(It is, after all, the only way they can save their souls in the apocalypse to come.)ģ0 days pass, and thankfully the world doesn’t end. They’re so sure Armageddon is nigh that they quit their jobs, sell everything they own, and do everything their cult leader says. (Stick with me, this is based on actual events.) The devotees profess to you and everyone they know that they are absolutely certain the world is going to end in 30 days. Psychologists call the uncomfortable state of holding two conflicting ideas, “cognitive dissonance.” For instance, let’s say you meet members of a doomsday cult. Lying to ourselves can also be a way of reconciling contradictory beliefs. Many of us try to convince ourselves we’re more likeable, better looking, less biased, or more competent than we really are. Mediocre players try to convince themselves they’re really vital to the team. Parents try to convince themselves that their children really aren’t badly behaved. Humiliated spouses try to convince themselves that their partners really aren’t cheating. They include insulating ourselves from uncomfortable truths and convincing ourselves of comfortable ones. Why do people lie to themselves? What motivates us to distort facts in our own heads? The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.” In his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky wrote, “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. There’s also a difference between certain types of self-deception and lies that erode our integrity. There’s a difference between the commonplace lying that mentally healthy people engage in and the kind of self-deception that marks mental illnesses like schizophrenia or manic depression. However, not all self-deception is created equal. We constantly lie to ourselves and there’s reason to think that healthy psychological functioning involves some level of self-deception. You might tell yourself that your curt response to someone wasn’t insensitive, or that you didn’t take more than your fair share of dessert, or that you contributed more to the team project than you did.
When it becomes evident that there is a disconnect between someone’s professed values and their actions, it is difficult to trust their word ever again. In the same way, if people trust that you have the values you say, they’ll forgo other opportunities to invest their time and attention elsewhere because they’re confident you’ll remain the person you say you are.Īs in the case of lying about facts, the information age places limits on how long someone can sustain lying about their values.
If I encourage you to invest in a particular stock or discourage you from applying for a particular job, you will choose to limit your future options based on my advice: you’ll forgo other investment opportunities or forego the one job in favor of others. If you trust me, you are likely to adjust your behavior based on what I say. Lying about values compromises peoples’ abilities to make informed decisions because it limits their view of what the future has to offer. Lying about our values undermines this basic trust. Some of the most important decisions in peoples’ lives are guided by this confidence-decisions to spend time with someone, to love them, to make sacrifices for them, to trust them with our money, our children, our careers, or our opinions.