Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T09:17:19.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The evolution of misbelief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Ryan T. McKay
Affiliation:
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich 8006, Switzerland; and Centre for Anthropology and Mind, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PE, United Kingdomryantmckay@mac.comhttp://homepage.mac.com/ryantmckay/
Daniel C. Dennett
Affiliation:
The Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155-7059ddennett@tufts.eduhttp://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/dennettd/dennettd.htm

Abstract

From an evolutionary standpoint, a default presumption is that true beliefs are adaptive and misbeliefs maladaptive. But if humans are biologically engineered to appraise the world accurately and to form true beliefs, how are we to explain the routine exceptions to this rule? How can we account for mistaken beliefs, bizarre delusions, and instances of self-deception? We explore this question in some detail. We begin by articulating a distinction between two general types of misbelief: those resulting from a breakdown in the normal functioning of the belief formation system (e.g., delusions) and those arising in the normal course of that system's operations (e.g., beliefs based on incomplete or inaccurate information). The former are instances of biological dysfunction or pathology, reflecting “culpable” limitations of evolutionary design. Although the latter category includes undesirable (but tolerable) by-products of “forgivably” limited design, our quarry is a contentious subclass of this category: misbeliefs best conceived as design features. Such misbeliefs, unlike occasional lucky falsehoods, would have been systematically adaptive in the evolutionary past. Such misbeliefs, furthermore, would not be reducible to judicious – but doxastically1 noncommittal – action policies. Finally, such misbeliefs would have been adaptive in themselves, constituting more than mere by-products of adaptively biased misbelief-producing systems. We explore a range of potential candidates for evolved misbelief, and conclude that, of those surveyed, only positive illusions meet our criteria.

Type
Main Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbey, A. (1982) Sex differences in attributions for friendly behavior: Do males misperceive females' friendliness? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42:830–38.Google Scholar
Akins, K. (1996) Of sensory systems and the “aboutness” of mental states. The Journal of Philosophy 93(7):337–72.Google Scholar
Alexander, R. D. (1979) Darwinism and human affairs. University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Alexander, R. D. (1987) The biology of moral systems. Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Alicke, M. D. (1985) Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49:1621–30.Google Scholar
Alloy, L. B. & Abramson, L. Y. (1988) Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. In: Cognitive processes in depression, ed. Alloy, L. B., pp. 223–65. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Atran, S. (2004) In Gods we trust: The evolutionary landscape of religion. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Atran, S. & Norenzayan, A. (2004) Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27:713–70.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1989) Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist 44:1175–84.Google Scholar
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M. & Burrows, L. (1996) Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71:230–44.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. L. (2000) Exploring the natural foundations of religion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(1):2934.Google Scholar
Baumeister, R. F. (1989) The optimal margin of illusion. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 8:176–89.Google Scholar
Bayes, T. R. (1763) An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 53:370418.Google Scholar
Bayne, T. & Fernández, J. (2009) Delusion and self-deception: Mapping the terrain. In: Delusion and self-deception: Affective and motivational influences on belief formation, ed. Bayne, T. & Fernández, J., pp. 121. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Bayne, T. & Pacherie, E. (2005) In defence of the doxastic conception of delusions. Mind and Language 20(2):163–88.Google Scholar
Beja-Pereira, A., Luikart, G., England, P. R., Bradley, D. G., Jann, O. C., Bertorelle, G., Chamberlain, A. T., Nunes, T. P., Metodiev, S., Ferrand, N. & Erhardt, G. (2003) Gene-culture coevolution between cattle milk protein genes and human lactase genes. Nature Genetics 35:311–13.Google Scholar
Benabou, R. & Tirole, J. (2002) Self-confidence and personal motivation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(3):871915.Google Scholar
Benedetti, F., Pollo, A., Lopiano, L., Lanotte, M., Vighetti, S. & Rainero, I. (2003) Conscious expectation and unconscious conditioning in analgesic, motor, and hormonal placebo/nocebo responses. The Journal of Neuroscience 23(10):4315–23.Google Scholar
Bentall, R. P. & Kaney, S. (1996) Abnormalities of self-representation and persecutory delusions: A test of a cognitive model of paranoia. Psychological Medicine 26:1231–37.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M. (2002) The existential theory of mind. Review of General Psychology 6:324.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M. (2006) The folk psychology of souls. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:453–98.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M. & Johnson, D. D. P. (2005) “O Lord … you perceive my thoughts from afar”: Recursiveness and the evolution of supernatural agency. Journal of Cognition and Culture 5(1/2):118–42.Google Scholar
Bering, J. M., McLeod, K. A. & Shackelford, T. K. (2005) Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. Human Nature 16:360–81.Google Scholar
Berrios, G. E. (1991) Delusions as “wrong beliefs”: A conceptual history. British Journal of Psychiatry 159:613.Google Scholar
Binkofski, F., Buccino, G., Dohle, C., Seitz, R. J. & Freund, H.-J. (1999) Mirror agnosia and mirror ataxia constitute different parietal lobe disorders. Annals of Neurology 46:5161.Google Scholar
Blackwell, L., Trzesniewski, K. & Dweck, C. S. (2007) Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development 78:246–63.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. (2004) Descartes' baby: How child development explains what makes us human. Arrow Books.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. (2005) Is God an accident? Atlantic Monthly 296:105–12.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. (2007) Religion is natural. Developmental Science 10(1):147–51.Google Scholar
Boden, M. (1984) Animal perception from an Artificial Intelligence viewpoint. In: Minds, machines and evolution, ed. Hookway, C., pp. 153–74. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bowles, S., Choi, J.-K. & Hopfensitz, A. (2003) The co-evolution of individual behaviours and social institutions. Journal of Theoretical Biology 223(2):135–47.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. J. (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(6):3531–35.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. (2001) Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religious thought. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. (2003) Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(3):119–24.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. (2008b) Religion: Bound to believe? Nature 455(23):1038–39.Google Scholar
Bratman, M. E. (1992) Practical reasoning and acceptance in a context. Mind 101(401):115.Google Scholar
Breen, N., Caine, D. & Coltheart, M. (2001) Mirrored-self misidentification: Two cases of focal onset dementia. Neurocase 7:239–54.Google Scholar
Breen, N., Caine, D., Coltheart, M., Hendy, J. & Roberts, C. (2000) Towards an understanding of delusions of misidentification: Four case studies. Mind and Language 15(1):74110.Google Scholar
Brüne, M. (2001) De Clerambault's syndrome (erotomania) in an evolutionary perspective. Evolution and Human Behavior 22(6):409–15.Google Scholar
Brüne, M. (2003a) Erotomania (De Clerambault's Syndrome) revisited – Clues to its origin from evolutionary theory. In: Advances in psychology research, vol. 21, ed. Shohov, S. P., pp. 185212. Nova Science.Google Scholar
Brüne, M. (2003b) Erotomanic stalking in evolutionary perspective. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 21(1):8388.Google Scholar
Buckman, R. & Sabbagh, K. (1993) Magic or medicine: An investigation of healing and healers. MacMillan.Google Scholar
Bulbulia, J. (2004b) The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion. Biology and Philosophy 19:655–86.Google Scholar
Bushman, B. J., Ridge, R. D., Das, E., Key, C. W. & Busath, G. L. (2007) When God sanctions killing: Effect of scriptural violence on aggression. Psychological Science 18(3):204207.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. & Haselton, M. G. (2005) The evolution of jealousy: A response to Buller. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9(11):506507.Google Scholar
Butler, P. V. (2000) Reverse Othello syndrome subsequent to traumatic brain injury. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes 63(1):8592.Google Scholar
Camerer, C. (2003) Behavioral game theory. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Casperson, L. W. (1999) Head movement and vision in underwater-feeding birds of stream, lake, and seashore. Bird Behavior 13:3146.Google Scholar
Chow, Y. C., Dhillon, B., Chew, P. T. & Chew, S. J. (1990) Refractive errors in Singapore medical students. Singapore Medical Journal 31:472–73.Google Scholar
Coltheart, M. (1996) Are dyslexics different? Dyslexia 2:7981.Google Scholar
Coltheart, M. (2002) Cognitive neuropsychology. In: Stevens' handbook of experimental psychology, vol. 4: Methodology in experimental psychology, 3rd edition, ed. Pashler, H. & Wixted, J., pp. 139–74. Wiley.Google Scholar
Coltheart, M., Menzies, P. & Sutton, J. (in press) Abductive inference and delusional belief. In: Delusion and confabulation: Overlapping or distinct psychopathologies of reality distortion, ed. Langdon, R. & Turner, M.. Macquarie Monographs in Cognitive Science Series. Series editor: M. Coltheart. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Colvin, C. R. & Block, J. (1994) Do positive illusions foster mental health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation. Psychological Bulletin 116(1):320.Google Scholar
Coyne, J. C. & Kitcher, P. (2007) Letter to the editor re: Fodor. London Review of Books, November 15, p. 29.Google Scholar
Cross, P. (1977) Not can but will college teaching be improved? New Directions for Higher Education 17:115.Google Scholar
Currie, G. (2000) Imagination, delusion and hallucinations. Mind and Language 15:168–83.Google Scholar
Currie, G. & Jureidini, J. (2001) Delusion, rationality, empathy: Commentary on Davies et al. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 8(2–3):159–62.Google Scholar
David, A. S. (1999) On the impossibility of defining delusions. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 6(1):1720.Google Scholar
David, A. S. & Halligan, P. W. (1996) Editorial. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 1:13.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1994) Radical interpretation interpreted. In: Philosophical perspectives, vol. 8: Logic and Language, ed. Tomberlin, J. E., pp. 121–28. Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (2001) Inquiries into truth and interpretation, 2nd edition.Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Davies, M. & Coltheart, M. (2000) Introduction: Pathologies of belief. In: Pathologies of belief, ed. Coltheart, M. & Davies, M., pp. 146. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Davies, M., Coltheart, M., Langdon, R. & Breen, N. (2001) Monothematic delusions: Towards a two-factor account. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 8(2–3): 133–58.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982) The extended phenotype. Freeman/Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1986) The blind watchmaker. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (2006a) The God delusion. Bantam Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (2006b) The selfish gene: 30th anniversary edition. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dean, C. & Surtees, P. G. (1989) Do psychological factors predict survival in breast cancer? Journal of Psychosomatic Research 33(5):561–69.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1971) Intentional systems. Journal of Philosophy 68(2):87106.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1978) Brainstorms: Philosophical essays on mind and psychology. MIT Press/A Bradford Book.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1982) Beyond belief. In: Thought and object: Essays on intentionality, ed. Woodfield, A., pp. 196. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1987) The intentional stance. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1990a) Attitudes about ADHD: Some analogies and aspects. In: ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders, ed. Conners, K. & Kinsbourne, M., pp. 1116. MMV Medizin Verlag.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1990b) The interpretation of texts, people and other artifacts. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50(Supplement):177–94.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1995a) Darwin's dangerous idea: Evolution and the meanings of life. Simon & Schuster/Penguin.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1995b) How to make mistakes. In: How things are, ed. Brockman, J. & Matson, K., pp. 137–44. William Morrow.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1998) Brainchildren – Essays on designing minds. MIT Press/Bradford Books and Penguin.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2005) Show me the science. The New York Times, August 28, p. 11.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2006a) Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Viking/Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2006b) Thank Goodness! Edge: The Third Culture, November 3, 2006. http://edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2007) Letter to the Editor re Fodor. London Review of Books, November 15, 2007, p. 29.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2008) Fun and games in Fantasyland. Mind and Language 23(1):2531.Google Scholar
Dijksterhuis, A., Chartrand, T. L. & Aarts, H. (2007) Effects of priming and perception on social behavior and goal pursuit. In: Social psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes, ed. Bargh, J. A., pp. 51131. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Duntley, J. & Buss, D. M. (1998) Evolved anti-homicide modules. Paper presented at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference, Davis, CA, July 1998.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S. (1999) Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Easton, J. A., Schipper, L. D. & Shackelford, T. K. (2007) Morbid jealousy from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Evolution and Human Behavior 28:399402.Google Scholar
Ellis, A. W. & Young, A. W. (1988) Human cognitive neuropsychology. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ellis, H. D. (2003) Book review: Uncommon psychiatric syndromes. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 8(1):7779.Google Scholar
Enoch, M. D. & Ball, H. N. (2001) Uncommon psychiatric syndromes, 4th edition.Arnold.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2003) The nature of human altruism. Nature 425:785–91.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2004) Social norms and human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8(4):185–90.Google Scholar
Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U. & Gaechter, S. (2002) Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms. Human Nature 13:125.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Gaechter, S. (2002) Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415:137–40.Google Scholar
Feinberg, T. E. (2001) Altered egos: How the brain creates the self. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feinberg, T. E. & Shapiro, R. M. (1989) Misidentification-reduplication and the right hemisphere. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology 2(1):3948.Google Scholar
Feldman, M. W. & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1989) On the theory of evolution under genetic and cultural transmission with application to the lactose absorption problem. In: Mathematical evolutionary theory, ed. Feldman, M. W., pp. 145–73. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, H. (2006) The drive to love: The neural mechanism for mate selection. In: The new psychology of love, 2nd edition, ed. Sternberg, R. J. & Weis, K., pp. 87115. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (1983) The modularity of mind. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (1986) Précis of The modularity of mind. Meaning and cognitive structure. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8(1):142.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. (2007) Why pigs don't have wings. London Review of Books, October 18, 2007.Google Scholar
Fowers, B. J., Lyons, E. M. & Montel, K. H. (1996) Positive marital illusions: Self-enhancement or relationship enhancement? Journal of Family Psychology 10:192208.Google Scholar
Fowers, B. J., Lyons, E., Montel, K. H. & Shaked, N. (2001) Positive illusions about marriage among the married, engaged, and single. Journal of Family Psychology 15:95109.Google Scholar
Friedrich, J. (1996) On seeing oneself as less self-serving than others: The ultimate self-serving bias? Teaching of Psychology 23(2):107109.Google Scholar
Gagné, F. M. & Lydon, J. E. (2004) Bias and accuracy in close relationships: An integrative review. Personality and Social Psychology Review 8(4):322–38.Google Scholar
Gendler, T. S. (2008) Alief and belief. Journal of Philosophy 105(10):634–63.Google Scholar
Ghiselin, M. T. (1974) The economy of nature and the evolution of sex. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. & Goldstein, D. G. (1996) Reasoning the fast and frugal way: Models of bounded rationality Psychological Review 103(4):650–69.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. & Goldstein, D. G. (1999) Betting on one good reason: The take the best heuristic. In: Simple heuristics that make us smart, ed. Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., & the ABC Research Group, pp. 7595. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M. & the ABC Research Group (1999) Simple heuristics that make us smart. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gintis, H. (2000) Strong reciprocity and human sociality. Journal of Theoretical Biology 206:169–79.Google Scholar
Gintis, H. (2003) The hitchhiker's guide to altruism: Gene-culture co-evolution and the internalization of norms. Journal of Theoretical Biology 220:407–18.Google Scholar
Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R. & Fehr, E. (2003) Explaining altruistic behavior in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 24(3):153–72.Google Scholar
Gintis, H., Smith, E. & Bowles, S. (2001) Costly signalling and cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 213:103–19.Google Scholar
Goldstein, D. G. & Gigerenzer, G. (2002) Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. Psychological Review 109(1):7590.Google Scholar
Goleman, D. (1987) Who are you kidding? Psychology Today 21(3):2430.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Lewontin, R. C. (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 205(1161):581–98.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Vrba, E. S. (1982) Exaptation: A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8(1):415.Google Scholar
Guthrie, S. E. (1993) Faces in the clouds: A new theory of religion. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, A. (2007) Against the belief model of delusion. In: Reconceiving schizophrenia, ed. Chung, M. C., Fulford, K. W. M. & Graham, G., pp. 217–34. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1964) Genetical evolution of social behavior, I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7:152.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. (2003) The sexual overperception bias: Evidence of a systematic bias in men from a survey of naturally occurring events. Journal of Research in Personality 37(1):3447.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. (2007) Error management theory. In: Encyclopedia of social psychology, vol. 1, ed. Baumeister, R. F. & Vohs, K. D., pp. 311–12. Sage.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. (2000) Error Management Theory: A new perspective on biases in cross-sex mind reading. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(1):8191.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. (2003) Biases in social judgment: Design flaws or design features? In: Responding to the social world: Implicit and explicit processes in social judgments and decisions, ed. Forgas, J. P., Williams, K. D. & Hippel, W. von, pp. 2343. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haselton, M. G. & Nettle, D. (2006) The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10(1):4766.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. & Boyd, R. (2001) Why people punish defectors – weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Journal of Theoretical Biology 208:7989.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. & Fehr, E. (2003) Is strong reciprocity a maladaptation? On the evolutionary foundations of human altruism. In: Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, ed. Hammerstein, P., pp. 5582. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hinde, R. A. (1999) Why gods persist: A scientific approach to religion. Routledge.Google Scholar
Holden, C. & Mace, R. (1997) Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of lactose digestion in adults. Human Biology 69:605628.Google Scholar
Humphrey, N. (2002) The mind made flesh. Oxford University Press. Available at: www.humphrey.org.uk.Google Scholar
Humphrey, N. (2004) The placebo effect. In: Oxford companion to the mind, 2nd edition, ed. Gregory, R. L., pp. 735–36. Oxford University Press. Available at: www.humphrey.org.ukGoogle Scholar
Huq, S. F., Garety, P. A. & Hemsley, D. R. (1988) Probabilistic judgements in deluded and non-deluded subjects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A 40(4):801–12.Google Scholar
Jahoda, M. (1953) The meaning of psychological health. Social Casework 34:349–54.Google Scholar
Jahoda, M. (1958) Current concepts of positive mental health. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Jaspers, K. (1963) General psychopathology, 7th edition, trans. Hoenig, J. & Hamilton, M. W.. The Johns Hopkins University Press. (Originally published in 1946.)Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. (2005) God's punishment and public goods: A test of the supernatural punishment hypothesis in 186 world cultures. Human Nature 16(4):410–46.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Bering, J. M. (2006) Hand of God, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology 4:219–33.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P. & Krüger, O. (2004) The good of wrath: Supernatural punishment and the evolution of cooperation. Political Theology 5(2):159–76.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. D. P., Stopka, P. & Knights, S. (2003) The puzzle of human cooperation. Nature 421:911–12.Google Scholar
Katzir, G. & Howland, H. C. (2003) Corneal power and underwater accommodation in great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis). The Journal of Experimental Biology 206:833–41.Google Scholar
Katzir, G. & Intrator, N. (1987) Striking of underwater prey by a reef heron, Egretta gularis schistacea. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 160:517–23.Google Scholar
Kelemen, D. (2004) Are children “intuitive theists”? Psychological Science 15:295301.Google Scholar
Kinderman, P. & Bentall, R. P. (1996) Self-discrepancies and persecutory delusions: Evidence for a model of paranoid ideation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105(1):106–13.Google Scholar
Kinderman, P. & Bentall, R. P. (1997) Causal attributions in paranoia and depression: Internal, personal, and situational attributions for negative events. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 106(2):341–45.Google Scholar
Krebs, D. L. & Denton, K. (1997) Social illusions and self-deception: The evolution of biases in person perception. In: Evolutionary social psychology, ed. Simpson, J. A. & Kenrick, D. T., pp. 2147. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Langdon, R. & Coltheart, M. (2000) The cognitive neuropsychology of delusions. Mind and Language 15(1):183216.Google Scholar
Langdon, R., Cooper, S., Connaughton, E. & Martin, K. (2006) A variant of misidentification delusion in a patient with right frontal and temporal brain injury. Abstracts of the 6th International Congress of Neuropsychiatry, Sydney, Australia. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 2(3, Suppl.):S8.Google Scholar
Langdon, R., McKay, R. & Coltheart, M. (2008) The cognitive neuropsychological understanding of persecutory delusions. In: Persecutory delusions: Assessment, theory, and treatment, ed. Freeman, D., Bentall, R. & Garety, P., pp. 221–36. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lockard, J. S. (1978) On the adaptive significance of self-deception. Human Ethology Newsletter 21:47.Google Scholar
