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Depression
The Toolbox of Self-Deception, Part III
To thine own self be true. But only some of the time.
Posted September 12, 2009
Below, the third of three parts on the ubiquitous nature of self-deception in daily life; click here for Part I and here for Part II.
When you stop to think about it (and that's what we psychologists are trained to do), we enlist an impressive array of cognitive tactics and behavioral gambits in the daily effort to feel good about ourselves. We carry around a veritable toolbox of self-deception, including well more individual tools than I can catalog here. What follows is but a sampling of the more common strategies we employ in the daily pursuit of positive self-regard...
5. Downward Social Comparison
So, associating ourselves with successful and accomplished others is always the way to go, right? Not so fast. What if those others are thriving in the very areas where we're faltering? The novelist may revel in the feats of her neighbor the musician, but the best-selling book of her cousin may bring on crippling envy. And what if we can't even use the better-than-average effect? What if we run up against irrefutable evidence that we're actually not better than average? In such cases, we often resort to downward social comparison, viewing our attainments alongside those of the least successful individuals we know.
Think about the last time you were handed back an exam, whether days or decades ago. If you're like most of the test takers I know, one of your first reactions was to wonder what the average score was. Or to ask your friend how she did. Or maybe even to sneak a peek at the score of the guy sitting down the row from you.
A study by Joanne Wood and colleagues at the University of Waterloo shows downward social comparison in action. Participants were given a series of tests, and then some, chosen at random, were told they had succeeded, while others, also chosen at random, were told they had failed. The participants' next task was to select a test for their unseen partner in a separate room–a test that they would score for the partner. Those who thought they themselves had done poorly assigned their partner the most challenging test to muddle through.
Though this tendency doesn't paint the prettiest picture of human nature, sometimes there's nothing like other people's struggles to make us feel better about our own plight. Research on breast cancer reveals that one coping strategy for women who need a lumpectomy is to compare themselves with those undergoing mastectomy. Our own financial woes don't seem so bad when we think about families in foreclosure. And your 75 on the biology exam isn't as problematic when you consider the even lower score of that guy who sleeps through class.
Not to mention that the test was unfair, you were nursing a head cold, and you stayed out too late the night before. Speaking of which...
6. Self-Handicapping
Sometimes we actually undermine our own performance to ward off threats to the ego. Psychologists refer to this as self-handicapping. To illustrate, let's say you do stay out late the night before a big test. If you don't perform well, you can tell yourself that it wasn't because of any intellectual shortcoming. If you pull off a good grade anyway, then wow–you did it without even studying.
For me, the king of self-handicapping will always be my best friend from college. He had an uncanny knack for placing himself in no-lose situations. In Wiffle ball, he'd inevitably start swinging left-handed halfway through. If he lost, well, hey, he was swinging left-handed; if he won, we'd never hear the end of it. The honors thesis that I sweated over for months during my senior year? He wrote his the night before. Literally all of it. That we earned the same grade chafed a bit, I'll admit. But it made his day.
Some people are more prone to self-handicapping than others, of course. Several studies indicate that men are more susceptible than women. And according to Robert Arkin of Ohio State University, self-handicapping is especially common among the chronically self-conscious.
In one of Arkin's studies, students were given a choice of music to listen to while completing a test of spatial skill. Some musical options, they were told, might enhance their concentration, while others could prove distracting. When the test was framed as a powerful predictor of future college and career success, more participants went for the supposedly distracting music, giving themselves a ready-made excuse for poor performance. This tendency was pronounced among men and among students of either sex who reported feeling self-conscious in public.
Do you recognize any of these six self-deceiving strategies in your family? Your friends? Your colleagues? I know better than to ask if you engage in any of them. I mean, of course you don't.
But even if we are momentarily candid with ourselves, the question remains: What should we do about this blindness to reality, this resistance to the awful truth? Quite possibly, nothing.
In an influential article published in 1988, Shelley Taylor of UCLA and Jonathon Brown of the University of Washington suggested that distortions of reality are essential to our mental well-being.
This idea was illustrated in a study by Lauren Alloy of Temple University and Lyn Abramson of the University of Wisconsin. Study participants–some of them depressed and some of them not–sat in front of a light bulb with a button that they could either push or not, as they chose. Sometimes when the button was pushed, the light went on; other times it didn't.
In reality, the button wasn't connected to the light at all–the bulb simply flashed on and off at random. Later, when asked how much control they thought they had over the light, participants who were depressed accurately reported that they had none. But those who weren't saw things differently. These "normal" people had an exaggerated sense of control, the same type of illusion harbored by the overconfident lotto player or the superstitious sports fan.
Our real task, psychologically, may not be to banish self-deception, but to make it work for us: to enlist it when we feel threatened and let go of it when we're ready to face facts. Should we always evaluate ourselves in relation to those of inferior aptitude? No. We'll grow complacent and develop an exaggerated sense of competence.
But sometimes a dash of downward social comparison is just what we need to bounce back from failure. Or maybe the better-than-average effect will do the trick. Or a little rationalization.
My health screening was a case in point. Denial, with a dollop of rationalization, helped get me through the day. I taught, got some writing done, and went about business as usual. Then a few days later, when I had come to grips with reality, I made an appointment to see my doctor. Now the offending number is back to normal, and I have a new morning routine before I teach: running at the gym. Consider it a public service: my 10-minute miles are perfect fodder for your next downward social comparison.
And when I finally cash in my gift card, I'll order a salad, dressing on the side. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
This piece originally appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Tufts Magazine
