Together, our sensory systems are organised to give us a detailed and accurate view of reality, exactly as we would expect if truth about the outside world helps us to navigate it more effectively. But once this information arrives in our brains, it is often distorted and biased to our conscious minds. We deny the truth to ourselves. We project on to others traits that are true of ourselves - and then attack them. We repress painful memories, create completely false ones, rationalise immoral behaviour, act repeatedly to boost positive self-opinion and show a suite of ego-defence mechanisms.
Why? Surely these biases are expected to have negative effects on our biological welfare. Why degrade and destroy the truth? Why alter information after arrival so as to reach a conscious falsehood? Why should natural selection have favoured our marvellous organs of perception, on the one hand, only to have us systematically distort the information gathered, on the other? In short, why practise self-deception? (...)
Is self-deception good or bad for marriage? There are two extreme forms of deception in a relationship where sex and love are concerned: the sex is great and you have to fake the love, or the love is real but you have to fake the sex. For the latter, we often invoke fantasy, a prior partner, an imagined partner, an imagined sexual act. Note that these relations are especially dangerous to the partner. If the partner is unaware of your own true reactions, he or she will be unprepared for the betrayal that so likely awaits. On the other side, it may be much harder to fake love when there is strong sexual interest. Low-love relationships are apt to be more volatile, open hostility coexisting with passionate sex.
The aphorism that you should go into marriage with both eyes open and, once in it, keep one eye shut captures part of the reality. When you are deciding whether to commit, weigh costs and benefits equally; when you have committed, try to be positive and not dwell on every little negative detail.
Consider first the positive form of self-deception. Couples last longer if they tend to overrate each other compared to the other's self-evaluation. This has an appealingly romantic ring: "I love you, darling, more than you love yourself, and thereby uplift you." Effects work on both sides. The more you overrate the other, the longer you stay together, and vice versa.
Evidence suggests that marital satisfaction declines linearly over time, but people have a biased memory - they remember early declines in satisfaction, but also more recent increases that offset the early decreases. In one study, both spouses reported steady increases in relationship satisfaction over two and a half years while none could be detected. By the end of the time, though, memories were readjusted so as to remember no improvement in the more distant past, only in the more recent.
In trying to predict which couples would stay together three years later, scientists enjoyed surprising success based on studying the interaction between the two people during recorded sessions. Those who rewrote history in a more thoroughly negative way were predicted to break up. On this basis alone, the scientists correctly predicted all seven marital break-ups, while incorrectly predicting three break-ups that did not occur. Other students of marriage claim to notice that when the ratio of positive to negative acts towards the partner drops below 5:1, the marriage is in trouble.
by Robert Trivers, New Statesman | Read more:
Illustration: Gianni de Conno (giannideconno-illustrator.com) via:
Why? Surely these biases are expected to have negative effects on our biological welfare. Why degrade and destroy the truth? Why alter information after arrival so as to reach a conscious falsehood? Why should natural selection have favoured our marvellous organs of perception, on the one hand, only to have us systematically distort the information gathered, on the other? In short, why practise self-deception? (...)Is self-deception good or bad for marriage? There are two extreme forms of deception in a relationship where sex and love are concerned: the sex is great and you have to fake the love, or the love is real but you have to fake the sex. For the latter, we often invoke fantasy, a prior partner, an imagined partner, an imagined sexual act. Note that these relations are especially dangerous to the partner. If the partner is unaware of your own true reactions, he or she will be unprepared for the betrayal that so likely awaits. On the other side, it may be much harder to fake love when there is strong sexual interest. Low-love relationships are apt to be more volatile, open hostility coexisting with passionate sex.
The aphorism that you should go into marriage with both eyes open and, once in it, keep one eye shut captures part of the reality. When you are deciding whether to commit, weigh costs and benefits equally; when you have committed, try to be positive and not dwell on every little negative detail.
Consider first the positive form of self-deception. Couples last longer if they tend to overrate each other compared to the other's self-evaluation. This has an appealingly romantic ring: "I love you, darling, more than you love yourself, and thereby uplift you." Effects work on both sides. The more you overrate the other, the longer you stay together, and vice versa.
Evidence suggests that marital satisfaction declines linearly over time, but people have a biased memory - they remember early declines in satisfaction, but also more recent increases that offset the early decreases. In one study, both spouses reported steady increases in relationship satisfaction over two and a half years while none could be detected. By the end of the time, though, memories were readjusted so as to remember no improvement in the more distant past, only in the more recent.
In trying to predict which couples would stay together three years later, scientists enjoyed surprising success based on studying the interaction between the two people during recorded sessions. Those who rewrote history in a more thoroughly negative way were predicted to break up. On this basis alone, the scientists correctly predicted all seven marital break-ups, while incorrectly predicting three break-ups that did not occur. Other students of marriage claim to notice that when the ratio of positive to negative acts towards the partner drops below 5:1, the marriage is in trouble.
by Robert Trivers, New Statesman | Read more:
Illustration: Gianni de Conno (giannideconno-illustrator.com) via:
