Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act of deceiving oneself or the state of being deceived by oneself.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Deception concerning one's self; also, the act of deceiving one's self.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Self-deceit.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of fooling oneself, of
willfully notaccepting the obvious.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a misconception that is favorable to the person who holds it
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Indeed, because there's no such thing as a unified self, just a collection of modules, the very phrase "self-deception" is misleading in the author's view.
Hard-Wired Hypocrisy in Our Divided Minds Matt Ridley 2011
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Our capacity for self-deception can be breathtaking.
It's Too Easy Being Green David Owen 2012
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Research in psychology -- my academic field -- suggests that we possess a veritable toolbox of self-deception to help us cope with ego-threatening feedback.
Sam Sommers: A Healthy Dose of Self-Delusion Sam Sommers 2011
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He describes honestly, without self-deception and precisely how the dictatorship functioned and what it did with people.
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Research in psychology -- my academic field -- suggests that we possess a veritable toolbox of self-deception to help us cope with ego-threatening feedback.
Sam Sommers: A Healthy Dose of Self-Delusion Sam Sommers 2011
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It starts off with a satirical learned encomium after the manner of the Greek satirist Lucian; it then takes a darker tone in a series of orations, as Folly praises self-deception and madness and moves to a satirical examination of pious but superstitious abuses of Catholic doctrine and corrupt practices in parts of the Roman Catholic Church — to which Erasmus was ever faithful — and the folly of pedants (including Erasmus himself).
Capsule Summaries of the Great Books of the Western World Jonathan Aquino 2009
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I applaud the ease and convenience of that answer; too bad I lack the power of self-deception necessary to believe it.
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He's less interested in presenting his characters' spiraling self-deception— though he does that with uncanny insight—than in laying bare the terrible isolation that underlies all human relationships.
A Hungarian Novelist's Literature of Fidelity Eric Ormsby 2011
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Our data provide new perspectives on the role of communication in promoting economic efficiency in social environments, and support economic theories of decision incorporating psychological factors such as guilt, shame, and self-deception.
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Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.
Sam Harris: The Perils of the Print Interview Sam Harris 2011
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