Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain

by Shankar Vedantam

I realized that one reason people cling to false beliefs is because self-deception can sometimes be functional—it enables us to accomplish useful social, psychological or biological goals. Holding false beliefs is not always the mark of idiocy, pathology or villainy.

If self-deception is functional, then it will endure, regardless of all the best sellers that criticize it. Life, like evolution and natural selection, ultimately doesn’t care about what’s true. It cares about what works.

I am always saying “Glad to’ve met you” to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though. J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Jorge Trevino is a professional liar. When we hear the word “liar,” the image that usually springs to mind is of a malevolent schemer whispering lies, deceits and half-truths from the shadows, like Iago in William Shakespeare’s Othello. Trevino is nothing like that. He is friendly and good-natured, one of the

In a 1975 paper titled “Everybody Has to Lie,” the sociologist Harvey Sacks, founder of a field called “conversation analysis,” detailed the myriad deceptions found in ordinary, day-to-day settings, beginning with basic greetings, usually some version of “How are you?” in which the person who asks doesn’t actually care, and the person who answers isn’t expected to be truthful.

If I think something is amazing and am willing to pay top dollar for it, does it really matter that you think it’s “bullshit”?

If drama and theater and expectations can change the outcome of patients suffering from arthritis, can’t it do the same for diners in a restaurant?

People with depression and some other disorders often see reality more clearly.

If sacrificing the facts can ease the unpleasant feeling, the facts turn out to be expendable.

generations: Rituals offer a way for human beings to deal with a dangerous and unpredictable world. They generate community, conformity and courage. Asking whether they “work” in a literal sense misses the point. They work at a psychological level, and sometimes—as in the case of the Congolese village that fought off the Hutu militants—psychological reality turns into actual reality.

every human being is really a “breathing piece of defecating meat.”

Soldiers inspired by religion were more likely to defeat their enemies than those who were not.

Costly rituals make free-riding difficult. If I merely want the benefits of religious affiliation, would I really be willing to undertake a costly pilgrimage or walk over burning coals? Probably not. On the other hand, if you see that I am willing to do those things, you can be fairly certain that I am indeed very religious. To put it another way, the more pointless the ritual, the more painful, the more valuable it becomes as a signal of authenticity.

What if false beliefs help people live longer and connect better with their families? What if myths help communities thrive? What if fictions allow nations to come together? What if self-deceptions prompt people to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of others, and thereby help their communities, tribes and nations?

Many people hold false beliefs not because they are in love with falsehoods, or because they are stupid—as conventional wisdom might suggest—but because those beliefs help them hold their lives together in some way.