difficult to bear, an example of this would be when children shield themselves from fully responding to the violence they witness within the home or on television; third, mechanism of denial whereby we may end up deceived about information that would otherwise be painful to confront, even though we are not deceiving ourselves; and fourth, processes of more conscious avoidance such as procrastination, rationalization, and compartmentalization. I believe that self deception is possible. I believe that individuals have the ability to deceive themselves. Take for example that Sid a college student is very fond of Rose, a college classmate with whom he often studies. Wanting it to be true that Rose loves him, he may interpret her refusing to date him and her reminding him that she has a steady boyfriend as an effort to "play hard to get" in order to encourage Sid to continue to pursue her and prove that his love for her approximates hers for him. As Sid interprets Rose's behavior, not only does it fail to count against the hypothesis that she loves him, but it is evidence for the truth of that hypothesis. Sid is self-deceived in believing certain things about Rose. If self deception is possible how can we control or avoid it. Many people believe that as long as they guard themselves against wishful thinking they are unlikely to deceive themselves. Wishful thinking is interpreting facts, reports, events, perceptions etc, according to what one would like to be the case rather than according to the actual evidence. Some believe that the main solution to self deception is to be honest and realistic with ourselves. ...
