The Slow Decay and Quick Revival of Self-deception

Zoe  Chance; Francesca  Gino; Michael I. Norton; Dan  Ariely

Article | Frontiers in Psychology | August 19, 2015

The Slow Decay and Quick Revival of Self-deception

by Zoe Chance, Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

Abstract

People demonstrate an impressive ability to self-deceive, distorting misbehavior to reflect positively on themselves—for example, by cheating on a test and believing that their inflated performance reflects their true ability. But what happens to self-deception when self-deceivers must face reality, such as when taking another test on which they cannot cheat? We find that self-deception diminishes over time only when self-deceivers are repeatedly confronted with evidence of their true ability (Study 1); this learning, however, fails to make them less susceptible to future self-deception (Study 2).

Keywords: self-deception; Cheating; self-enhancement; positive illusions; motivated reasoning; Perception; Behavior; Ethics;

Format: Electronic

Read Now

Citation:

Chance, Zoe, Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton, and Dan Ariely. "The Slow Decay and Quick Revival of Self-deception." Art. 1075. Frontiers in Psychology 6 (August 19, 2015): 1–6.

Article | Journal of Consumer Psychology

The Feeling of Not Knowing It All

Haiyang Yang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

How do consumers assess their mastery of knowledge they have learned? We explore this question by investigating a common knowledge consumption situation: encountering opportunities for further learning. We argue and show that such opportunities can trigger a feeling-of-not-knowing-it-all (FONKIA), which lowers consumers’ confidence in their mastery of the knowledge they already possess. Specifically, listing optional follow-up readings at the conclusion of a course lowered students’ confidence in their mastery of the course material they had already learned (Study 1). Encountering an optional learning opportunity increased the FONKIA, which mediated the decreased confidence (Studies 2 and 3). We also document two moderators consistent with our conceptualization. First, participants primed with mastery (vs. instrumental) motivation were more negatively impacted when they encountered optional learning opportunities. Second, the more related the optional opportunities were to the target topic, the lower participants’ confidence in their mastery of what they had already learned. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings, such as encouraging further learning or harming teaching evaluations.

Keywords: Knowledge consumption; Consumption of learning; Judgment of knowledge; Feeling ofknowing; Confidence in knowledge; WYSIATI; FONKIA; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Perception;

Citation:

Yang, Haiyang, Ziv Carmon, Dan Ariely, and Michael I. Norton. "The Feeling of Not Knowing It All." Journal of Consumer Psychology 29, no. 3 (July 2019): 455–462. View Details

Cite View Details Find at Harvard Read Now

Faculty & Research

The Slow Decay and Quick Revival of Self-deception

Abstract

Citation:

About the Authors

More from these Authors