The Influence of Self-Control and Social Status on Self-Deception

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of self-control and social status on self-deception. The present study adopted a forward-looking paradigm to investigate how self-control and social status influence self-deception. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to complete 10 questions, after they predicted and completed 40 questions (commonsense judgment materials) either with or without answer hints. The results indicated that the participants had higher predicted scores under conditions with answer hints compared with conditions without answer hints and that the predicted scores were much higher than the actual scores under conditions with answer hints. In Experiment 2, individuals with different self-control traits were chosen to perform the operation and induction of the perception of social status and then complete tests such as Experiment 1. The results showed that differences in the predicted scores between conditions with answer hints and those without answer hints were observed to be greater in individuals with low self-control traits than in individuals with higher self-control traits, however, such differences between individuals with higher and low self-control traits were only observed in conditions with low social status perception, not in the conditions with high social status perception. The findings indicated that compared with individuals with high self-control, low self-control individuals tended to produce more self-deception. In addition, high social status in the individuals’ perception could restrain the influence of low self-control on self-deception, while low social status in the individuals’ perception could increase the self-control’s influence on self-deception.

Higher Self-Control, Less Deception: The Effect of Self-Control on Deception Behaviors

“…Schmeichel et al ( 2015 ) claimed that processing negative emotional events rationally appears to consume and deplete self-regulatory resources, leaving individuals temporarily prone to self-control failure. Self-control ability and self-control resources are distinct concepts regarding self-control ( Ren et al, 2018 ). Self-control ability is a trait, which remains stable over time and rarely changes with the surrounding environment, whereas self-control resources are variable, which change with the surrounding environment ( Tangney et al, 2004 ).…”

The Effect of Negative Feedback on Positive Beliefs in Self-Deception

“…These results are consistent with Chance et al’s (2011) research and prove that the “forward-looking” paradigm can better induce self-deception in an Eastern cultural context. The dot estimation material can induce self-deception and can be widely used in academic settings to study self-deception (Ren et al, 2018). To our knowledge, this is the first time that the forward-looking paradigm has been tested using a computer program and graph materials.…”

“…This dot-tracking paradigm established the theory that self-deception occurs under ambiguous conditions, as has been widely recognized. Although the above experimental methods illustrate the classic paradigm for studying self-deception, they cannot be used to measure the unconscious processes of self-deception (Ren et al, 2018) or applied stably and repeatedly to follow-up studies of self-deception. Therefore, advances in the experimental paradigms are an important prerequisite for further exploration of self-deception.…”

“…In addition, many studies have proven that self-deception has positive effects on individuals, such as improving subjective well-being (Ford, 2004; Lopez and Fuxjager, 2012) and increasing self-confidence (Ren et al, 2018) and self-perceived personal charm (Linton and Wiener, 2001). However, other studies have shown that self-deception has a negative effect on individuals.…”

Social Mindfulness Shown by Individuals With Higher Status Is More Pronounced in Our Brain: ERP Evidence

“…Social status is the relative rank of an individual along one or more dimensions within a given social hierarchy, which can strongly modulate human socio-emotional functioning and attention/cognitive processes (Zink et al, 2008;Boksem et al, 2012;Santamaria-Garcia et al, 2014;Feng et al, 2015Feng et al, , 2016. More importantly, social status is a factor that influences how we evaluate the behavior of others (Mattan et al, 2017;Ren et al, 2018;Rizzo and Killen, 2018). Previous studies have found that social status is an influencing factor in how we behave and how we perceive other's behavior in cooperation games.…”