Publications
Publications
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception
By: Zoe Chance, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely
Abstract
Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which people go beyond merely explaining away their misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who exploit opportunities to cheat on tests are likely to engage in self-deception, inferring that their elevated performance is a sign of intelligence. This short-term psychological benefit of self-deception, however, can come with longer-term costs: when predicting future performance, participants expect to perform equally well—a lack of awareness that persists even when these inflated expectations prove costly. We show that although people expect to cheat, they do not foresee self-deception, and that factors that reinforce the benefits of cheating enhance self-deception. More broadly, the findings of these experiments offer evidence that debates about the relative costs and benefits of self-deception are informed by adopting a temporal view that assesses the cumulative impact of self-deception over time.
Keywords
Hindsight Bias; Lying; Motivated Reasoning; Self-enhancement; Social Psychology; Perception; Performance Expectations
Citation
Chance, Zoe, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino, and Dan Ariely. "Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. S3 (September 13, 2011): 15655–15659.
About The Authors