Lockard, J. S. (1980) Speculations on the adaptive significance of self-deception. In: The evolution of human social behavior, ed. Lockard, J. S., pp. 257–76. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Lockard, J. S. & Paulhus, D. L., ed. (1988) Self-deception: An adaptive mechanism? Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Lotem, A., Schechtman, E. & Katzir, G. (1991) Capture of submerged prey by little egrets, Egretta garzetta garzetta: Strike depth, strike angle and the problem of light refraction. Animal Behaviour 42:341–46.Google Scholar
Maslow, A. H. (1950) Self-actualizing people: A study of psychological health. Personality Symposium 1:1134.Google Scholar
McClenon, J. (2002) Wondrous healing: Shamanism, human evolution and the origin of religion. Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
McEwen, B. S. (1998) Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine 338:171179.Google Scholar
McKay, R. & Kinsbourne, M. (in press) Confabulation, delusion, and anosognosia: Motivational factors and false claims. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. [Also to appear in: Delusion and confabulation: Overlapping or distinct psychopathologies of reality distortion, ed. Langdon, R. & Turner, M.. Macquarie Monographs in Cognitive Science series. (Series editor, M. Coltheart.) Psychology Press.Google Scholar
McKay, R., Langdon, R. & Coltheart, M. (2007a) Models of misbelief: Integrating motivational and deficit theories of delusions. Consciousness and Cognition 16:932–41.Google Scholar
McKay, R., Langdon, R. & Coltheart, M. (2007b) The defensive function of persecutory delusions: An investigation using the Implicit Association Test. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 12(1):124.Google Scholar
McKay, R., Langdon, R. & Coltheart, M. (2009) “Sleights of mind”: Delusions and self-deception. In: Delusion and self-deception: Affective and motivational influences on belief formation, ed. Bayne, T. & Fernández, J., pp. 165–85. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
McKay, R., Novello, D. & Taylor, A. (in preparation) The adaptive value of self-deception.Google Scholar
McKenna, F. P., Stanier, R. A. & Lewis, C. (1991) Factors underlying illusory self-assessment of driving skill in males and females. Accident Analysis and Prevention 23(1):4552.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (1984a) Language, thought and other biological categories. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (1984b) Naturalistic reflections on knowledge. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 65(4):315–34.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (1993) White queen psychology and other essays for Alice. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (2004) Varieties of meaning: The 2002 Jean Nicod lectures. MIT Press/A Bradford Book.Google Scholar
Moritz, S., Werner, R. & von Collani, G. (2006) The inferiority complex in paranoia readdressed: A study with the Implicit Association Test. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 11(4):402–15.Google Scholar
Mowat, R. R. (1966) Morbid jealousy and murder. Tavistock.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. & White, D. R. (1969) Standard cross-cultural sample. Ethnology 8:329–69.Google Scholar
Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G. & Griffin, D. W. (1996) The benefits of positive illusions: Idealization and the construction of satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70:7998.Google Scholar
Myers, D. (2002) Social psychology, 7th edition.McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Nettle, D. (2004) Adaptive illusions: Optimism, control and human rationality. In: Emotion, evolution and rationality, ed. Evans, D. & Cruse, P., pp. 193208. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Neuhoff, J. G. (2001) An adaptive bias in the perception of looming auditory motion. Ecological Psychology 13:87110.Google Scholar
Noë, A. (2004) Action in perception. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Norenzayan, A. & Shariff, A. F. (2008) The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science 322:5862.Google Scholar
Pascal, B. (1670/1995) Pensées, trans. Levi, H.. (Original work published in 1670; H. Levi. English translation, 1995). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paulhus, D. L. (1988) Manual for the balanced inventory of desirable responding. Multi-Health Systems.Google Scholar
Peck, M. S. (1978) The road less traveled. Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Pichon, I., Boccato, G. & Saroglou, V. (2007) Nonconscious influences of religion on prosociality: A priming study. European Journal of Social Psychology 37:1032–45.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1997) How the mind works. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Povinelli, D. J. & Bering, J. M. (2002) The mentality of apes revisited. Current Directions in Psychological Science 11:115–19.Google Scholar
