A philosophy team from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and the University of Antwerp analyzed the role that self-deception plays in everyday life and the strategies that people use to deceive themselves.
In the magazine Philosophical Psychology, Francesco Marchi and Professor Albert Newen describe three strategies used to stabilize and protect positive self-image. According to his theory, self-deception helps people stay motivated in difficult situations.
Venial self-deception
Researchers call this self-deception strategy “belief reorganization.” In his study, dwrite the three most used strategies that come into play even earlier to prevent unpleasant events from affecting you in the first place.
This includes the selection of facts through action with a purpose: people avoid places or people that may draw their attention to problematic facts. Another strategy is to reject the facts by questioning the credibility of the source.. The last strategy is to generate facts from an ambiguous state of affairs.
The researchers describe all three strategies as typical trends in psychological thinking. Self-deception is not unreasonable or harmful to people in the short term, but it always ends up being it in the medium and long term. These are not malicious ways of doing things, but rather part of humans’ basic cognitive equipment to preserve their established view of themselves and the world.. In normal times with little change, the tendency to stick to proven views is helpful and is also deeply ingrained in evolution, but in times of uncertainty, it is not: