Is there an evolutionary root cause for self-deception?


Answer: Diverse evolutionary psychologists have conjectured about the potential advantages of self-deception in a social context, however some Terror Management theorists suggest that self-deception is actually at the core of what it means to be human. Hunter-gatherers may have used their increasing cognitive abilities to their own evolutionary benefit, but increased cognition necessarily brought along the awareness of death, which could become a major obstacle by making the dangers of day-to-day so explicit and linked to the possibility of death that would cause paralysis -thus it would not be evolutionary anymore. In conclusion, awareness of death could only have emerged in combination with self-deception, so that the terror of death would be managed and diminished. In other words, the theory dismisses the possibility of the advent of a breed of intelligent beings, unless those beings, no matter how clever they come to be, have as well the ability to conceal their own mortality.