toes, I am more likely to say, “He is an inconsiderate person,”though with an in-group member I will describe the behavior exactly: “He stepped on my toes.”
- The Biases of Power
- Il potere corrompe. When a feeling of power is induced in people, they are less likely to take others’viewpoint and more likely to center their thinking on themselves.
- Moral Superiority
- Moral hypocrisy is a deep part of our nature: the tendency to judge others more harshly for the same moral infraction than we judge ourselves—or to do so for members of other groups compared to members of our own group.
- The Illusion of Control
- occasionally administering electrical shocks at random creates much more anxiety (profuse sweating, high heart rate) than regular and predictable punishment.
- But there is also something called an illusion of control, in which we believe we have greater ability to affect outcomes than we actually
- La forma delle nuvole. It is interesting to note that lacking control increases something called illusory pattern recognition.
- The Construction of Biased Social Theory
- We have a theory of our marriages.
- We each have a theory regarding our employment. Are we an exploited worker, underpaid and underappreciated
- We usually have a theory regarding our larger society as well. Are the wealthy unfairly increasing their share of resources
- these kinds of theories presumably evolved not only to help understand the world and to detect cheating and unfairness but also to persuade self and others of false reality, the better to benefit ourselves.
- False Personal Narratives
- We were more moral, more attractive, more “beneffective” to others than in fact we were.
- Gli errori sono sempre lontani. An older self acted badly; a recent self acted better.
- La grande asimmetria. When people are asked to supply autobiographical accounts of being angered (victim) or angering someone else (perpetrator), a series of sharp differences emerges.
- There is also something called false internal narratives. An individual’s perception of his or her own ongoing motivation may be biased to conceal from others the true motivation.
- Unconscious Modules Devoted to Deception
- Il ladro di penne. I am an unconscious petty thief. I steal small objects from you while in your presence. I steal pens and pencils, lighters and matches, and other useful objects that are easy to pocket. I am completely unconscious of this. In summary, there appears to be a little unconscious module in me devoted to petty thievery, sufficiently isolated to avoid interfering with ongoing activity (such as talking).
- E il ladro di idee. Stealing ideas will not leave much evidence and is very common in academia. I once wrote a paper that borrowed heavily from a well-known book,
- THE HALLMARKS OF SELF-DECEPTION
- Un indizio sicuro: the hallmark of self-deception in the service of deceit is the denial of deception,
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