Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument.
While Freudian analysis of the conscious and the unconscious minds dominated the field, psychological scientists in the 1970s became curious about how those two seemingly separate worlds could work together.
[5] However, rationalization is influenced by myriad factors, including socialization, personal biases, fear, and cognitive repression.
In contrast, rationalization alone cannot effectively clarify the dynamics of self-deception, as reason is just one adaptive form mental processes can take.
[7]Mele then describes the "dynamic/strategy" paradox: In general, A cannot successfully employ a deceptive strategy against B if B knows A's intention and plan.
Attempts at a resolution to these have created two schools of thought: one that maintains that paradigmatic cases of self-deception are intentional and one that denies the notion—intentionalists and non-intentionalists, respectively.
[3] Intentionalists tend to agree that self-deception is intentional, but divide over whether it requires the holding of contradictory beliefs.
[3] Numerous questions and debates remain in play with respect to the paradoxes of self-deception, and a consensual paradigm has yet to appear.
It has been theorized that humans are susceptible to self-deception because most people have emotional attachments to beliefs, which in some cases may be irrational.
[9] Trivers, along with two colleagues (Daniel Kriegman and Malcolm Slavin), applied his theory of "self-deception in the service of deception" in order to explain how in his view Donald Trump was able to employ the "big lie" with such great success.
[10] This notion is based on the following logic: deception is a fundamental aspect of communication in nature, both between and within species.
Therefore, if self-deception enables an individual to believe its own distortions, it will not present such signs of deception, and will therefore appear to be telling the truth.
In the three decades since Trivers introduced his adaptive theory of self-deception, there has been an ongoing debate over the genetic basis of such a behavior.
Next time, to better achieve success, the person will more actively deceive himself of having knowledge to better hide the signs of deception.
Self-deception is not exclusive to humans and has been observed in nonhuman animals like the slender crayfish (Cherax dispar).
Angilletta et al.[15] demonstrated that weak crayfish often signal as if they are stronger, ignoring their actual strength to escalate aggression.