Self Deception Essay

What is deception? Deception is misleading, misguiding, dishonest, cheat and fraud. It is anything that turns someone from the truth of a matter? Could it be the way the words one say is brought across to one's hearing? According to Howard Thurman, deception is the oldest technique used by the weak to protect them. Mr. Thurman also provides illustrations of creatures in what way they use the system. I must agree to we all have a wall of defensive we put up against people. I would also say that does not mean that doing so is okay all the time. So many times we as people use this technique at the wrong times to avoid the truth at times. Although reading the story of the blind man that was killed by a law-enforcement officer stood out to me.

Children are taught that lying is bad, that telling the truth no matter the consequences will always outweigh the instant benefit of telling a lie. So we grow up knowing that lying is bad and mostly avoid lying; however, the psychologists assert that “untruths that are somewhere on the spectrum between totally unconscious and partly conscious, untruths that people tell not to others but at times to themselves as well” are not a rare occurrence (Banaji and Greenwald 21). This idea that our unconscious mind can also have a completely different identity than the one that we outwardly portray demonstrates our ability to have preferences and biases that can have detrimental

People that are deceiving don’t tend to have good results. In the novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter written by Kim Edwards, David Henry shows in the beginning of the story that he could be deceiving by hiding a secret from his wife. David Henry is deceiving as he tells the biggest lie about his new-born child to his wife throughout the story. The husband keeps his twin daughter a secret as soon as he finds out that there was a chance that she would have a heart defect. There was no way he would tell his wife about this daughter so he decides to act as if the child doesn’t even exist.

Others believe that deception can be used to convince people that they enjoy something they actually do not. I believe that it is easier to remember the truth than to spin a tale. Some believe that if one cheats or lies once then people will always become skeptical about her intentions in the future. Therefore, they believe that to avoid harming her reputation and hurting others feelings, she should just tell the truth.

One can manipulate perception by building trust, therefore making it easier for the person to believe you when you lie. Manipulation can be a strong thing to use over a person, it’s like persuading a person but, using what they know against them and making them see the world a different way. Using many different examples from various movies, books, and current events, manipulation was used for many reasons. The most common reason was jealousy, jealousy has pushed people into doing stuff as far as killing them. But, in the stories and movie that will be included, you’ll see where jealousy took place.

In “Self-deception As Pretense” Tamar Gendler proposes that a person is self-deceived when imagining Not-P, while believing P and not believing Not-P simultaneously and that the pretense of Not-P plays a central role that is normally played by a belief through introspective vivacity and motivation of actions. Gendler points out that the natural description of self-deception is inaccurate due to the state it illustrates and the action it appeals to since an individual is unable to both believe in P while simultaneously not believing in P. Although not discounting the original definition of the natural description of self-deception, he instead suggests that self- deception can be seen as a pretense, “A person who is self-deceived about not-P pretends…that not-P is the case, often while believing that P is the case and not believing that not-P is the case” (Gendler, 233). The pretense of not-P plays the role of belief through introspective vivacity and motivation of action. The pretense that not-P largely plays the role

As a person grows up and realizes what is right and what is wrong it's introduced to lies. Lies can be used to spare someone's feelings, hide something or avoid a punishment, in time men began to wonder how and why we lie. These men came up with two out of many theories about lies, interpersonal deception theory, and information manipulation theory, and although these theories are both about lies they differ in the way the sender (or the liar) sends its message.

People can be deceptive for many reasons, as Floyd stated, “Sometimes people lie to benefit themselves…sometimes they lie to avoid hurting others.” (Floyd 189) My story is someone being deceptive to benefit themselves, their benefit I would assume is their own ego. The trick to detecting deception is by evaluating their nonverbal cues, which is how I determined someone was trying to deceive me. I will be using the Hurier model to show how I picked up on these cues without forming any misunderstandings.

Per Smith self- deception is possible because human brain has been cobbled by natural selection to deal with environmental problems. So, he thinks that through evolution the brain acquired the capacity for self-deception. Self- deception is very common due to the facts that people do not want to face themselves or to be completely honest about their moral character. Often the truth about these matters is painful to most people so to bypass this human come up with self-deception mechanism. It is just a way for manipulating people and protecting self-image in certain situations. An example that Smith used for this is self-deception about war, in a war people changed the language so that it would make them feel better and hide from the brutality

Being intentionally misled by someone can lead to either a satisfying or displeasing outcome depending on why the person is misleading you. Whether it is literature or reality, the result of being misled varies based on their reasons for deceiving you.

This is caused by the information that is in the subconscious mind that controls how a person passive the environment. All of us have the ability to deceive ourselves. All what a person needs to do is to enhance that ability.

Another type of deception is equivocation, this is where the use of ambiguous language is used to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself. Most people adopt this when they are oblivious to the consequences that follow their deceitful ways. One of my cousins, Ashley, was going on thirty and was tired of being single. After one of her friends suggested she should online date, she settled on making profiles on several different online dating websites. Consequently, Ashley received a lot of negative feedback from her mom and aunts considering their skepticism about the new, modern way of meeting people online. After all of the backlash from our family, my cousin decided that she was not going to let what others thought stop her from finding true love.

Webster’s Dictionary defines a lie as an intentionally false statement. However, defining a simple three-letter word is not as easy as it seems on the surface. Upon reading or hearing the word lie, people are instantly associated with a general feeling of negativity. Lying generally creates feelings of dishonesty, untrustworthiness, deceit, and betrayal. However, lying is one of the oldest human social practices. Erin Bryant explains in her essay “Real Lies, White Lies, and Gray Lies” that even though lying has a derogatory label, it is a very common social behavior used by a majority of people on a daily basis. It has been a subject of scrutiny through the millennia by philosophers such as St. Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato. Can lies

For adults, deception is sometimes necessary to avoid hurting someone’s feeling to accomplish a task. For example, parents may need to practice deception, but at the same time they do not want to their children to lie. This is problematic. How can parents be a good example for their sons and daughter? How would children obey their parents when they are told not to lie? Although parents tend to teach their children to deceive others, children continue practicing deception. In fact, children at different age groups engage in verbal and behavioral deception. Research shows that parents know that children engage in verbal and behavioral deception, and they also know how young children express their deception. Interestingly, parents usually want their children to lie. As children

Self-deception occurs when someone convinces his or herself that a false feeling, idea, or situation is actually true. This is an extremely common practice because enables a person to feel better about themselves, a situation, or something they have done by covering up what is really going on with a lie that is much easier to handle then the truth. People would rather lie to themselves and push all their problems to back of the brain never to be thought of again then face the cold truth. But of course, this is no real way to live. This practice may feel good in the moment but overtime the delusions mix in with reality, which could cause people to become mentally unstable if they are not carful. In many cases the person is not aware they are