The cognitive neuroscience of deception
Social Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1080/17470910802507660
Giorgio Ganis and
Julian Paul Keenan
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), a British writer, once asserted that,
“life is the art of being deceived.” Human social relations are so
steeped in deception that it is impossible to imagine life without it.
From great drama sweeping one away momentarily to interleaved complex
romantic relationships, the joining of humans is cemented in place by
deception. The basis of who we are (or aren't) in relation to others is
often predicated on falsification such that all moral, legal, and
ethical systems must take account of this core feature of human nature.
Some researchers have gone so far as to postulate that human brains are
innately primed to deceive, since deception is recorded in all
societies, extending back to the earliest written record, and it occurs
early in life in a predictable manner. Given the appropriate abstract
reasoning skills, along with basic social abilities, human brains
quickly discover that rewards outweigh the costs associated with
deception. It is therefore an important task of social neuroscience to
reveal the inner workings of deception....
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