Being Wrong
Being Wrong
Like Kathryn Shulz, Kahneman asks how we get things wrong so consistently, but neither writer addresses the underlying question of why we do so. This is exactly what Robert Trivers attempts to do in his new book Deceit and Self-deception. Trivers's reputation rests mainly on his research into altruism, and on his theory explaining generosity within the family in terms of promoting self-interest by indirect means. His latest work covers a darker side of evolution: how we also promote our interests by ignoring or suppressing knowledge that might deflect us from our purposes. The book carries the self-explanatory subtitle: 'Fooling yourself the better to fool others'. At the core of Trivers's argument is the idea that deception is an essential tool—perhaps the key one—in the struggle for survival and reproduction. Self-deception is simply a way of deceiving people more efficiently: if we conceal information from ourselves as well as others, it will improve our performance and sense of control, and reduce the cognitive effort involved.
Trivers identifies several distinct categories of self-deception including self-inflation, distinctions between in-groups and out-groups, moral superiority and false personal narratives. His book covers everything from the neurophysiology and immunology of self-deception to its manifestations in fields as wide as sex, the family, everyday life, aviation and space disasters, nationalism and war. Some of his most detailed and poignant accounts of the errors arising from self-deception include his close analysis of how managers at NASA ignored or suppressed information that could have prevented the 'Challenger' and 'Columbia' disasters. He also looks at how governments systematically conceal or deny realities, such as the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, or the absence of any information to justify claims by the Americans and British that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Self-deception
Like Kathryn Shulz, Kahneman asks how we get things wrong so consistently, but neither writer addresses the underlying question of why we do so. This is exactly what Robert Trivers attempts to do in his new book Deceit and Self-deception. Trivers's reputation rests mainly on his research into altruism, and on his theory explaining generosity within the family in terms of promoting self-interest by indirect means. His latest work covers a darker side of evolution: how we also promote our interests by ignoring or suppressing knowledge that might deflect us from our purposes. The book carries the self-explanatory subtitle: 'Fooling yourself the better to fool others'. At the core of Trivers's argument is the idea that deception is an essential tool—perhaps the key one—in the struggle for survival and reproduction. Self-deception is simply a way of deceiving people more efficiently: if we conceal information from ourselves as well as others, it will improve our performance and sense of control, and reduce the cognitive effort involved.
Trivers identifies several distinct categories of self-deception including self-inflation, distinctions between in-groups and out-groups, moral superiority and false personal narratives. His book covers everything from the neurophysiology and immunology of self-deception to its manifestations in fields as wide as sex, the family, everyday life, aviation and space disasters, nationalism and war. Some of his most detailed and poignant accounts of the errors arising from self-deception include his close analysis of how managers at NASA ignored or suppressed information that could have prevented the 'Challenger' and 'Columbia' disasters. He also looks at how governments systematically conceal or deny realities, such as the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, or the absence of any information to justify claims by the Americans and British that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
