Review of Robert Trivers's The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life (New York: Basic Books, 2011)

摘要

In his autobiography, Charles Darwin wrote: "As a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods" (pp. 1958:23). In an example Darwin relates: "I remember stealing apples from the orchard, for the sake of giving them away to some boys and young men who lived in a cottage not far off, but before I gave them the fruit I showed off how quickly I could run and it is wonderful that I did not perceive that the surprise and admiration which they expressed at my powers of running, was given for the sake of the apples. But I well remember that I was delighted at them declaring that they had never seen a boy run so fast!" (p. 1958:24). Poignant as Darwin's youthful self-deception was—handing out apples to the very people cheering his running skills —it also raises a fundamental scientific question: to what extent are humans subject to self-deception? Studies suggest self-deception may be far from uncommon. For instance, most people suffer from the so-called end of history illusion: when reflecting back on how much we have changed, we falsely believe we've reached the apex of our personal development, underestimating how much we will actually change in the future (Quoidbach et al. 2013). Yet if humans are so subject to self-deception, failing to see the world as it is, why would natural selection have favored this? Is self-deception adaptive?