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Most people seem to have the intuition that self-deception is always and obviously wrong. In this thesis, I make the case that under certain circumstances, self-deception can actually do a great deal of good and ought to be morally permissible – especially in cases where it would be life-threatening, dehumanizing, or cruel to insist on complete authenticity. I argue that self-deception can be rational and that it can also sometimes be morally permissible to allow the self-deception of others to go unchallenged, especially in cases where the opportunity to exercise compassion, empathy, and kindness towards each other takes precedence over a concern for truth. I then confront self-deception’s staunchest opponents, the Existentialists, who maintain that self-deception is never morally permissible because it conflicts with their supreme value, authenticity. I focus specifically on the work of Nietzsche and Sartre and identify the various problems that arise from their objections to self-deception. I conclude this thesis with some suggestions as to why so many people might have come to believe that authenticity is the supreme value, when a closer investigation suggests that it probably is not.

“Enlightenment,” declared Kant, “is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity,” an immaturity maintained by all those “dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use (or rather misuse) of his natural endowments.” As a result, more and more self styled philosophic critics of the Enlightenment have accused Kant and his less impressive ilk of perpetuating a grand, even unconscious, farce: their naïve vision of liberation was but a magnificent ruse for compelling obedience to a new host of dogmas and gods. The power and influence of this sort of critique has provoked a wide ranging and lively reappraisal of the degree to which the philosophers of the Enlightenment were founders of a regime rooted ultimately in deception or emancipation. In order to enter and evaluate that debate, I take up the views of Spinoza, a founder of the Enlightenment, and one of its greatest critics, Rousseau. According to both Spinoza and Rousseau, all societies, no matter how Enlightened, have to perpetuate deceptions in order to make political rule both legitimate and acceptable to the ruled: humans are not naturally meant for political rule or political life. They both agree that the liberation of talents is at the core of the Enlightenment’s approach to achieving this kind of legitimacy. But while the liberation of talents is considered an unequivocal good by Spinoza even if that liberation must have as its basis several fundamental deceptions, I argue on behalf of Rousseau that the Enlightenment perpetuates a deep moral corruption of man by stimulating within him the desire for an impossible celebrity that could never truly or authentically satisfy his deepest needs. / text

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

I contend that all theories of self-deception (SD) which operate on a belief/knowledge account are mistaken and that Fingarette is correct in basing SD on a volition/action account. Fingarette's account, however, is also mistaken in its failure to understand the sometimes crucial role of motive and the always crucial role of acceptance of responsibility. My theory of SD claims that it occurs due to lack of communication between two extremely different sets of structures in the brain. These have evolved for entirely different purposes, and are called the affective and cognitive brains, respectively. This theory demonstrates why the action/volition account is correct. When the cognitive brain judges some idea to be a threat to one of the various self-concepts, the affective brain is alerted to attempt to protect the system of the self by escape of any viable sort. The theory gains strength by its ability to shed light on other psychological phenomena, e.g., false confession and inexplicably docile behavior greatly disadvantageous to those doing it. In addition, my theory undermines all of the so-called paradoxes of SD, partially by showing that the "deception" in SD does not point toward objective truth and a purposeful even if conscious failure to see it, but rather toward the perceived consistency, or lack of it, of one's self-concept. Specifically, drawing on general examples of SD taken from literature, film, and various psychological experiments, I criticize in great detail the accounts of SD given by Fingarette, Rorty, Szabados, and Saunders. In less detail, I criticize the accounts of Freud, Sartre, and Kierkegaard.

ERPs, specifically the P3, have been proposed as an alternative to traditional polygraphy, with one approach (i.e., Brain Fingerprinting) being promoted as infallible to justify its use on a commercial basis. Concerns have been voiced, however, that such techniques would have to undergo peer-reviewed studies to satisfy validity concerns. Rosenfeld et al. (2004) found, for example, that mental countermeasures were effective in reducing detection rates using an amplitude based, peak-to-peak measure. The present study attempted to replicate and extend Rosenfeld et al.'s study, and to test Brain Fingerprinting's vulnerability to participant manipulation by employing a highly realistic virtual reality crime scenario, multiple countermeasures, and Bayesian and bootstrapping analytic approaches to classify individuals as being guilty or innocent. Participants reported a high degree of realism supporting the external validity of this study and suggesting future uses of virtual environments. Hit rates across statistical methods were significantly lower for standard guilty and innocent participants as compared to previous studies; countermeasures reduced the overall hit rates even further. Brain Fingerprinting was as vulnerable to countermeasures as other statistical measures, and produced a significant number of indeterminate outcomes. Nevertheless, innocent participants remained protected from being falsely accused across statistical methods, consistent with findings of prior studies. Reaction times were determined unsuitable in determining guilt or innocence in this study. Results suggested that ERP based deception detection measures might lack the level of validity required for use in an applied setting.

