Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:51:46.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Self-deception: A paradox revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Albert Bandura
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. bandura@psych.stanford.eduwww.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/abandura

Abstract

A major challenge to von Hippel & Trivers's evolutionary analysis of self-deception is the paradox that one cannot deceive oneself into believing something while simultaneously knowing it to be false. The authors use biased information seeking and processing as evidence that individuals knowingly convince themselves of the truth of their falsehood. Acting in ways that keep one uninformed about unwanted information is self-deception. Acting in selectively biasing and misinforming ways is self-bias.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bandura, A. (1986) Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1999) Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review 3:193209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bandura, A. (2008) The reconstrual of “free will” from the agentic perspective of social cognitive theory. In: Are we free? Psychology and free will, ed. Baer, J., Kaufman, J. C. & Baumeister, R. F., pp. 86127. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bok, S. (1980) The self deceived. Social Science Information 19:923–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Champlin, T. S. (1977) Self-deception: A reflexive dilemma. Philosophy 52:281–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haight, M. R. (1980) A study of self deception. Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. (1989) Personal identity and the unity of agency: A Kantian response to Parfit. Philosophy & Public Affairs 18:101–32.Google Scholar