Whether it's in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive -- but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive? In his bold new work, prominent biological theorist Robert Trivers...

"From the New York Times-bestselling author and host of NPR's Hidden Brain comes a counter- intuitive, thought-provoking exploration of deception's role in human success. Everyone agrees that lies and self-deception can do terrible harm to our lives, to our communities, and to the planet. But in Useful Delusions, host of NPR's Hidden Brain Shankar Vedantam argues that, paradoxically, deceiving ourselves and others can also play a vital role in human...

"Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant...

Deceit, lying, and falsehoods lie at the very heart of our cultural heritage. Even the founding myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Adam and Eve, revolves around a lie. We have been talking, writing and singing about deception ever since Eve told God, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Our seemingly insatiable appetite for stories of deception spans the extremes of culture from King Lear to Little Red Riding Hood, retaining a grip...

To one degree or another, we all misjudge reality. Our perception--of ourselves and the world around us--is much more malleable than we realize. This self-deception influences every major aspect of our personal and social life, including relationships, sex, politics, careers, and health.

"It's a commonplace to say that we each tell stories about ourselves, trying to shape how others perceive us, and how we perceive ourselves. And the commonplace is true, as far as it goes-which isn't very far at all. As neuroscientist Gregory Berns shows in The Self Delusion, you, I, we don't just tell stories about ourselves. We are the stories-there's no stable personality to tell stories about. What's more, the stories are, for the most part, false....

Exposing the mind's deceptions and exploring how the mind defends and glorifies the ego, [the author] illustrates the brain's tendency toward self-delusion. Unbeknownst to us, our brain - vain, emotional, immoral, deluded, pigheaded, secretive, weak-willed, and bigoted - pushes, pulls, twists, and warps our perceptions. Whether it be hindsight bias, wishful thinking, unrealistic optimism, or moral excuse-making, each of us has a slew of mind-bugs...

Using humor and a solid base of academic and practical knowledge, Dr. Dana Marrocco helps readers gently undo the self-deception caused by the most common ego-driven lies.