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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 17, 2025

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Paranoia, self-deception and overconfidence.

Rosa A Rossi-Goldthorpe1,2, Yuan Chang Leong3, Pantelis Leptourgos1

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.

Plos Computational Biology
|October 7, 2021
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Misbeliefs like self-deception and paranoia may be adaptive, not mistaken. These traits flourish under uncertainty, potentially stemming from low self-esteem, and can surprisingly facilitate optimal behavior despite costs.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Self-deception, paranoia, and overconfidence are often viewed as cognitive errors.
  • These misbeliefs relate to inaccurate perceptions of the self, others, and the external world.
  • The adaptive value and potential Bayesian explanations for these phenomena remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether self-deception, paranoia, and overconfidence can be adaptive.
  • To explore the possibility of explaining these traits using Bayesian computational frameworks.
  • To understand the role of social influence and uncertainty in modulating these cognitive biases.

Main Methods:

  • A difficult perceptual judgment task was administered to participants.
  • Social influence was introduced using suggestions from cooperating or competing partners, with uninformative social cues.
  • Behavioral data was collected, and computational models were fitted to participant responses.

Main Results:

  • Participants relied more on uninformative social suggestions under conditions of high uncertainty.
  • High confidence was reported, especially among more paranoid individuals, when heeding suggestions.
  • Paranoia, self-deception, and overconfidence correlated with perceived performance instability, not prior beliefs about social partners.

Conclusions:

  • Self-deception, paranoia, and overconfidence appear to be adaptive responses to uncertainty, possibly rooted in low self-esteem.
  • These cognitive biases, though irrational, can facilitate optimal behavior, even at the cost of objective rewards.
  • Understanding these mechanisms may explain costly decisions in finance and conflict, highlighting the functional role of 'spurious' beliefs.