The folly of fools : the logic of deceit and self-deception in human life

Content: The evolutionary logic of self-deception : The evolution of self-deception 
 Deception is everywhere 
 What is self-deception 
 Detecting deception in humans via cognitive load 
 Self-deception is older than language 
 Nine categories of self-deception 
 The hallmarks of self-deception --
Deception in nature : The coevolutionary struggle between deceiver and deceived 
 Frequency-dependent selection in butterflies 
 An epic coevolutionary struggle 
 Intelligence and deception 
 Female mimics 
 False alarm calls 
 Camouflage 
 Death and near-death acts 
 Randomness as a strategy 
 Deception may induce anger 
 Animals may be conscious of deception 
 Deception as an evolutionary game 
 A deeper theory of deception --
Neurophysiology and levels of imposed self-deception : The neurophysiology of conscious knowledge 
 The neurophysiology of thought suppression 
 The irony of trying to suppress one\'s thoughts 
 Improving deception through neural inhibition 
 Unconscious self-recognition shows self-deception 
 Can one half of the brain hide from the other? 
 Imposed self-deception 
 Implicit versus explicit self-esteem 
 False confessions, torture, and flattery 
 False memories of child abuse 
 Is self-deception the psyche\'s immune system? 
 The placebo effect --
Self-deception in the family, and the split self : Parent/offspring conflict 
 Cases of extreme abuse 
 Genomic imprinting 
 Internal conflict from oppositely imprinted genes 
 Parental manipulation and imprinting 
 The effect of marital conflict on genetic conflict 
 Imprinting and self-deception 
 Deception in children 
 Parental effects on children\'s deception --
Deceit, self-deception, and sex : Why sex? 
 Two sexes, two coevolving species 
 Deception and self-deception at courtship 
 Whose baby is it? 
 Male response to female infidelity 
 Deceit and a woman\'s monthly cycle 
 Men\'s self-deceit about female interest 
 Male denial of homosexual tendencies 
 Is self-deception good or bad for marriage? 
 The appeal and danger of fantasy 
 The pain of betrayal --
The immunology of self-deception : The immune system is expensive 
 The importance of sleep 
 Trade-offs with immunity 
 Writing about trauma improves immune function 
 Homosexuality and the effects of denial 
 Positive affect and immune function 
 The effects of music 
 Positivity in old age 
 An immunological theory of happiness --
The psychology of self-deception : Avoiding some information and seeking out other 
 Biased encoding and interpretation of information 
 Biased memory 
 Rationalization and biased reporting 
 Predicting future feelings 
 Are all biases due to self-deception? 
 Denial and projection 
 Denial is self-reinforcing 
 Your aggression, my self-defense 
 Cognitive dissonance and self-justification 
 Social effects of cognitive dissonance reduction 
 Cognitive dissonance in monkeys and young children. Self-deception in everyday life : Sex differences in overconfidence 
 Metaphors in the stock market 
 Manipulative metaphors in life 
 The name-letter effect 
 Deceiving down and dummying up 
 Face-ism 
 Spam against anti-spam 
 Humor, laughter, and self-deception 
 Drugs and self-deception 
 Vulnerability to manipulation by others 
 Professional con artists 
 Lie-detector tests --
Self-deception in aviation and space disasters : Air Florida Flight 90: doomed by self deception? 
 Disaster 37,00 feet above the Amazon 
 Eldar takes command: Aeroflot Flight 593 
 Simple pilot error: or pilot fatigue? 
 Ice overpowers the pilots, airlines overpower the FAA 
 The US approach to safety helps cause 9/11 
 The Challenger disaster 
 The Columbia disaster 
 Egypt and EgyptAir deny all 
 Saved by lack of self-deception? --
False historical narratives : The US false historical narrative 
 Control through small wars and installed proxies 
 US history textbooks 
 Larger view of US history 
 The rewriting of Japanese history 
 Turkey\'s holocaust denial 
 A land without people for a people without land 
 The founding of the state of Israel 
 Voluntary flight or ethnic cleansing? 
 Arab deceit and self-deception 
 Christian Zionism 
 First line of defense: cry \"anti-Semite\" 
 Why false historical narratives? --
Self-deception and war : Chimpanzee raiding [arrow] human warfare 
 Self-deception encourages warfare 
 Derogation of others [arrow] fatal overconfidence 
 The 2003 US war on Iraq 
 Creating knowledge and then walling it off 
 Can wars by won through bombing? 
 Bombing to eradicate history and to reinforce it 
 Carnage in Gaza 
 Self-deception and the history of war --
Religion and self-deception : Cooperation within the group 
 Religion: a recipe for self-deception 
 Religion and health 
 Parasites and religious diversity 
 Why the bias against women? 
 Power corrupts 
 Religions impose mating systems 
 Religion preaches against self-deception 
 Intercessory prayer: does it work? 
 Religion and support for suicide attacks 
 Religion [arrow] self-righteousness [arrow] warfare --
Self-deception and the structure of the social sciences : Precedence of justice over truth? 
 Success of science is based on anti-self-deception devices 
 The more social the discipline, the more retarded its development 
 Self-deception in biology 
 Is economics a science? 
 Cultural anthropology 
 Psychology 
 Psychoanalysis: self-deception in the study of self-deception 
 Self-deception deforms disciplines --
Fighting self-deception in our own lives : To fight one\'s own self-deception or not? 
 A series of minor victories followed by a major disaster 
 Signals of underlying mental screw-ups 
 Correcting of our own biases 
 Why are we so compulsive? 
 The value of being conscious 
 The danger of fantasy in propagating deception 
 The benefits of prayer and meditation 
 Value of friends and counselors 
 An invitation to self-deception and personal disaster 
 A never-ending extravaganza.