The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

by Kevin Simler

contexts that reward loyalty are a breeding ground for self-deception and strategic irrationality. For our beliefs to function as loyalty signals, we can’t simply “follow the facts” and “listen to reason.” Instead, we have to believe things that are beyond reason, things that other, less-loyal people wouldn’t believe.45 This helps explain why voters feel little pressure to be informed. As long as we adopt the “right” beliefs—those of our main coalitions—we get full credit for loyalty. We don’t need to be well informed because the truth isn’t particularly relevant to our expressive agendas. The main actions we take based on our political beliefs are preaching and voting, neither of which has practical consequences for our lives (only social consequences). And on the rare occasions when our political beliefs do suggest concrete actions, we’re happy to ignore their suggestions and act as we would even if we believed the opposite. For example, we might think, “Everyone deserves access to the same opportunities” and yet fiercely compete to get our kids into the best schools. This kind of mild hypocrisy might bother us on occasion, but it probably won’t keep us up at night. We have to strike a balance, though, between critical thinking and mindless obedience. If we adopt beliefs that are too far-fetched, we risk looking foolish, thereby offsetting the benefit we get for showing loyalty. Thus the best apparatchiks are highly intelligent and even skeptical, as long as their skepti...