Deception, making people believe things that aren't true is a fairly well understood behavior. But what about self deception? Is it really possible to deceive oneself? Self deception is a controversy for philosophers and psychologists alike, as it challenges the common view of the self. Some even claim that self deception is impossible.
In real life, however, we see behavior that may best be explained by self deception. In this world there seems to be many who refuse to face the truth and reality for various reasons. A common psychological explanation of self deception is freudian. According to Freudian theory, uncomfortable and anxiety provoking thoughts can either be denied, repressed or rationalized. In addition, Freud distinguishes between wishes and thoughts. It can be argued that because we want to and have a need in believing in something we sometimes confuse reality with our desires. Freudian theory also distinguishes between the conscious and unconscious self, which opens up for the possibility that our unconscious self can "deceive" our conscious self and vice versa. According to cognitive dissonance theory, two conflicting ideas creates mental anxiety and discomfort. We therefore have a tendency to either repress one of those thoughts or rationalizing our behavior or ideas to such an extent that we can harmonize the conflicting ideas. For instance, if you want to smoke but know it is bad, you may claim that you are only a party smoker (you may however often go to parties and therefore smoke a lot) There is also an evolutionary explanation of self deception. Trivers (the same researcher that developed the altruistic theory of self reciprocity) believes that self deception is a behavior that has evolved in order to be able to deceive others. If you truly believe in a lie that you are telling someone else, it is best to believe in it yourself. Then it won't show in your body language that you are lying.
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Many people have reported that time seems to move in slow motion during a life-threatening event. In order to check whether it is true that time distorted during these events Stetson, Fiesta and Eagleman conducted an experiment. In the experimental group, participants experienced free fall through bungy jumping while performing a perceptual task that would be easier to do if the perception of time had slowed down. The results did not show any difference in performance of the task between the experimental and the control group, suggesting that time does not slow down during frightening events. Interestingly enough, however, the participants doing the bungy jumping experienced their own fall as taking much longer than seeing falls of the same height. The experiment has some problems with ecological validity and other possible confounding variables and has not yet been replicated, but it does suggest that our perception that time goes slower during life threatening events is a false, reconstrutive memory.
Here is the original article of the study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001295 Here are some interesting articles about the riots in England (I found the links on Mr Crane´s website) One about the possible causes of the riots and one on how the riots spread all over the country:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14483149 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499 The terror management theory is a theory that states that all human behavior is motivated by the fear of death. In order to deal with and forget our mortality we create culture, on which our social identity and self esteem are built (compare with social identity theory). It is believed that we, once we become aware of our mortality are more likely to enforce religion, and our social/cultural identity. This could be an explanation why disasters and terror attacks often lead to collectivism and patriotism. It happened during the 9/11 in the United States and it also seems likely to be the case for the recent terror attack in Norway. When we are reminded of death we are more likely to appreciate life, our loved ones and the institutions on which our identity is built.
Research on terror management theory In the 1960s Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to investigate the connectedness of people in American society. His findings demonstrated that humans are rather well connected with each other. In his experiment he sent out letters to individuals without an adress (except that the person was located in Boston) to self selected participants, asking them to pass the letter along to someone who might know the person. On average, the letter reached its' destination after changing hands with 6 people.
The study will now be replicated by the use of facebook. It will be interesting to see whether social networking technology has made us more connected to each other, or if 6 degrees of separation model (on average it takes 6 people to connect from one to another) is still valid. http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-yahoo-test-six-degrees-theory-134204 A former student recommended this book:
Zen golf: Mastering the mental game It is a mental training book for golf. My student says that it has improved his game. |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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