This article examines how people’s beliefs about deception in text-based media (i.e., email, instant messenger) and face-to-face communication are distorted by two biases: (a) a self-other asymmetry, whereby people believe themselves to be more honest than their peers across communication contexts; and (b) a media intensification effect, whereby the perceived gap between one’s own and others’ d...

We propose a mixed belief model of self-deception. According to the theory, people distribute belief over two possible causal paths to an action, one where the action is freely chosen and one where it is due to factors outside of conscious control. Self-deceivers take advantage of uncertainty about the influence of each path on their behavior, and shift weight between them in a self-serving way...

The similarities between measures of self-evaluation and self-deception are reviewed, and a method for discriminating between them is proposed, using personality profiles and relations to ability and achievement. Across two samples, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and Tafarodi's measures of self-evaluation were used to demonstrate that the RSES and Self-Liking are more similar to Self-De...

Research provides important evidences about the role of emotions in a wide range of judgments, including moral decisions (Haidt, 2003; Teper et al., 2015). Recent findings show that real compared to hypothetical moral decisions brings about higher physiological activity (Teper et al., 2011). In agreement, studies on the autonomic correlates of deception reported: (i) higher skin conductance (Co...

This paper proposes that malingered symptoms may become internalized due to the self-deceptive power of cognitive dissonance. Studies demonstrating how other-deception may turn into self-deception are briefly discussed, as are clinical notions about the overlap between malingering and medically unexplained symptoms. In our view this literature showcases the relevance of cognitive dissonance for...