Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:50:54.654Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The evolution and psychology of self-deception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

William von Hippel  and
Robert Trivers
William von Hippel
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia. [email protected]://www.psy.uq.edu.au/directory/index.html?id=1159
Robert Trivers
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. [email protected]://anthro.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102&Itemid=136
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article we argue that self-deception evolved to facilitate interpersonal deception by allowing people to avoid the cues to conscious deception that might reveal deceptive intent. Self-deception has two additional advantages: It eliminates the costly cognitive load that is typically associated with deceiving, and it can minimize retribution if the deception is discovered. Beyond its role in specific acts of deception, self-deceptive self-enhancement also allows people to display more confidence than is warranted, which has a host of social advantages. The question then arises of how the self can be both deceiver and deceived. We propose that this is achieved through dissociations of mental processes, including conscious versus unconscious memories, conscious versus unconscious attitudes, and automatic versus controlled processes. Given the variety of methods for deceiving others, it should come as no surprise that self-deception manifests itself in a number of different psychological processes, and we discuss various types of self-deception. We then discuss the interpersonal versus intrapersonal nature of self-deception before considering the levels of consciousness at which the self can be deceived. Finally, we contrast our evolutionary approach to self-deception with current theories and debates in psychology and consider some of the costs associated with self-deception.

Keywords

deceptionevolutionary psychologymotivated cognitionself-deceptionsocial psychology
Type
Target Article
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 1 - 16
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

Albarracín, D. & Mitchell, A. L. (2004) The role of defensive confidence in preference for proattitudinal information: How believing that one is strong can sometimes be a defensive weakness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30:1565–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alicke, M. D. & Sedikides, C. (2009) Self-enhancement and self-protection: What they are and what they do. European Review of Social Psychology 20:1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, D. E., DePaulo, B. M. & Ansfield, M. E. (2002) The development of deception detection skill: A longitudinal study of same-sex friends. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28:536–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armitage, C. J., Harris, P. R., Hepton, G. & Napper, L. (2008) Self-affirmation increases acceptance of health-risk information among UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 22:88–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Armor, D. A. & Taylor, S. E. (1998) Situated optimism: Specific outcome expectations and self-regulation. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 30, ed. Zanna, M. P., pp. 309–79. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Assad, K. K., Donnellan, M. B. & Conger, R. D. (2007) Optimism: An enduring resource for romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93:285–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baker, R. R. & Bellis, M. A. (1993) Human sperm competition: Ejaculate adjustment by males and the function of masturbation. Animal Behaviour 46861–85.Google Scholar
Bargh, J. A. (1994) The four horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, efficiency, intention, and control in social cognition. In: Handbook of social cognition, 2nd ed., ed. Wyer, R. S., Jr. & Srull, T. K., pp. 1–40. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Boehm, J. K. & Lyubomirsky, S. (2008) Does happiness promote career success? Journal of Career Assessment 16:101–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boles, T., Croson, R. & Murnighan, J. K. (2000) Deception and retribution in repeated ultimatum bargaining. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 83:235–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bond, C. F. Jr. & DePaulo, B. M. (2006) Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10:214–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bond, C. F. Jr. & Fahey, W. E. (1987) False suspicion and the misperception of deceit. British Journal of Social Psychology 26:41–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bower, G. H. (1991) Mood congruity of social judgments. In: Emotion and social judgments, ed. Forgas, J. P., pp. 31–54. Pergamon.Google Scholar
Brissette, I., Scheier, M. F. & Carver, C. S. (2002) The role of optimism in social network development, coping, and psychological adjustment during a life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82:102–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, S. P., Cron, W. L. & Slocum, J. W. (1998) Effects of trait competitiveness and perceived intraorganizational competition on salesperson goal setting and performance. Journal of Marketing 62:88–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, D. M. (1988) The evolution of human intrasexual competition: Tactics of mate attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54:616–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buss, D. M. (2009) The great struggles of life: Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary psychology. American Psychologist 64:140–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buss, D. M. & Dedden, L. A. (1990) Derogation of competitors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 7:395–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, C. S., Kus, L. A. & Scheier, M. F. (1994) Effects of good versus bad mood and optimistic versus pessimistic outlook on social acceptance versus rejection. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 13:138–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, C. S. & Scheier, M. F. (2002) Optimism. In: Handbook of positive psychology, ed. Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. J., pp. 231–43. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ceci, S. J., Loftus, E. F., Leichtman, M. D. & Bruck, M. (1994) The possible role of source misattributions in the creation of false beliefs among preschoolers. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 42:304–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaiken, S. & Trope, Y. (1999) Dual-process theories in social psychology. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. R. & Windschitl, P. D. (2004) Biases in social comparative judgments: The role of nonmotivated factors in above-average and comparative-optimism effects. Psychological Bulletin 130:813–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chartrand, T. L., Dalton, A. N. & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2007) Nonconscious relationship reactance: When significant others prime opposing goals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43:719–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chartrand, T. L., Huber, J., Shiv, B. & Tanner, R. J. (2008) Nonconscious goals and consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research 35:189–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrobak, Q. & Zaragoza, M. S. (2008) Inventing stories: Forcing witnesses to fabricate entire fictitious events leads to freely reported false memories. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 15:1190–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clancy, S. A., Schacter, D. L., McNally, R. J. & Pitman, R. K. (2000) False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse. Psychological Science 11:26–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coates, S. L., Butler, L. T. & Berry, D. C. (2006) Implicit memory and consumer choice: The mediating role of brand familiarity. Applied Cognitive Psychology 20:1101–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. L., Aronson, J. & Steele, C. M. (2000) When beliefs yield to evidence: Reducing biased evaluation by affirming the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26:1151–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. (1986) Behavior, health, and environmental stress. Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S., Alper, C. M., Doyle, W. J., Treanor, J. J. & Turner, R. B. (2006) Positive emotional style predicts resistance to illness after experimental exposure to rhinovirus or Influenza A virus. Psychosomatic Medicine 68:809–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colvin, C. R. & Block, J. (1994) Do positive illusions foster mental health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation. Psychological Bulletin 116:3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colvin, C. R., Block, J. & Funder, D. C. (1995) Overly positive self-evaluations and personality: Negative implications for mental health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68:1152–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coman, A., Manier, D. & Hirst, W. (2009) Forgetting the unforgettable through conversation: Socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting of September 11 memories. Psychological Science 20:627–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conger, J. A. & Kanungo, R. N. (1987) Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings. Academy of Management Review 12:637–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, M. & Ross, M. (1984) Getting what you want by revising what you had. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47:738–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correll, J., Spencer, S. J. & Zanna, M. P. (2004) An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40:350–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croyle, R. T., Loftus, E. F., Barger, S. D., Sun, Y.-C., Hart, M. & Gettig, J. (2006) How well do people recall risk factor test results? Accuracy and bias among cholesterol screening participants. Health Psychology 25:425–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cuc, A., Koppel, J. & Hirst, W. (2007) Silence is not golden: A case for socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting. Psychological Science 18:727–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
D'Argembeau, A. & Van, der Linden, M. (2008) Remembering pride and shame: Self-enhancement and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory. Memory 16:538–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, E., Gilovich, T. & Regan, D. T. (2002) Motivated reasoning and performance on the Wason Selection Task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28:1379–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, E., Savitsky, K. & Dunning, D. (2006) “Don't tell me, I don't want to know”: Understanding people's reluctance to obtain medical diagnostic information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36:751–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jong, A., de Ruyter, K. & Wetzels, M. (2006) Linking employee confidence to performance: A study of self-managing service teams. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 34:576–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePaulo, B. M. (1994) Spotting lies: Can humans learn to do better? Current Directions in Psychological Science 3:83–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePaulo, B. M. (2004) The many faces of lies. In: The social psychology of good and evil, ed. Miller, A. G., pp. 303–26. Guilford.Google Scholar
