Category: deception

Deception and Dreamweavers

Leave a comment

August 9, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

Over the past several weeks I have explored our predictive ability. Last week, I ended with an observation that we tend to look away from the mistakes in our predictions. At first glance, this does not seem to be a successful survival strategy. A student doesn’t submit assignments for the first few weeks of class, then asks how they can make up the work and get a good grade. We must reconcile the reality of our circumstances with a constructed fantasy future. Shouldn’t we be learning from our mistakes? Why are we so good at self-deception?

Dreamweavers

We are the most creative of social animals. Deception is the creation of an illusion. If we want the world to be a certain way, why shouldn’t we construct a reality that conforms to our desires? We have little control over our instinctual responses to sense data. We pull back our hand from the hot burner on a stove, for example. But we must interpret most of our sense data, and that interpretation depends on our ability to filter out data which is non-essential to our needs. We apply our own unique weighting system to the events around us.

Because of that, eyewitness testimony has been shown to be fallible. We do not record events and place them into memory like the footage of a surveillance camera. We use our perception,  our previous knowledge and beliefs as well as our expectations to construct a narrative. In her 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony, Elizabeth Loftus recounted several examples of the errors in our perception and memory. Erroneous eyewitness testimony accounts for two-thirds of all DNA exonerations, according to the Innocence Project.

Social Animals

Robert Trivers is an evolutionary biologist whose 2011 book The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life argued that we practice self-deception to become more effective at deceiving others. Natural selection would favor individuals who are good at self-deception. I think Trivers might have it backwards. Self-deception is an incidental effect of our need to deceive others. Our survival in a social group depends on camouflage. We get so good at it that we sometimes delude ourselves.

In his 1982 book, Chimpanzee Politics, Frans de Waal examined the strategic social interactions between chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands. Subgroups within a colony form alliances in support of a particular leader who uses aggressive displays to enforce dominance. Sexual relations promote social cohesion. Diplomacy helps reconciliation after fights break out. Chimps practice concealment to make it difficult for another member of the group to predict what is going to happen. Hiding signs of aggression before launching an attack is one example. Chimps hide food, or hide their excitement at finding a food source to protect it for themselves.

Conspiracy Theories

Human beings use concealment as well, but also practice intentional deception designed to create a false belief in others. Concealment is a cloaking action. Deception is a creative act, the construction of an illusion. Conspiracy theories involve both concealment and deception.

Alex Jones, the former owner of the web site Infowars, promoted a conspiracy theory that the shooting of twenty first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut was a hoax, a government conspiracy designed to arouse public anger and enact more gun control legislation. Jones’ accusations prompted some listeners to harass the parents of the slain children.

The parents sued Jones for defamation. A jury found Jones guilty and awarded the parents over a billion dollars in damages. Jones declared bankruptcy and was forced to auction Infowars to pay the damages (Source and Source). Jones’ deception fostered a belief in his listeners that the parents and the government were concealing the real events of the school massacre.

Nothing to See Here

A chimpanzee learns to act noncommittal to avoid suspicion from a dominant member of the troop. In 2005, John Roberts was nominated first for associate justice then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At a Senate confirmation hearing he said, “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat” (Source). As a lawyer in the Reagan Administration, both Roberts and Samuel Alito had supported the unitary executive theory. This was a controversial reinterpretation of Article 2 of the Constitution that expanded the power of the president beyond the bounds of any Congressional checks (Source). Once confirmed, Roberts would no doubt pursue this and other conservative theories that aimed to overthrow established court precedents regarding abortion, gun control, campaign finance and the limits of free speech. To get confirmed, however, he skillfully concealed that agenda (Source).

In 1987 the Senate, led by Democrats, voted down the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Because the confirmation hearings were broadcast, the Senators were apt to strike performative poses much as they do now. Senator Ted Kennedy, brother of the assassinated John F. Kennedy, issued a vituperative public statement that predicted an undoing of all the liberal reforms of the past 50 years if Bork were confirmed. Decades of Bork’s past writing were introduced at the Judiciary Committee headed by Senator Joseph Biden (Source). Bork’s supporters felt that they had little opportunity for rebuttal in the public arena.

Since then nominees to the court undergo extensive preparation for the confirmation hearings (Source). They are taught to adopt a noncommittal attitude when answering questions from Senators. To avoid prejudicing future cases, they elect not to comment on any issues that might come before them. Within this institutionalized and ritualized confirmation process, concealment is a survival strategy.

Groupthink

Self-deception exists both at the individual and group level. In the 1970s and 1980s, Psychologist Irving Janis published several books on groupthink, a term he coined in 1971. In a group of individuals, loyalty and consensus take priority over a dispassionate evaluation of evidence (Source). A case familiar to many of us is the justification that the Bush administration used to initiate a war against Iraq. Based on hearsay and sketchy evidence, President Bush and a key group of advisors became convinced that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction. They ignored and concealed any evidence to the contrary as they presented their justification for war to the international community (Source).

President Trump surrounds himself only with those who agree and submit to his ideas, values and theories. Like a troop of chimpanzees, loyalty to the leader is paramount. In February 2026, Trump became convinced that a “shock and awe” strike on Iran’s leadership would cripple the Iranian military and perhaps usher in a more compliant regime (Haberman & Swan, 2026, p. 396) Vice-President Vance was one of the few in the cabinet to question the viability and success of such a plan. He is the only member of the cabinet that Trump cannot fire.

Conclusion

Last week I made the distinction between how we come in contact with the world around us through our senses and how we engage with the world through our errors. We want to avoid harsh judgment from ourselves and those around us. We deceive ourselves because we must live with ourselves. Next week I want to explore how we engage in self-deception as groups. I hope to see you next week.

//////////////

Haberman, M., & Swan, J. (2026). Regime change: Inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. Simon & Schuster.

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

The Doer and the Deed

Leave a comment

February 15, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

The game show Jeopardy! features contestants who can memorize vast catalogs of facts, react with split-second timing, and manage to remain charming under pressure. When they answer correctly, they are rewarded with applause and game points. When they miss, the game’s host rarely says, “Wrong!” He uses a short and gentle “No” before moving on to another contestant for the correct answer. It is a small distinction, but not a trivial one. “No” is a neutral acknowledgement of the error in the answer. “Wrong” feels closer to correcting the person. This week I want to explore several shades of wrong.

There are wrong answers. Some are entirely wrong; others are nearly right. In school, one teacher may award partial credit; another may not. A student might miss a problem by a sign error or by misreading a date. The final answer is incorrect but the student’s methodology is sound. Students should be developing their problem solving abilities, not regurgitating answers.

On the other hand, the inclusiveness of the K-12 education system requires a certain degree of industrialization. These include efficient methods like multiple choice tests which can be graded quickly. Answers are either correct or incorrect, a binary framework that is at odds with the problems and choices that students will make throughout their adult lives. Students are not rewarded for recognizing subtleties that confuse a distinction between two choices. Too often, our schools do not make the time to explore these distinctions because the schools themselves must meet certain curriculum standards.

One of the mysteries of any language is why we use the same word to describe entirely different phenomenon. Language itself is a deception. The word wrong describes a misplaced decimal on a math test and the killing of a small child.

We are often guilty of judging others using a binary scale. They are wrong or they are not. When we judge ourselves, however, the edges blur. We were almost right. We lacked the data. Our timing was off. Circumstances interfered. Our error was circumstantial. When others are wrong, it says something about their character.

Economists and financial analysts are famous for this subtle dance. The forecast failed not because they were wrong, but because new variables emerged. They offer their predictions in a confident manner then disregard their errors. Instead, they shift their explanations. The model was sound, but the inputs changed. The thesis was correct, but the market behaved irrationally. Being wrong is reframed as being early, or misinformed, or misunderstood. Most economists failed to predict the 2008 financial crisis because their mathematical models regarded money as neutral. According to Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen, the models “failed to account for the critical roles that banks and other financial institutions play in the economy” (Source).

In his 2011 book Thinking Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman distinguished two types of reasoning. The first is fast and intuitive, able to generate a coherent story from limited information. Despite the thin evidence, the coherence of the story gives us confidence in the story. Not only are we inclined to make errors in forming these quick impressions, but we feel certain while doing so. The discomfort of discovering we were wrong threatens that internal narrative coherence. It is easier to revise the story than to accept that we misjudged it.

Children are especially prone to fast thinking because the capacity for slow, deliberative thinking takes time to mature. We have to learn sustained attention, abstract reasoning, and an impulse control to check our first impressions. Secondly, a child’s ego boundaries are porous. There is often little distinction between what they do and who they are. An incorrect answer does not merely indicate a mistake but an indictment of a child’s identity. “I got it wrong” becomes “I am wrong.” A hurried or impatient remark from a teacher can seal that association. The act and the person committing the act become fused together in a child’s mind.

Part of growing into adulthood is learning how to separate the act and the agent. We learn to distance ourselves from our mistakes as we grow older. We distance our present self from the self we were twenty years ago to help reconcile our mistakes. Our fifty year old self groans at some of the choices we made when we were twenty. We tell ourselves that mistakes are part of our growing process. A child is more likely to feel shame for the error, to feel exposed and vulnerable. Being wrong may feel as though one’s self is diminished. Even worse is the feeling of being a fraud, as though the child has been deceiving others. Deception is the other axis I want to explore this week.

Is deception wrong? Like so many of the topics I discuss each week, this question does not have a yes or no answer. Within the confines of a game, deception is a strategy. This is true in poker, in football, and in politics. In The Prince, Machiavelli wrote that rulers should be like foxes, masters of deception. In a democracy, politics is a team sport which requires some deception. Politicians often broadcast the talking points of their party’s leadership. Only in the waning days of their political career do they share their private thoughts with the public.

However, deception requires craft. President Trump uses a different strategy, tossing out exaggerations and lies like nuggets of fool’s gold. The greatest economy in the history of the country, the greatest deregulation, the greatest blah, blah, blah. Deception implies disguise. There is no disguise here. Just a shot gun shower of exaggerated and false claims. Liberal media organizations pick up each nugget, examine it and reveal the fact that there is no gold! Conservative media attacks not the claims themselves, but the methods and assumptions of liberal media organizations. It’s a media melee like the closing section of the 1974 comedic movie Blazing Saddles, but this is not a comedy. These are adults with the power to change or destroy lives.

In his book Determined: A science of life without free will, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky (2023, pg. 388) writes that our capacity for self-deception helps us cope with the capacity for understanding truths about life like our own mortality. According to evolutionary biologists, self-deception can be a survival strategy. We are social animals. If we can convince ourselves of something, it makes the task of convincing others much easier. If we refuse to admit error to ourselves, we can convince others that we did not commit an error. I couldn’t have done something as stupid as a misplaced decimal point on that answer. No, my pencil must have broke while I was writing out the answer and the pencil made a stray mark in the wrong place. We smooth out the edges of our narrative then present it to others. We are not deceivers, but craftsmen polishing a story to bring out its luster.

A newspaper may carry a misleading advertisement in the middle of an article debunking a politician’s claim. Media outlets claim that they are common carriers. They are merely hosts selling space to advertisers. They are not responsible for the content of the advertising unless expressly illegal like advertising that promotes illegal drug use. They disavow any association between their hard hitting journalism and the dubious claims made by their advertisers. Is that a deception?

Why do people get into politics? The belief that they can do some good is one reason. People do not agree on good policy though and that leads to a bitter and divided politics. Helping the poor? One side believes that it is good policy, that it is right. Leviticus 19:10 of the Bible says that we should leave some of the grape harvest for the poor. The other side says that helping the poor is not a duty for the federal government so such programs are bad policy, that it is wrong. They are betrayals of the Constitution. They cause harm to the poor by making them dependent on charity. When a government takes from one person and gives to another, that is a forced charity, a moral offense.

Why do we have a low tolerance for being wrong? If we could tolerate being factually incorrect, we might be less inclined to use deception. We might hear a politician say, “I was mistaken,” or an economist admit, “My assumptions were wrong.” We might build a greater trust in public figures. Being wrong is inevitable yet the experience of being wrong is intolerable for some of us. A simple error becomes a moral failure we when we try to cover up the error. To admit we were wrong requires a confidence in our identity. Perhaps that is the ultimate self-deception, the failure to admit that we don’t have confidence in who we are. Something to think about and I hope I will see you next week.

//////////////

Photo by Volodymyr Yarossvit on Unsplash