Self-Deception

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  Words are weird. They are random sounds that serve as symbols to represent…everything. In the essay, “Words Don’t Mean What They Mean,” Steven Pinker explained how we always manipulate words to show and hide certain messages while establishing relationships with whom the words are intended. This made me think about lies - when telling a lie, people not only manipulate words but convey an incorrect message.

    What if someone lied to themselves and made themselves believe that it is true? I’m not talking about if someone I trust lied to me and I believed them; I’m talking about if I lied to myself to avoid coming to terms with something but believed. For example, I order a larger plate of noodles for dinner and tell myself to save half of it for lunch tomorrow, whereas, at the moment, I will almost certainly eat all of the noodles. Another example is if many red flags are present in a relationship, but someone does not have enough strength to believe and admit it.

We deceive ourselves more than we think. It starts at an early age. While growing up, if a child did not receive much love and attention from their parents, they tend to blame themselves and think that if they become perfect, their parents will begin to show more affection. This carries on to adulthood. In the future, they might think that people will only like or love them if they are flawless and if they are exactly how the other person wants them to be. If someone was bullied for not looking a certain way, they will think they are ugly. As they grow, they might turn to plastic surgery as a way of fulfilling the part of them that still feels ugly.

We lie to ourselves to protect our egos - we are not strong enough to believe the truth. Self-deception takes on many forms. Sigmund Freud called them “ego-defense mechanisms”. The main ones are:

  1. Denial: refusing to believe the truth

    1. Some smokers might refuse to believe that smoking is bad for them.

    2. “He is not cheating on me. The red flags mean nothing!”

  2. Rationalization: justifying your actions

“Smoking is bad but it makes me feel at ease.”

  1. “I failed the test because my teacher hates me!”

  1. Projection: placing the blame on somebody else

    1. A man feels insecure/afraid of his sexuality so he discriminates against other queer men.

    2. Saying, “she hates me” instead of saying the truth: “I hate her.”

Other ego-defense mechanisms:



Self-deception can be very harmful. We need to be accountable for our actions and understand the harmful effects of lying to and fooling ourselves. We need to recognize when and how we lie to ourselves - basically when our thoughts are not consistent with our actions. Although it is difficult sometimes, confronting reality will save a lot of grief and rage. It is fascinating yet frightening how people can think they are being honest but are lying to themselves. My biggest takeaway from learning about this is that I will no longer tell myself that I will sleep now and wake up early to study - we all know that once I hit the bed, there’s no going back.

For more information, here is this interesting Ted Talk: Honest liars -- the psychology of self-deception: Cortney Warren at TEDxUNLV

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