DePaulo, B. M. & Kashy, D. A. (1998) Everyday lies in close and casual relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74:63–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DePaulo, B. M., Kashy, D. A., Kirkendol, S. E., Wyer, M. M. & Epstein, J. A. (1996) Lying in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70:979–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K. & Cooper, H. (2003) Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin 129(1):74–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ditto, P. H. & Lopez, D. F. (1992) Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63:568–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditto, P. H., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., Scepansky, J. A. & Lockhart, L. K. (2003) Spontaneous skepticism: The interplay of motivation and expectation in responses to favorable and unfavorable medical diagnosis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29:1120–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditto, P. H., Scepansky, J. A., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M. & Lockhart, L. K. (1998) Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75:53–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drivdahl, S., Zaragoza, M. S. & Learned, D. (2009) The role of emotional elaboration in the creation of false memories. Applied Cognitive Psychology 23:13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epley, N. & Whitchurch, E. (2008) Mirror, mirror on the wall: Enhancement in self recognition. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34:1159–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazio, R. H. & Olson, M. A. (2003) Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology 54:297–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. (2002) Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415:137–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fein, S. & Spencer, S. J. (1997) Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73:31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L. (1954) A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations 7:117–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L. & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959) Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58:203–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fisher, M. L. (2004) Female intrasexual competition decreases female facial attractiveness. Biology Letters 271:283–85.Google ScholarPubMed
Fitzsimmons, G. & Anderson, J. (in press) Interdependent goals and relationship conflict. Chapter to appear In: Social conflict and aggression, ed. Forgas, J. P., Kruglanski, A. & Williams, K.. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998) What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology 2: 300–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001) The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist 56:218–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J. & Finkel, S. M. (2008) Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95:1045–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frey, D. (1986) Recent research on selective exposure to information. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 19, ed. Berkowitz, L., pp. 41–80. Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frijda, N. H. & Mesquita, B. (1994) The social roles and functions of emotions. In: Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence, ed. Kitayama, S. & Markus, H. R., pp. 51–87. APA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C. & Chang, K. (2008) On pancultural self-enhancement: Well-adjusted Taiwanese self-enhance on personally valued traits. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 39:463–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S. (1997) Why can't I control my brain? Aspects of conscious experience. In Cognition, computation, and consciousness, ed. Ito, M., Miyashita, Y. & Rolls, E. T., pp. 69–79. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J. & Wheatley, T. (1998) Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75:617–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilovich, T., Savitsky, K. & Medvec, V. H. (1998) The illusion of transparency: Biased assessments of others' ability to read one's emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75:332–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glass, D. C. & Singer, J. E. (1972) Behavioral after effects of unpredictable and uncontrollable events. American Scientist 60:457–65.Google Scholar
Gonsalves, B., Reber, P. J., Gitelman, D. R., Parrish, T. B., Mesulman, M. M. & Paller, K. A. (2004) Neural evidence that vivid imaging can lead to false remembering. Psychological Science 15:655–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, J. D., Sedikides, C. & Gregg, A. P. (2008) Forgotten but not gone: The recall and recognition of self-threatening memories. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44:547–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E. & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998) Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74:1464–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. & Banaji, M. R. (2009) Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97:17–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gur, R. C. & Sackeim, H. A. (1979) Self-deception: A concept in search of a phenomenon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37:147–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harker, L. & Keltner, D. (2001) Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80:112–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, P. R., Mayle, K., Mabbott, L. & Napper, L. (2007) Self-affirmation reduces smokers' defensiveness to graphic on-pack cigarette warning labels. Health Psychology 26:437–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haselton, M. G., Buss, D. M., Oubaid, V. & Angleitner, A. (2005) Sex, lies, and strategic interference: The psychology of deception between the sexes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31:3–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. (1999) Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review 106:766–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertenstein, M. J., Hansel, C. A., Butts, A. M. & Hile, S. N. (2009) Smile intensity in photographs predicts divorce later in life. Motivation and Emotion 33:99–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, W., Gawronski, B., Gschwendner, T., Le, H. & Schmitt, M. (2005) A meta-analysis on the correlation between the implicit association test and explicit self-report measures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31:1369–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Isaacowitz, D. M. (2006) Motivated gaze: The view from the gazer. Current Directions in Psychological Science 15:68–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaacowitz, D. M., Toner, K., Goren, D. & Wilson, H. R. (2008) Looking while unhappy mood-congruent gaze in young adults, positive gaze in older adults. Psychological Science 19:848–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jang, S. A., Smith, S. W., Levine, T. R. (2002) To stay or to leave? The role of attachment styles in communication patterns and potential termination of romantic relationships following discovery of