Why are people who lie to themselves so charismatic?
Everyone lies to themselves. Self-deception (a.k.a., denial) is a necessary defense mechanism.
However, some people overuse denial and/or deploy it as a defense in a rigid, maladaptive way.
So what does charisma have to do with self-deception? To answer this, I’ll rephrase the questions ever so slightly:
What is it about people who believe their own lies that makes them so charismatic?
The answer to this question is quite simple. If someone believes their own lies, then most other people will believe them, too.
Humans are amazingly sophisticated when it comes to interpreting social behavior. We’ll naturally spot any incongruity between what a person says and how they behave. When someone lacks conviction in something, most people can detect the discrepancy between the words and the delivery.
Narcissists are masters at this. They can often speak their grandiose notions of themselves into existence. How can they do this? Remember The Little Engine that Could? Simply believing you can actually can sometimes actually make it happen.
But the question about charisma and lying to oneself is an interesting one. The classic example of this phenomenon is the con man. The con man gets you to pay him because he believes what he says.
Con man is short for “confidence man”. Objectively, we know that the snake oil won’t cure our chronic illness, but the con man’s conviction fools us. We think to ourselves, “I don’t see how this could possibly work, but he really seems to believe it will work!”
And when people decide, no matter what they tell you, they always choose based on emotion. No choice is purely rational. We choose based on feeling trust. We choose based on what feels smartest or safest. We choose based on fear of missing an opportunity (“This snake oil almost certainly won’t work, but what if it does? I’d have to be crazy not to spend $19.99 for something that has even a small chance at curing my lupus!”)
And here’s the kicker: the placebo effect is one of the most potent healing mechanisms out there. So while the snake oil may be little more than a “sugar pill”, it would be an evidence-based conclusion to say that many diseases have probably been cured (or at least helped) by the snake-oil salesman’s magical elixir.
Our emotional mind–that is, the one that actually runs the show–whispers something like the following in our ear:
“If he believes, then maybe I can believe. And if I can believe, then maybe my problems will be solved.”
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