Religion and Self-Deception

I just finished The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life (Basic Books, 2011) by Robert Trivers, a Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Rutgers. The book covers a lot of ground, moving from deception as a strategy for plants and animals to human deception and self-deception to the role of deception and self-deception in human organizations, including government and religion. As humans, we are pretty good at sniffing out deception (aka lying) in others; self-deception is a human mental adaptation that makes the detection of deception more difficult and boosts self-confidence. I found the discussion of self-deception by organizations in the latter third of the book to be the most interesting material.

Chapter 7 looks at the psychology of self-deception. How do we pull it off? "Misrepresentation of self to others is believed to be the primary force behind misrepresentation of self to self" (p. 139). In other words, self-deception makes us better liars. But we are not necessarily conscious our own self-deception, this self-serving manipulation of information inside our heads. The ways that our human information processing apparatus leads to self-deception include:

• Avoiding Conflicting Information - We censor our own input: "We seek out publications that mirror or support our prior views and largely avoid those that don't" (p. 140).
• Biased Encoding and Interpretation of Information - "Our perceptual systems are set up to orient very quickly toward preferred information" and "our initial biases may have surprisingly strong effects" (p. 142).
• Biased Memory - "Memories are constantly distorted in self-serving ways." Memory is "both reconstructed and easily manipulated" and "we can invent completely fictitious memories" (p. 143-44).
• Rationalization and Biased Reporting - "We reconstruct internal motives and narratives to rationalize otherwise bad or questionable behavior" (p. 145).

The author goes on to discuss denial, projection, cognitive dissonance, and self-justification. We really do systematically deceive ourselves, don't we? To fight these self-deceptive tendencies, we need to do just the opposite of what our biased information processing system pushes us to do: we need to seek information from sources with opposing views, check our memory against objective accounts of past events, be aware of our own biases, double-check our own motives, and critique our own constructed narratives. We are not the neutral, fair, and well-informed heroes that we think we are.

In Chapter 9, Trivers looks at the role of self-deception within organizations, looking specifically at aviation and space disasters. These are good case studies because of the detailed investigation and subsequent reporting that follows such disasters. The discussion shows how self-deception works at the level of the organization. "When an organization practices deception toward the larger society, this may induce self-deception within the organization ..." (p. 201). One feature of organizational self-deception is the downgrading and marginalizing of departments responsible for internal reviews or safety procedures. Regarding NASA's failure to properly assess the safety risks that led to the Challenger disaster due to failed O-ring seals, Trivers comments that "in service of the larger institutional deceit and self-deception, the safety unit was thoroughly corrupted to served propaganda ends, that is, to create the appearance of safety where none existed" (p. 203).

Chapter 10, "False Historical Narratives," considers as examples the US, Japan, Turkey, Israel, and Arab states. Chapter 12 finally gets us to "Religion and Self-Deception." Cynics view all religions as thoroughly deceptive and self-deceptive, whereas sectarian believers view their own sect or religion as true and sincere with only other sects or religions as deceptive. Both critics and believers employ these simplistic accounts, and Trivers is quick to point out that supposedly sophisticated critics of religion are just as simplistic in their critique as religious defenders are in their belief. He tries to identify how self-deception works and why it persists in religious organizations. He notes the in-group and out-group effect of religious affiliation, which increases cooperation within the group at the cost of lowering cooperation outside the group. But it is the informational aspect that really merits discussion, as "certain features of religion provide a recipe for self-deception, removing nearly all restraints from rational thought" (p. 179). Such features include:

• A Unified, Privileged View of the Universe for Your Own Group - You are the chosen people.
• There May Be a Series of Interconnected Phantasmagorical Things - He rather cynically notes, "Once you have signed on to a few of these notions, there are hardly any boundaries left, and very small details can turn out to be critical features of dogma" (p. 283).
• The Deification of a Prophet - "The deification of Jesus is unlike the treatment of prophets in either Islam or Judaism" (p. 283).
• Sometimes a Book Is Treated as Received Wisdom Direct from God - "The key is that you — or your group — control the document and its interpretation" (p. 284).
• Faith Supercedes Reason - "The degree to which we believe something now becomes a determinant of its truth value" (p. 284).
• We Are Right - "We have the true religion, and as believers we are superior to those around us. (We have been "saved"; they have not.) ... [O]ur God is a just God, so our actions can't be evil when they re done in God's name" (p. 285).

There is no discussion of Mormonism anywhere in the book. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to judge the extent to which these features of self-deception in religion are part of the Mormon way of doing religion or of the LDS Church as an institution. It would probably be misleading to undertake such a discussion, suggesting as it might that Mormonism is uniquely subject to self-deception, whereas Trivers thinks all organizations and religions employ a healthy dose of self-deceptive practices. It's likely self-deception is evident in Mormonism to more or less the same degree as in other denominations. So why even talk about it, you might say? Because in the long run self-deception is harmful. Being aware of self-deception in ourselves and in organizations we are part of is a form of self-defense, protecting us from ourselves (we can be our own worst enemy) and from being used for ends that are not our own.

There is plenty more in the book, of course. If you want to dig deeper, read the academic paper by Trivers "The evolution and psychology of self-deception."

Comments

[Kevin Christensen]

Interesting. The temptation would be to engage in conclusion jumping and over-generalization, though I think that approach also could easily lead to self-deception. Mormon vulnerability is obvious, both at individual and cultural levels, but I think that some of this demonstrates attitudes characteristic of lower positions of the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth, notably the presumed authority of the orthodoxy of whatever social group one happens to occupy. But I have recently made that case (in Interpreter essays) that Joseph Smith, by precept and example, urged followers to move towards the kind of enlightenment and tolerance that comes through exercising the kinds of inquiry and study that "remove the beams in our own eye" that we might "see clearly", to "seek out of the best books.. wisdom" rather than out of approved books, orthodoxy, to not expect perfection of our group or leaders, but to expect that "inasmuch as they have erred, it shall be made manifest... inasmuch as they have sought wisdom, they might be instructed and receive revelation from time to time" (D&C 1), to not avoid engaging contrary notions but to realize that "By proving contraries, truth (knowledge of things as they are, were and are to come) is made manifest." And that even after we have done some experiments and tasted light, our knowledge is not perfect. (Alma 32)

[Dave]

Kevin, the beam in the eye counsel is just right on point for the whole self-deception discussion. Here's the text of Matt. 7:3-5:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

If one knows the beam is there, maybe that's being a hypocrite. But if one is unaware of the beam in one's own eye, that's self-deception, not hypocrisy.

[Glenn Thigpen]

So, maybe Christ deceived Himself into believing that He was the Son of God and the Holy Ghost has been lying to us all of these centuries.

However, I think that Dave is spot on in that the author himself may be a victim of self deception.