deception. Communication Monographs 69:236–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, C., Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., Hoshino-Browne, E. & Correll, J. (2003) Implicit self-esteem, explicit self-esteem and defensiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85:969–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Josephs, R. A., Larrick, R. P., Steele, C. M. & Nisbett, R. E. (1992) Protecting the self from the negative consequences of risky decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62:26–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R. & Nosek, B. A. (2004) A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology 25:881–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jost, J. T. & Hunyady, O. (2005) Antecedents and consequences of system-justifying ideologies. Current Directions in Psychological Science 14:260–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., Napier, J. L., Callan, M. J. & Laurin, K. (2008) God and government: Testing a compensatory control explanation for the support of external systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95:18–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keltner, D. & Kring, A. (1998) Emotion, social function, and psychopathology. Review of General Psychology 2:320–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, D. A. & Kashy, D. A. (1994) Enhanced co-orientation in the perception of friends: A social relations analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67:1024–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, D. C., Fencil-Morse, E. & Seligman, M. E. P. (1976) Learned helplessness, depression, and the attribution of failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 33:508–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kolers, P. A. (1976) Pattern-analyzing memory. Science 191:1280–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kumashiro, M. & Sedikides, C. (2005) Taking on board liability-focused feedback: Close positive relationships as a self-bolstering resource. Psychological Science 16:732–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kunda, Z. (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108:480–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lahdenperä, M., Lummaa, V., Helle, S., Tremblay, M. & Russell, A. F. (2004) Fitness benefits of prolonged post-reproductive lifespan in women. Nature 428:178–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lakin, J., Chartrand, T. L. & Arkin, R. (2008) I am too just like you: Nonconscious mimicry as an automatic behavioral response to social exclusion. Psychological Science 19:816–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, A. Y. (2002) Effects of implicit memory on memory-based versus stimulus-based brand choice. Journal of Marketing Research 39:440–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerman, C., Croyle, R. T., Tercyak, K. P. & Hamann, H. (2002) Genetic testing: Psychological aspects and implications. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 70:784–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levine, T. R. & McCornack, S. A. (2001) Behavioral adaptation, confidence, and heuristic-based explanations of the probing effect. Human Communication Research 27:471–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lord, C. G., Ross, L. & Lepper, M. R. (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37: 2098–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. & Diener, E. (2005) The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin 131:803–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacLeod, M. D. & Saunders, J. (2008) Retrieval inhibition and memory distortion: Negative consequences of an adaptive process. Current Directions in Psychological Science 17:26–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, S. & Vrij, A. (2006) Police officers' judgements of veracity, tenseness, cognitive load and attempted behavioural control in real life police interviews. Psychology, Crime, & Law 12:307–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsland, A. L., Pressman, S. & Cohen, S. (2007) Positive affect and immune function. In: Psychoneuroimmunology, ed. Ader, R., pp. 261–79. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Mather, M., Canli, T., English, T., Whitfield, S., Wais, P., Ochsner, K., Gabrieli, J. D. E. & Carstensen, L. L. (2004) Amygdala responses to emotionally valenced stimuli in older and younger adults. Psychological Science 15:259–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mather, M. & Carstensen, L. L. (2005) Aging and motivated cognition: The positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Science 9:496–502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCloskey, M. & Zaragoza, M. (1985) Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 114:1–16. Available at: http://csaweb113v.csa.com/ids70/view_record.php?id=3&recnum=29&log=from_res&SID=jqq1f6dbploe7phjilrkgf7gk4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mele, A. R. (1997) Real self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20(1):91–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, G. (2000) The mating mind. Penguin.Google Scholar
Nardone, I. B., Ward, R., Fotopoulou, A. & Turnbull, O. H. (2007) Attention and emotion in anosognosia: Evidence of implicit awareness and repression? Neurocase 13:438–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neely, J. H. (1977) Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 106:226–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. & Wilson, T. D. (1977) Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review 84:231–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nock, M. K., Park, J. L., Finn, C. T., Deliberto, T. L., Dour, H. J. & Banaji, M. R. (2010) Measuring the “suicidal mind:” Implicit cognition predicts suicidal behavior. Psychological Science 21:511–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norris, P. & Inglehart, R. (2004) Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nosek, B. A., Smyth, F. L., Hansen, J. J., Devos, T., Lindner, N. M., Ranganath, K. A., Smith, C. T., Olson, K. R., Chugh, D., Greenwald, A. G. & Banaji, M. R. (2007) Pervasiveness and correlates of implicit attitudes and stereotypes. European Review of Social Psychology 18:36–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nuttin, J. M. (1985) Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness: The name letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology 15:353–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, J. M. & Zanna, M. P. (1979) A new look at selective exposure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 15:1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paulhus, D. L. (1998) Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74:1197–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Penrod, S. D. & Cutler, B. L. (1995) Witness confidence and witness accuracy: Assessing their forensic relation. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 1:817–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petty, R. E. & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986) The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 19, ed. Berkowitz, L., pp. 123–205. Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, P. C. & Stone, E. R. (2004) Intuitive evaluation of likelihood judgment producers. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 17:39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyszczynski, T. & Greenberg, J. (1987) Toward an integration of cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference: A biased hypothesis- testing model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 20:297–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (2009) Self-awareness: The last frontier. Available at: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rama08/rama08_index.html.Google Scholar
Reed, M. B. & Aspinwall, L. G. (1998) Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information. Motivation and Emotion 22:99–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenkranz, M. A., Jackson, D. C., Dalton, K. M., Dolski, I., Ryff, C. D., Singer, B. H., Muller, D., Kalin, N. H. & Davidson, R. J. (2003) Affective style and in vivo response: Neurobehavioral mechanisms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 100:11148–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sackeim, H. A. & Gur, R. C. (1979) Self-deception, other deception, and self-reported psychopathology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 47:213–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saucier, D. A., Miller, C. T. & Doucet, N. (2005) Differences in helping whites and blacks: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review 9:2–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmader, T. & Johns, M. (2003) Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85:440–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmitt, D. P. & Buss, D. M. (1996) Mate attraction and competitor derogation: Context effects on perceived effectiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70:1185–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmitt, D. P. & Buss, D. M. (2001) Human mate poaching: Tactics and temptations for infiltrating existing relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80:894–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweitzer, M. E., Hershey, J. & Bradlow, E. (2006) Promises and lies: Restoring violated trust. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101:1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seamon, J. G., Williams, P. C., Crowley, M. J., Kim, I. J., Langer, S. A., Orne, P. J. & Wishengrad, D. L. (1995) The mere exposure effect is based on implicit memory: Effects of stimulus type, encoding conditions, and number of exposures on recognition and affect judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21:711–21.Google Scholar
Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L. & Toguchi, Y. (2003) Pancultural self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84:60–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L. & Vevea, J. L. (2005) Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: A meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89:539–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segerstrom, S. C. (2007) Optimism and resources: Effects on each other and on health over 10 years. Journal of Research in Personality 41:772–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segerstrom, S. C. & Sephton, S. E. (2010) Optimistic expectancies and cell-mediated immunity: The role of positive affect. Psychological Science 21:448–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shamir, B., House, R. J. & Arthur, M. B. (1993) The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based concept. Organizational Science 4:577–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, D. K. & Cohen, G. L. (2006) The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 38, ed. Zanna, M. P., pp. 183–242. Elsevier Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sherman, D. K., Cohen, G. L., Nelson, L. D., Nussbaum, A. D., Bunyan, D. P. & Garcia, J. (2009) Affirmed yet unaware: Exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97:745–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slovenko, R. (1999) Testifying with confidence. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 27:127–31.Google ScholarPubMed
Slusher, M. P. & Anderson, C. A. (1987) When reality monitoring fails: The role of imagination in stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52:653–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, M. L., Kleck, R. E., Strenta, A. & Mentzer, S. J. (1979) Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37:2297–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Solberg Nes, L.S. & Segerstrom, S. C. (2006) Dispositional optimism and coping: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10:235–51.Google Scholar