Premack, D. & Woodruff, G. (1978) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1(4):515–26.Google Scholar
Pronin, E., Gilovich, T. & Ross, L. (2004) Objectivity in the eye of the beholder: Divergent perceptions of bias in self versus others. Psychological Review 111(3):781–99.Google Scholar
Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y. & Ross, L. (2002) The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(3):369–81.Google Scholar
Quillian, L. & Pager, D. (2001) Black neighbors, higher crime? The role of racial stereotypes in evaluations of neighborhood crime. American Journal of Sociology 107(3):717–67.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. (1960) Word and object. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. & Ullian, J. S. (1978) The web of belief, 2nd edition.Random House.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (1994a) Phantom limbs, neglect syndromes, repressed memories, and Freudian psychology. International Review of Neurobiology 37:291333.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (1994b) Phantom limbs, somatoparaphrenic delusions, neglect syndromes, repressed memories and Freudian psychology. In: Neuronal group selection, ed. Sporns, O. & Tononi, G.. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (1995) Anosognosia in parietal lobe syndrome. Consciousness and Cognition 4(1):2251.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (1996a) The evolutionary biology of self-deception, laughter, dreaming and depression: Some clues from anosognosia. Medical Hypotheses 47(5):347–62.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. (1996b) What neurological syndromes can tell us about human nature: Some lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome, and anosognosia. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 61:115–34.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S., Altschuler, E. L. & Hillyer, S. (1997) Mirror agnosia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 264:645–47.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S. & Blakeslee, S. (1998) Phantoms in the brain: Human nature and the architecture of the mind. Fourth Estate.Google Scholar
Randolph-Seng, B. & Nielsen, M. E. (2007) Honesty: One effect of primed religious representations. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 17(4):303–15.Google Scholar
Randolph-Seng, B. & Nielsen, M. E. (2008) Is God really watching you? A response to Shariff and Norenzayan (2007). The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 18(2):119–22.Google Scholar
Reed, G. M., Kemeny, M. E., Taylor, S. E. & Visscher, B. R. (1999) Negative HIV-specific expectancies and AIDS-related bereavement as predictors of symptom onset in asymptomatic HIV-positive gay men. Health Psychology 18:354–63.Google Scholar
Reed, G. M., Kemeny, M. E., Taylor, S. E., Wang, H.-Y. J. & Visscher, B. R. (1994) “Realistic acceptance” as a predictor of decreased survival time in gay men with AIDS. Health Psychology 13:299307.Google Scholar
Roes, F. L. & Raymond, M. (2003) Belief in moralizing gods. Evolution and Human Behavior 24(2):126–35.Google Scholar
Rossano, M. J. (2007) Supernaturalizing social life: Religion and the evolution of human cooperation. Human Nature 18:272–94.Google Scholar
Rozin, P. & Fallon, A. E. (1987) A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review 94:2341.Google Scholar
Rozin, P., Markwith, M. & Ross, B. (1990) The sympathetic magical law of similarity, nominal realism, and neglect of negatives in response to negative labels. Psychological Science 1(6):383–84.Google Scholar
Rozin, P., Millman, L. & Nemeroff, C. (1986) Operation of the laws of systematic magic in disgust and other domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50(4):703–12.Google Scholar
Ruffle, B. J. & Sosis, R. (2007) Does it pay to pray? Costly ritual and cooperation. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7(1) (Contributions):Article 18.Google Scholar
Schipper, L. D., Easton, J. A. & Shackelford, T. K. (2007) Morbid jealousy as a function of fitness-related life-cycle dimensions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29(6):630.Google Scholar
Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. (2007) God is watching you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science 18(9):803809.Google Scholar
Silva, J. A., Ferrari, M. M., Leong, G. B. & Penny, G. (1998) The dangerousness of persons with delusional jealousy. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 26:607–23.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A. (1990) A mechanism for social selection and successful altruism. Science 250(4988):1665–68.Google Scholar
Smith, D. L. (2006) In praise of self-deception. Entelechy: Mind and Culture 7. (Online publication, available at: http://www.entelechyjournal.com/davidlivingstonesmith.htm)Google Scholar
Smullyan, R. (1983) 5000 B.C. and other philosophical fantasies. St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Sosis, R. (2004) The adaptive value of religious ritual. American Scientist 92:166–72.Google Scholar
