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I - The Tangled Web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2015

Peter Hancock
Affiliation:
University of Central Florida
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Summary

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”

Sir Walter Scott 1]

“‘It was extraordinary to observe . . . ’, William Henry wrote later how willingly persons will blind themselves on any point interesting to their feelings.”

Doug Stewart [2]

Introception to Deduction

Deception is a part of life. Deception can be regarded as one of the essential characteristics that energize the very struggle for life itself [3]. The process of deception permeates virtually all of the animal kingdom [4]. Indeed, the occurrences of, and variations in, the capacities of animals to camouflage themselves and deceive their natural predators had a profound influence on Charles Darwin and the first conceptual development of his theory of evolution. Deception is also something we encounter throughout our personal lives. It is a behavioral characteristic that forms the basis of some of our original cultural narratives. For example, Homer’s Iliad, one of the earliest of all human recorded stories, recounts a tale in which the deception of the Trojan Horse plays the central role. The Bible itself proposes that the present form of human existence began with two acts of deception: the first was the Devil’s deception of Eve and the second was Eve’s subsequent deception of Adam [5]. It is within such religious narratives that we find the first links between deception and sin. As a result, we often conceive of humans involved in deceptions as doing something that is “bad” or even “evil.” In general, we have come to consider it wrong to deceive others.

Type
Chapter
Information
Hoax Springs Eternal
The Psychology of Cognitive Deception
, pp. 1 - 12
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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