I found this paper quite interesting....especially the value of deception and self deception in nature and in human society. (From Solon's thread: siliconinvestor.com
a3.com
II. RATIONALITY, CONSCIOUSNESS, SINCERITY
A. Unconsciousness and irrationality: the myth of rationality
The model of the human as a "naive scientist", a rational decision maker prevailed in Social Psychology for several years after cognitive psychologists had proved it wrong by demonstrating a myriad of biases (Kahnemann, Slovic & Tversky, 1982). The notion that we are basically rational beings still predominates intuitive and popular thinking, in spite of proof to the contrary (Taylor, 1989, Taylor and Brown, 1988, Nisbett and Ross, 1980).
Men tend to value a car more if it is introduced in the presence of an attractive woman, and we all tend to vote for the taller and more attractive political candidate (Cialdini, 1993, p.140), and are fonder of people and things presented to us while eating (Razran, 1938, 1940; cited in Cialdini, 1993, p. 158). In these and similar cases, the targets of influence, full of honest conviction, vehemently deny having been influenced by such irrelevant factors.
In spite of numerous findings to the contrary, the myth of human rationality and consciousness continues to pervade our thinking and our literature. It was difficult for authors like Ury (1993) to overcome these ideas: "Because what I learned at Harvard Law School is that all that counts in life are the facts- who's right and who's wrong. It's taken me twenty-five years to learn that just as important as the facts, if not more important, are people's perception of those facts" (p. 18). He concludes that "humans are reaction machines" (p. 8). Pushing will make them more resistant. Indirect actions are needed. "It requires you to do the opposite of what you naturally feel like doing in difficult situations" (p. 10).
B. Deception: the myth of sincerity
Making the target of social influence falsely believe we are not trying to push him satisfies intuitive as well as formal definitions (see Mitchell, 1986) of deception. Only on rare occasions do authors dare to call manipulative influencing strategies deception: "Many ploys depend on your not knowing what is being done to you. . . . If you don't realize that he is using his partner as a "bad guy", you may agree innocently to the changes" (Ury, 1993, p. 42). But, generally, the myth of human sincerity prevails.
"The more common everyday self-presenter who wants others to perceive, validate, and be influenced by his selfless integrity, even though he might vigorously deny such motivation and, indeed, be unaware of it" (Jones and Pittman, 1982, p. 246). "A tantalizing conspiracy of cognitive avoidance is common to the actor and his target. the actor does not wish to see himself as ingratiating; the target wants also to believe that the ingratiator is sincere" (p. 236).
I believe that self presentational concerns and preoccupation with saving other people's face prevent us from seeing the pervasiveness of deception. Furthermore, our egocentrism provides us with the wrong model of human behavior. Intuitively, we seem to think that human biology and social dispositions made us apt to be rational scholars in a just and free society. Evolutionary theorists point out that our phylogenesis should have provided us with very different dispositions. Their most extreme proponent, R. D. Alexander states that "human society is a network of lies and deception, persisting only because systems of conventions about permissible kinds and extents of lying have arisen" (1975, p. 96). Lazarus (1979, p. 47) notes that there is a "collective illusion that our society is free, moral, and just"
Evolutionary theory can causally explain why humans tend to deceive themselves and others about the fact that they are deceiving. It can tie together all the topics of this paper: deception, irrationality in human impression management and social influence techniques. It can elucidate why we are willing to pay such a high cost for impression management. Jones and Pittman (1982) state this last point very candidly: "For many of us, self-promotion is almost a full-time job."
C. Hypotheses of this paper: an overview
This paper endeavors to point out that the selfish interests of individuals caused deception and countermeasures against deception to become driving forces behind social influence strategies. The expensive and wasteful nature of negotiation and impression management is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of this arms race between deception and detection. Natural selection created genetic dispositions to deceive, and to constantly and unconsciously suspect deception attempts. In a competitive, selfish, and war-prone world, these techniques, proven in billions of years in evolution, still are optimal. Therefore they are reinforced by cultural selection and learning. Conscious awareness of deception and countermeasures is not required, often even counterproductive. This is so because conscious deception is easier to detect and carries harsher sanctions. Humans not only deceive, but also deceive themselves and others about the fact that they deceive, into believing that they do not deceive. This double deception makes the system so watertight, that it tends to evade detection even by psychologists.
There is much more of the paper at the above link. Is there any relevance to the FAGD thread? Perhaps, in view of discussion lately about lies, deception, self-interest of those for an against the (occupation or liberation, depending on political position) of Iraq. Of course, lies and deception are the claim of every group not in power through the ages, eh? |