Son Hing, L.S., Chung-Yan, G. A., Hamilton, L. K. & Zanna, M. P. (2008) A two-dimensional model that employs explicit and implicit attitudes to characterize prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94:971–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spalding, L. R. & Hardin, C. D. (1999) Unconscious unease and self-handicapping: Behavioral consequences of individual differences in implicit and explicit self-esteem. Psychological Science 10:535–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, S. J., Fein, S., Wolfe, C. T., Fong, C. & Dunn, M. A. (1998) Automatic activation of stereotypes: The role of self-image threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24:1139–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, C. M. (1988) The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In: Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 21, ed. Berkowitz, L., pp. 261–302. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Steele, C. M. & Liu, T. J. (1983) Dissonance processes as self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45:5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinel, W. & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2004) Social motives and strategic misrepresentation in social decision making. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 86:419–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stouten, J., De Cremer, D. & van Dijk, E. (2006) Violating equality in social dilemmas: Emotional and retributive reactions as a function of trust, attribution, and honesty. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32:894–906.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Swann, W. B. Jr. (in press) Self-verification theory. In: Handbook of theories of social psychology, ed. Van Lang, P., Kruglanski, A. & Higgins, E. T.. Sage.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1988) Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin 103:193–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1994) Positive illusions and well being revisited: Separating fact from fiction. Psychological Bulletin 116:21–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thornhill, R. & Gangestad, S. W. (2009) The evolutionary biology of human female sexuality. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomaka, J., Blascovich, J. & Kelsey, R. M. (1992) Effects of self-deception, social desirability, and repressive coping on psychophysiological reactivity to stress. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18:616–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivers, R. (1976/2006) Foreword. In: The selfish gene, Dawkins, R., pp. 19–20. Oxford University Press. (Original work published in 1976).Google Scholar
Trivers, R. (1985) Deceit and self-deception. In: Social evolution, pp. 395–420. Benjamin/Cummings.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. (2000) The elements of a scientific theory of self-deception. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 907:114–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trivers, R. (2009) Deceit and self-deception. In: Mind the gap, ed. Kappeler, P. & Silk, J., pp. 373–93. Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Trope, Y. & Neter, E. (1994) Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66:646–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Valdesolo, P. & DeSteno, D. A. (2008) The duality of virtue: Deconstructing the moral hypocrite. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44:1334–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vohs, K. D. & Schooler, J. W. (2007) The value of believing in free will: Encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychological Science 19:49–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Hippel, W. & Gonsalkorale, K. (2005) “That is bloody revolting!” Inhibitory control of thoughts better left unsaid. Psychological Science 16:497–500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
von Hippel, W., Lakin, J. L. & Shakarchi, R. J. (2005) Individual differences in motivated social cognition: The case of self-serving information processing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31:1347–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrij, A. (2000) Detecting lies and deceit. Wiley.Google Scholar
Vrij, A. (2004) Why professionals fail to catch liars and how they can improve. Legal Criminology Psychology 9:159–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S. & Leal, S. (2006) Detecting deception by manipulating cognitive load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10:141–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrij, A. & Mann, S. (2005) Police use of nonverbal behavior as indicators of deception. In: Applications of nonverbal communication, ed. Riggio, R. E. & Feldman, R. S., pp. 63–94. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Weinstein, N. D. (1980) Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:806–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westbrook, R. A. (1980) Consumer satisfaction as a function of personal competence/efficacy. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 8:427–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westen, D., Blagov, P. S., Harenski, K., Kilts, C. & Hamann, S. (2006) Neural bases of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18:1947–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitson, J. A. & Galinsky, A. D. (2008) Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science 322:115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wills, T. A. (1981) Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin 90:245–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, T. D. & Gilbert, D. (2003) Affective forecasting. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 35:345–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, T. D., Lindsey, S. & Schooler, T. (2000) A model of dual attitudes. Psychological Review 107:101–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, T. D., Wheatley, T. P., Kurtz, J. L., Dunn, E. W. & Gilbert, D. T. (2004) When to fire: Anticipatory versus post-event reconstrual of uncontrollable events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30:340–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization (2009) WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS). Available at: http://www.who.int/whosis.Google Scholar
Zaragoza, M. S. & Mitchell, J. (1996) Repeated exposure to suggestion and the creation of false memories. Psychological Science 7:294–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaragoza, M. S., Payment, K. E., Ackil, J. K., Drivdahl, S. B. & Beck, M. (2001) Interviewing witnesses: Forced confabulation and confirmatory feedback increase false memories. Psychological Science 12:473–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zarnoth, P. & Sniezek, J. A. (1997) The social influence of confidence in group decision making. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33:345–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zuckerman, M., Koestner, R. & Alton, A. O. (1984) Learning to detect deception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46:519–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar