Final answer:
Individuals deceive for reasons including confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and the need for closure. Compliance techniques, projection, and agenticity are additional factors that lead to deception. In scientific research, controlled deception is used to prevent bias, with participants debriefed about the experiment's true nature afterward.
Step-by-step explanation:
People engage in deception for various psychological and situational reasons. Several factors contribute to why individuals might deceive, including the presence of confirmation bias and belief perseverance, which influence people to favor information that confirms their preexisting beliefs and to stick to these beliefs even when presented with contradictory evidence. The Misinformation Effect illustrates how individuals become preconditioned to embrace false information, leading to self-deception. Additionally, people may be influenced by compliance techniques which are various methods used to manipulate someone into doing something they might not otherwise do.
Furthermore, individuals may project their own thoughts, motivations, or feelings onto others, which can be a form of deception to themselves or others. Another psychological need is the need for closure, which may prompt individuals to arrive at conclusions or judgments prematurely to alleviate uncertainty. The concept of agenticity, or anthropomorphism, describes humans attributing human-like characteristics to non-human entities, which can sometimes be a form of deception. In other instances, people may experience hallucinations, which are deceptive perceptions that do not correspond to reality.
Within the context of research, a controlled level of deception might be employed in scientific studies to maintain the integrity of the experiment by preventing participants' foreknowledge from influencing their behavior and responses. Thorough debriefing is necessary to inform participants about the true nature of the study and the reasons behind the deception used.
Ultimately, deception can be influenced by internal psychological dynamics, such as self-preservation, the avoidance of discomfort, and the maintenance of self-concept, as well as external factors including social and environmental cues.