Non-verbal cues can provide behavioural signals of deception to observers. Microexpressions are facial cues that indicate the presence of an emotion being concealed by a deceiver. During deception, deceivers often attempt to conceal an emotion by masking it with an expression of another emotion such as a smile. Despite this, micro-expressions may be leaked during masking to reveal the hidden emotion. Nonetheless, research has shown that the majority of people recognize the occurrence of deception no better than could be expected by chance. Micro-expression detection training has been suggested to improve micro-expression detection skill that is linked to improved deception detection. The present study examined the effectiveness of the Micro-expression Training Tool (METT) in improving students’ and police officers’ skills in detecting masking smiles. The visual attention of trainees and untrained controls was measured via eye tracking during a pre and post test masking smile detection task. Results revealed that training did not have an effect on task performance, but practice did alter task performance. Following practice, all groups showed better detection of true smiles but not for masking smile detection. Participants’ abilities to identify masked emotions and location of microexpressions on the face varied as a function of the emotion present, as did their attention to the relevant regions of the face that contained a micro-expression. These results suggest that traditional micro-expression training is not sufficient to train observers in masking smile detection. This result has significant implications for future training protocols and many professional groups, as masking smiles are often employed during attempts at deception.

This study was conducted to explore the ability and propensity to verbally deceive others in children with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We also explored the relationships among lie-telling ability, false belief understanding as measured using a standard battery of false belief tasks, and verbal mental age as measured using a standardized test of language ability. To explore antisocial lie-telling ability, we used a modified temptation resistance paradigm in which children were tempted to commit a transgression in the experimenter’s absence and given the opportunity to tell a lie about their transgression and to exercise semantic leakage control (SLC)—that is, to maintain consistency between the lie and subsequent statements that they make. To explore prosocial lie-telling ability, we used a modified undesirable gift paradigm in which children were awarded an unattractive prize for winning a game and given the opportunity to lie about liking the prize that the experimenter gave them. We found that children with ASD, like typically developing children, can and do tell antisocial lies to conceal a transgression, and prosocial lies in politeness settings. However, children with ASD were less able than typically developing children to exercise SLC. Furthermore, we found that, unlike in typically developing children, lie-telling ability in children with ASD was not related to their false belief understanding. The pattern of relations among lie-telling ability, false belief understanding, and verbal mental age are discussed with respect to possible contentions regarding the underlying processes by which children with ASD tell lies and succeed on false belief tasks. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-25 23:03:37.259

Recent research has showed that advertising deception not only has a negative effect on consumers’ responses to subsequently encountered similar products and sources, but also carries over onto other unrelated advertisements. This research shows through one online and three lab experiments that social exclusion attenuates this carryover effect. These negative attitudes towards subsequent advertising are expected to be the least likely to occur when the subsequent advertising conveys high permeability of joining a group. In addition, this research shows that the effects of exclusion do not wash out the initial negative attitude towards the deceptive advertisement, only the carryover effect.

This study introduces Texas Hold'em Poker as a research interest and discusses the use of poker in studying interpersonal deception. The first section reviews relevant literature in the study of deception and detection in order to answer: 1) What is the base rate of deceptive attempts for poker players? 2A) What types of tells are exhibited? 2B) What inconsistent nonverbal behavior does each player exhibit? This research also hypothesizes that bluffers will engage in consistent nonverbal behavior in bluffing and non bluffing sets. The second section describes the methods used. A videotaped poker game was recorded and analyzed. Twenty nonverbal behaviors were coded and frequency of behavior was calculated. The third section describes the results of the analysis: base rate, tells, and inconsistencies. Finally, the last section discusses the results, conclusions, limitations, and further avenues of study. / Department of Communication Studies