The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life

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The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life Page 40

by Robert Trivers


  133 The original experiment on positivity: Mather and Carstenson 2003; results are true among Asians: Kwon et al 2009; positive remembered better: Charles et al 2003; amygdala: Mather et al 2004.

  134 Older people preferentially look at: Isaacowitz et al 2008; until at exactly sixty: Nosek et al 2002.

  135 Old people cranky: Henry et al 2009.

  136 Immune response and survival in birds: Moller and Saino 2004, Hanssen et al 2004; optimism: Segerstrom et al 1998, Segerstrom and Miller 2004; a recent study: Segerstrom 2010.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

  139 The psychology of self-deception: covered in von Hippell and Trivers 2011, Hallinan 2009, and Tavris and Aronson 2007.

  141 Testing a strip: Ditto and Lopez 2002; listening to a tape describing the dangers of smoking; avoid taking HIV tests: Dawson et al 2006; chosen for a prospective date: Wilson et al 2004.

  142 Capital B or the number 13: Balcetis and Dunning 2006; children draw coins larger: Bruner and Goodman 1947; thirst primed, gardening made fun: Veltkamp et al 2008; capital punishment: Lord et al 1979.

  143 More easily remember positive information: D’Argembeau et al 2008, Green et al 2008; telling others: Coman et al 2009, Cuc et al 2007; differential rehearsal and biased memory: Gonsalves et al 2004, Gonsalves and Paller 2000; biased memory of skills: Conway and Ross 1984; men and women both remember: Tavris and Aronson 2007.

  144 Memory continually re-created: Loftus 1996; health information distorted: Croyle et al 2006; inventive memory: Mark Twain, numerous times.

  145 The illusion of improvement: Ross and Wilson 2002, Wilson and Ross 2001; biased reporting and argumentation: Mercier and Sperber 2011; deterministic view and cheating: Vohs and Schooler 2008; “unintentional” cheating: von Hippell et al 2005.

  146 Sit next to the handicapped: Snyder et al 1979; predicting future feelings: Gilbert 2006.

  148 Sounds that are coming toward us: Neuhoff 1998, 2001; general rules that work well in most situations: Kahneman and Tversky 1971; Haselton and Nettle 2006; in the words of one psychologist: Wegner 2009.

  150 A coauthor decides that an article is not fraudulent: Chapter 12 in Trivers et al 2009.

  151 Beetle facing backwards, Oreodera glauca; fish: Wickler 1968; for an excellent review of cognitive dissonance and self-justification, covering much of the material here, see Tavris and Aronson 2007.

  154 Two experts: Tavris and Aronson 2007.

  155 Cognitive dissonance in monkeys and young children: Egan et al 2007, Egan et al 2010.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

  158 Stock trading by amateurs: Barber and Odean 2001; overconfidence and trading volume: Glaser and Weber, 2007.

  159 Overconfidence in currency markets: Oberlechner and Osler 2008; arithmetic contests: Vandegrift and Yavas 2009; thrill seeking and overtrading in Finnish men: Grinblatt and Keloharju 2008.

  160 Agent versus object metaphors: Morris et al 2007.

  161 Metaphor is a key part of language: Pinker 2007, Thibodeau and Boroditsky 2011; invert meaning: Hochschild, 2004; euphemism treadmill: Pinker 1994.

  162 Concepts are in charge, not words; you relax when euphemism treadmill stops: Pinker 1994.

  163 Switch from “sex” to “gender”: Haig 2004b; the “awful” German language : http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html; see also Boroditsky et al 2003.

  164 Name-letter effect: Nuttin 1985, 1987.

  165 Young Japanese women: Kitayama and Karasawa 1997; letters that are rarely encountered: Nuttin 1987; alleged widespread important effects: Pelham et al 2002; would create a spurious correlation: Simonsohn 2011.

  166 Name-letter effect on academic performance: Nelson and Simmons 2007; aspects of early parental style: DeHart et al 2006.

  167 Daily events can affect one’s name-letter bias: DeHart and Pelham 2007; deceiving down: Hartung 1988.

  168 Face-ism is lower in African Americans: Zuckerman and Kieffer 1994.

  169 Face-ism and the two sexes: Archer et al 1983; men shown in relatively intellectual professions: Matthews 2007; politicians’ self-presentations: Konrath and Schwartz 2007.

  170 George W. Bush’s head: Calogero and Mullen 2008.

  171 Anti-spam: Stone 2006.

  173 Self-deception and humor: Lynch 2010, Lynch and Trivers 2011; tickling a rat will produce laughter-like sounds: Panksepp and Burgdorf 2003; chimpanzees will pant-laugh: Matsusaka 2004.

