The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

Sorry he may be, but in the end neither his fans nor McGwire himself can know exactly how good he really is.

AS YOU CAN see, people tend to believe their own exaggerated stories. Is it possible to stop or at least decrease this behavior? Since offering money to people to judge their performance more accurately did not seem to eliminate self-deception, we decided to intervene beforehand, right at the moment people were tempted with the opportunity to cheat. (This approach is related to our use of the Ten Commandments in chapter 2, “Fun with the Fudge Factor.”) Since our participants were clearly able to ignore the effect that the answer key had on their scores, we wondered what would happen if we made the fact that they were relying on the answer key more obvious at the moment that they were using it. If using the answer key to boost their scores was blatantly obvious, would they be less able to convince themselves that they had known the correct answer all along?

In our initial (paper-based) experiments, it was not possible to figure out exactly when our participants’ eyes wandered to the answer key and the level to which they were aware of the help that they got from the written answers. So in our next experiment, we had our participants take a computerized version of the same test. This time the answer key at the bottom of the screen was initially hidden from sight. To reveal the answers, participants had to move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, and when the cursor was moved away, the answer key was hidden again. That way the participants were forced to think about exactly when and for how long they used the answer key, and they could not as easily ignore such a clear and deliberate action.

Although almost all of the participants consulted the answer key at least once, we found that this time around (in contrast to the paper-based tests) they did not overestimate their performance in the second test. Despite the fact that they still cheated, consciously deciding to use the answer key—rather than merely glancing at the bottom of the page—eliminated their self-deceptive tendencies. It seems, then, that when we are made blatantly aware of the ways we cheat, we become far less able to take unwarranted credit for our performance.

Self-deception and Self-help

So where do we stand on self-deception? Should we maintain it? Eliminate it? I suspect that self-deception is similar to its cousins, overconfidence and optimism, and as with these other biases, it has both benefits and disadvantages. On the positive side, an unjustifiably elevated belief in ourselves can increase our general well-being by helping us cope with stress; it can increase our persistence while doing difficult or tedious tasks; and it can get us to try new and different experiences.

We persist in deceiving ourselves in part to maintain a positive self-image. We gloss over our failures, highlight our successes (even when they’re not entirely our own), and love to blame other people and outside circumstances when our failures are undeniable. Like our friend the crab, we can use self-deception to boost our confidence when we might not otherwise feel bold. Positioning ourselves on the basis of our finer points can help us snag a date, finish a big project, or land a job. (I am not suggesting that you puff up your résumé, of course, but a little extra confidence can often work in our favor.)

On the negative side, to the extent that an overly optimistic view of ourselves can form the basis of our actions, we may wrongly assume that things will turn out for the best and as a consequence not actively make the best decisions. Self-deception can also cause us to “enhance” our life stories with, say, a degree from a prestigious university, which can lead us to suffer a great deal when the truth is ultimately revealed. And, of course, there is the general cost of deception. When we and those around us are dishonest, we start suspecting everyone, and without trust our lives become more difficult in almost every way.

As in other aspects of life, here too the balance lies between happiness (partially driven by self-deception) and optimal decisions for the future (and a more realistic view of ourselves). Sure, it is exciting to be bright-eyed, with hopes for a wonderful future—but in the case of self-deception, our exaggerated beliefs can devastate us when reality comes crashing in.

Some Upsides of Lying