Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1499089
This article is part of the Research Topic The Influencing Factors and Processing Mechanisms of Pro-social Behavior View all 3 articles

The influence of different negative feedback on the decay of self-deception

Provisionally accepted
Juan Liu Juan Liu 1,2,3Wenjun Ding Wenjun Ding 2,3*Liying Deng Liying Deng 4*Min Tan Min Tan 1,2Peipei Guan Peipei Guan 5*
  • 1 Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
  • 2 School of Educational Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
  • 3 Key Laboratory for Big Data of Basic Education,Hunan Normal University, China;, Changsha, China
  • 4 School of Design, Guangxi Normal University, China;, guilin, China
  • 5 King's College London, London, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Though some studies have found the positive influences of moderate self-deception on individuals and society, there are many that have shown its negative influences on individuals and society. Long-term self-deception will have negative influences which could cause high individual losses and even social disasters. Therefore, it is essential to abate the decay of self-deception to avoid its negative influences and help individuals to better monitor themselves. In this research, we explored the impact of various types of negative feedback on the decay of self-deception using a forward-looking paradigm with three conditions: no-feedback, ambiguous negative feedback, and real negative feedback. The experiment under each condition was tested four times. The negative feedback was provided after Tests 2 and 3.The results indicated that, in Test 1 of both Experiments 1 and 2, the answer group demonstrated notably stronger positive beliefs and a higher propensity for cheating compared to the control group.Additionally, self-deception was more pronounced under the no-feedback than under the negative feedback in the subsequent three tests. Furthermore, the condition of ambiguous negative feedback led to greater self-deception in the final three tests compared to the condition of real negative feedback in Experiment 2. The results also revealed that self-deception gradually diminished with real feedback in the answer group. The findings showed that both ambiguous and real negative feedback reduce self-deception, although real negative feedback having a greater effect than ambiguous feedback.Additionally, the reduction of self-deception was fundamentally related to a decrease in unrealistic positive beliefs, and this decline in self-deception was also influenced by monetary rewards.

    Keywords: self-deception, negative feedback, decay, Positive beliefs, CHEATING

    Received: 20 Sep 2024; Accepted: 29 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Ding, Deng, Tan and Guan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Wenjun Ding, Key Laboratory for Big Data of Basic Education,Hunan Normal University, China;, Changsha, China
    Liying Deng, School of Design, Guangxi Normal University, China;, guilin, China
    Peipei Guan, King's College London, London, WC2R 2LS, England, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.