Self‑deception is not merely an individual cognitive failure but a socially constructed, institutionally supported system: networks, norms, career incentives and platform architectures jointly scaffold beliefs people want to keep. Addressing widespread falsehoods therefore requires institutional redesign (incentives, transparency, provenance), not only individual correction.
— Seeing self‑deception as public infrastructure reframes misinformation and politicized science as governance problems, shifting interventions from fact‑checking to changing organizational incentives, platform defaults, and public‑service transparency.
2026.10.04
85% relevant
The Countrywide video links executive and institutional behavior during the subprime crisis to self‑serving bias — concrete evidence of how collective self‑deception within a firm enabled reckless mortgage practices and regulatory evasion, matching the idea that self‑deception operates as an infrastructural enabler of institutional failure.
Dan Williams
2026.01.12
100% relevant
The article’s explicit claim that motivated cognition is a 'team project' and is 'distributed and socially scaffolded' (Dan Williams, Jan 12, 2026).
← Back to all ideas