Spangenberg, K. B., Wagner, M. T. & Bachman, D. L. (1998) Neuropsychological analysis of a case of abrupt onset mirror sign following a hypotensive crisis in a patient with vascular dementia. Neurocase 4:149154.Google Scholar
Stephens, G. L. & Graham, G. (2004) Reconceiving delusion. International Review of Psychiatry 16(3):236–41.Google Scholar
Stich, S. (1990) The fragmentation of reason. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stone, T. & Young, A. W. (1997) Delusions and brain injury: The philosophy and psychology of belief. Mind and Language 12:327–64.Google Scholar
Tallis, F. (2005) Love sick. Arrow Books.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E. (1989) Positive illusions: Creative self-deception and the healthy mind. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1988) Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin 103(2):193210.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1994b) Positive illusions and well-being revisited: Separating fact from fiction. Psychological Bulletin 116(1):2127.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E., Kemeny, M. E., Reed, G. M., Bower, J. E. & Gruenewald, T. L. (2000) Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health. American Psychologist 55:99109.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sherman, D. K., Sage, R. M. & McDowell, N. K. (2003) Are self-enhancing cognitions associated with healthy or unhealthy biological profiles? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(4):605–15.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1971) The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology 46:3557.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1974) Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist 14:249–64.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1985) Social evolution. Benjamin-Cummings.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (2000) The elements of a scientific theory of self-deception. In: Evolutionary perspectives on human reproductive behavior. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 907, ed. LeCroy, D. & Moller, P., pp. 114–31. New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (2006) Foreword to Richard Dawkins' The selfish gene. In: The selfish gene: 30th anniversary edition, pp. xixxx. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vaillant, G. (1977) Adaptation to life. Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, D. S. N. (2007) The spandrels of self-deception: Prospects for a biological theory of a mental phenomenon. Philosophical Psychology 20(3):329–48.Google Scholar
Vazquez, C., Diez-Alegria, C., Hernandez-Lloreda, M. J. & Moreno, M. N. (2008) Implicit and explicit self-schema in active deluded, remitted deluded, and depressed patients. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 39:587–99.Google Scholar
Voland, E. (2008) The evolution of morality – What is conscience good for? How cooperative breeding might pave another route to altruism. Paper presented at the plenary session of the XIX Biennial Conference of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE08), Bologna, Italy, July 13–18, 2008. Conference website: http://www.ishe08.org/Google Scholar
Voland, E. & Voland, R. (1995) Parent-offspring conflict, the extended phenotype, and the evolution of conscience. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18(4):397412.Google Scholar
Voltaire, F. M. A. (1759/1962) Candide, trans. Smollett, T. G.. Washington Square Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, B. (1973) Misinformation, fitness and selection. American Naturalist 107:17.Google Scholar
Wenger, A. & Fowers, B. J. (2008) Positive illusions in parenting: Every child is above average. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38(3):611–34.Google Scholar
Williams, A. F. (2003) Views of U.S. drivers about driving safety. Journal of Safety Research 34(5):491–94.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S. (2002) Darwin's cathedral: Evolution, religion and the nature of society. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wong, T. Y., Foster, P. J., Hee, J., Ng, T. P., Tielsch, J. M., Chew, S. J., Johnson, G. J. & Seah, S. K. L. (2000) Prevalence and risk factors for refractive errors in adult Chinese in Singapore. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science 41:2486–94.Google Scholar
Yamagishi, T., Terai, S., Kiyonari, T., Mifune, N. & Kanazawa, S. (2007) The social exchange heuristic: Managing errors in social exchange. Rationality and Society 19(3):259–91.Google Scholar
Young, A. W. (1999) Delusions. The Monist 82(4):571–89.Google Scholar
Young, A. W. (2000) Wondrous strange: The neuropsychology of abnormal beliefs. Mind and Language 15(1):4773.Google Scholar
Young, A. W., Robertson, I. H., Hellawell, D. J., de Pauw, K. W. & Pentland, B. (1992) Cotard delusion after brain injury. Psychological Medicine 22:799804.Google Scholar
Zahavi, A. (1995) Altruism as a handicap – the limitations of kin selection and reciprocity. Journal of Avian Biology 26:13.Google Scholar
Zolotova, J. & Brüne, M. (2006) Persecutory delusions: Reminiscence of ancestral hostile threats? Evolution and Human Behavior 27(3):185–92.Google Scholar