This blog is about self-deception and how people will lie to themselves about things. In this experiment, people reruited 30 students to do a "psychological and medical aspects of athletics" of course the students were being lied to. What they were really getting them selves into was an experiment on how people will lie make themselves feel better. The students were told to put their arms into cold water and see how long they could do it for. They were told it was somehow link to health. Really they just wanted to show people that they deceive themselves. After the participants were done putting their arms in the water they went on an exercise bike. While on the excise bike they were told that there are two different types of hearts, one heart was associated with poor health and shorter life expectancy. The other type was better health and longer life. After they were done with the bike they did the test again. The ones that got told that leaving your arms in the cold water for a longer amount of time was good and that they were healthier, stayed in the water longer then the first time. The ones that got told the cold water was bad stayed in the water for less amount of time.
This study showed that people lie to themselves to make them seem better. They well lie and look for evidence that supports their self-deception.
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Wow, this is a pretty interesting study. I think it is interesting that people deceive themselves to boost their self esteem. I also think it is interesting how they try and find evidence to back up their deception. I have never really heard of this kind of behavior before.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the results of the study, and I have seen it happen to people... possibly even to me. But I don't really understand the experament. Maybe I understood it wrong, but didn't they tell the people that held their hands in for a short amount of time that it was bad for them, and vice versa? So of course if you think it's bad for you, you wouldn't want to hold it in as long, and if you think it's good for you, you would try to hold out for as long as possible. And what does the excersise bike have to do with it? Interesting study, but it confuses me!
ReplyDeleteI also think this was interesting. It's strange how we think so highly of ourselves. You should read up on "Why do we vote?" It also talked about this kind of stuff. It's mind-boggling.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting because it eprtains to many areas of life. Whens omeone tells us something, we don't naturally assume they're lying to us, so we choose to believe them and, in result, lie to ourselves unintentionally. This is knowna s gullible, as well as trusting, but either way, it's kind of unfortunate.
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