  174 Split personalities: Hilgard 1977.

  176 Bernie Madoff: Henriques 2010.

  177 A book on gullibility: Greenspan 2009.

  178 You’re experiencing the ride: New York Times.

  181 Classic lie detector test (accuracy overstated): Reid and Inbau 1977; neurophysiological lie detectors: Harris 2010, Abe et al 2007, Nunez et al 2005, Kozel et al 2005.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

  184 For the French counterpart of the NTSB with less exacting standards: Traufetter 2010; Air Florida Flight 90: Trivers and Newton 1982.

  187 More accidents occur when the pilot is flying: NTSB 1994.

  188 Korea Airlines: Gladwell 2008; nurses and surgeons: Pronovost and Vohr 2010.

  189 Gol Flight 1907: Langewiesche 2009.

  191 Eldar takes command: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero flot_Flight _593.

  192 Pilot error said to cause 80 percent of accidents: http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/05nal.pdf; John F. Kennedy Jr. crash: Vulliamy 1999.

  193 Kirksville, Missouri, crash: Wald 2006.

  194 The current FAA rules: Goo 2006; Delta and forty-eight hours rest: Negroni 2009.

  195 Long history of alarming behavior under icing conditions: Engelberg and Bryant 1995.

  198 Buffalo crash: Freeman and Wilber 2009.

  199 Air Transport Association opposing safety improvements: Hall 2005.

  200 Bush administration dropped the ball: Lichtblau 2005, Ridgeway 2004.

  201 Feynman concluded: Feynman 1988; see also Vaughan 1996.

  202 Example of how not to do statistics: Kitchens 1998.

  203 Evidence presented to invite rebuttal: Tufte 1997.

  205 Columbia disaster: Langewiesche 2003, Sanger 2003.

  206 Low-level engineers alarmed: Glanz and Schwartz 2003.

  208 Safety office a fraud: Sanger 2003; round table in the conference room: Schwartz 2005; self-criticism in organizations: Wildavsky 1972.

  209 EgyptAir : Langewiesche 2001; http://www.ntsb.gov.publictn/2000/AAB0201.htm

  212 Saved by lack of self-deception: Wilson 2009.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 10

  218 Slaughter and dispossession of an entire people: Stannard 1992.

  219 Columbus in Hispaniola: Stannard 1992.

  221 Deliberate infection via smallpox blankets: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/smallpox1.html; quotations from great leaders: Diamond 2006.

  222 Frequent US wars against nearby countries: Loewen 2007.

  223 United States alone now spends almost as much on warfare as rest of world: Norton and Taylor 2009.

  224 US history textbooks: Loewen 2007.

  226 Civil War: Faust 2008; later history of African Americans was in some ways more dreadful: Blackmon 2008.

  227 Rewriting of Japanese history: Rose 2006, Masalski 2001.

  228 Cromwell: Siochru 2008.

  229 Deletion of all references to the role of the Japanese Imperial Army in Okinawa: Oshini 2007.

  230 Genocide against Armenians: Fisk 2005; elementary-school students forced to watch film: Rainsford 2009.

  231 Genocide is presumably never pretty: Fisk 2005.

  233 Even by 1920: McCarthy 1990; Zionist project set from the beginning: Flapan 1987.

  234 “Could also affect the history of the future”: Peretz 1984; From Time Immemorial: Peters 1984; for a detailed unraveling of the hoax: Finkelstein 2003; denial of Palestinian history built into curricula: for 1948, Chomsky and Pappe 2010.

  235 Founding of the state of Israel: Flapan 1987.

  236 All the land, part of which their distant ancesto
rs may once have occupied: El-Haj 2001; Arabs reject 1928 assembly: Porath 1974; Eban 1973.

  237 War of 1947–1948: Flapan 1987; secret agreement with Abdullah of Transjordan: Shlaim 1988.

  238 Ethnic cleansing: Morris 1987, Pappe 2006; mal-genetics: Finkelstein 2005.

  239 Compensation for property stolen by Nazis: Finkelstein 2003.

  241 US is the elephant in the room: Chomsky 1983; Christian Zionism: Collins 2007.

  242 In 1891, four hundred people: Mead 2008, Oren 2007; Harry Truman and Israel: Radosh and Radosh 2009.

  243 Rumsfeld and Bush: Draper 2009; for a raving US Christian Zionist, see Hagee 2006.

  244 With full bells and whistles: see organisms described by Dwyer 2011 and Finkelstein 2005; the missing “the”: Fisk 2008.

  245 The truth about Israel’s theft of Arab land and water: Zertal and Eldar 2007; what can be said about Israel in Israel: Carey and Shainin 2002.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 11

  247 Four main causes: Wrangham 1999.

  248 Napoleon’s invasion of Russia: Lieven 2010.

  249 Chimpanzee raiding: Wrangham and Peterson, 1996, Wrangham 2006; recently, remarkable evidence: Mitani et al 2010.

  250 14 percent of human mortality: Bowles 2009; a percentage that thankfully has declined steadily: Pinker 2011.

  252 Self-deception encourages warfare: Tuchman 1984.

  253 Swimming: Starek and Keating 1991.

  254 Men less likely to read facial expressions correctly: Williams and Mattingley 2006.

  255 Men less likely to remember emotional information: Bloise and Johnson 2007, Canli et al 2002; in experiments less compassionate: Singer et al 2006, but see Vol et al 2008.

  256 Home-field advantage in sports: Moskowitz and Wertheim 2011; boost in testosterone on home field: Neave 2003; human holocaust such as World War I: Johnson 2004; for self-deception and coping by the soldiers on the front, see Watson 2006.

  258 Avocadoes and tomatoes, Noam Chomsky numerous times; a blunder into a catastrophe: two books give most of the details cited, Ricks 2006, Packer 2005.

  259 An ambitious five-year plan: Wesley Clark, democracynow.org. http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/2/gen_wesley_clark_weighs_presidential_bid

  260 Deliberative versus instrumental phase: Fujita et al 2007.

  261 The decision had to be sold to the larger country: Rich 2006; “could there be 100 percent certainty?”: Lelyveld 2011.

  263 Contrast with World War II is instructive: Fallow 2004; working groups walled off from decision-makers: Fallow 2004.

  264 Identical forces were at work in the UK: Price 2010.

  269 As shown conclusively later, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE/15/042/1996/en/dbadaf6a-eaf6-11dd-aad1-ed57e7e5470b/mde150421996en.pdf ; second Qana massacre, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/09/05/why-they-died?print.

  270 Israeli commentators: Milne 2008; talking heads on US television: Governor Corzine, George Will, Governor Sanford, ex-Governor Romney, Senator McConnell.

  271 Savagery continued for seventeen days: Finkelstein 2010; someone forgot to tell the soldiers: Macintyre 2009, Breaking the Silence 2009; for historical background and logic of the Gaza front see Shlaim 2009.

  272 Sold under patently false pretenses: Siegman 2009.

  274 Congo rapes: Peterman et al 2011.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 12

  278 Religion is a viral meme: Dawkins 2006, Dennett 2006; one such proponent of the meme-centered view: Dennett 2007.

  280 Religion expected to increase group cooperation: Norenzayan and Shariff 2008; pair of eyes on computer screen: Burnham and Hare 2007; God prime: Shariff and Norenzayan 2007; fear of God may reduce cost of selfish behavior: Johnson 2009.

  281 Religiosity and higher false opinions of self: Trimble 1997; religious sects outlast secular: Sosis and Alcorta 2003; more costly requirements better: Sosis and Bressler 2003.

  283 Male God and anti-female behavior: see Ruether 2009.

  285 Religion and health: Lee and Newberg 2005.

  286 Church attendance predicts later healthy behavior: Gillings et al 1996.

  288 Less ACC firing and religious belief: Inzlicht et al 2009; parasites and religious diversity: Fincher and Thornhill 2008a.

  289 Linguistic diversity: Fincher and Thornhill 2008b.

  290 High-parasite-load societies appear to be more xenophobic: Fincher et al 2008, Thornhill et al 2009, Schaller and Murray 2008, Faulkener et al 2004; the mere sight of someone else’s disease symptoms increases immune response of perceiver: Schaller et al 2010.

  292 Christianity’s change after Constantin: Wright 2009.

  293 Islam provides a nice example: Wright 2009.

  295 Biases in between-group transfers and Jewish in-group bias: see Shahak 1994.

  299 Effects of intercessory prayer: Benson et al 2006.

  300 Support for suicide attacks: Ginges et al 2009.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 13

  306 Gravity bends light: shown by Arthur Eddington in 1919; ant ratios of investment: Trivers and Hare 1976; recent work reviewed: West 2009.

  308 Langur male infanticide: reviewed in Trivers 1985; DNA evidence: Borries et al 1999.

  309 Aggression good for species: Lorenz 1966.

  311 Market forces will naturally constrain the cost of deception: for an account of recent resurrections of this fallacy, see Krugman and Wells 2011 and Madrick 2011; see also Krugman 2009.

  312 Trait evolved to fit the laboratory: see relevant chapters in Hammerstein 2003; for a review of the fallacy, Trivers 2005.

  313 Infatuation with beautiful mathematics: Krugman 2009.

  318 “Wolf Man”: Schatzman 1973; for the malignant cultural phenomenon that Freudianism was in the US: Torrey 1992.

  319 Freud’s quote: Rosenzweig, 1997; Feynman’s 1964 lecture given to Cornell students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b240PGCMwV0

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 14

  323 David Haig’s genes do not care about him.

  331 Mindful meditation: Davidson et al 2003.

  335 Japanese nuclear safety: Onishi 2011.

  336 Soap or mouthwash: Lee and Schwarz 2010.

  336 Business conference calls: Larcker and Zakolyukina 2010; experiment run on undergraduates: Lu and Chang 2011.

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