25 Psychological Biases: Part 2

11: Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial

What It Is

Denial is denying that an objective truth exists because it causes pain.

It’s often mixed up with love, death, and chemical dependency

Denial can possibly be helpful in these situations:

• If the objective truth is not available, and you need denial to persevere
• If the common wisdom is incorrect, and denying it helps you make better decisions

Why It Evolved

Avoiding pain probably helped people continue to survive in emotionally difficult situations.

How It Can Be Harmful

If the truth exists and you refuse to accept it, denial can only worsen your decision making.

Denial compounds consistency tendency and sunk cost fallacy. Say you’ve lost a lot of money in a bad venture.

• Denial tricks you into thinking the situation is better than it really is.
• The sunk cost fallacy prompts you to put more money after bad.
• Self-consistency makes you behave with inertia so it’s harder not to behave differently than you have.

Examples

• Denial is the first stage of grief, suggesting it’s part of a coping mechanism.
• Substance abusers tend to deny they have a problem as they further deteriorate.

Antidotes