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a common fear is the fear of being correctly psychoanalyzed. in normal life, we live in the social fiction of individual sovereignty. our inner thoughts are private and it is rude for other people to psychoanalyze you. but obviously people have models of each other’s internal states all the time, and it can feel very disempowering/agency-reducing to be fully understood and modelled by someone else. this incentivizes people to lean into the social fiction and lie to others and themselves about the true causes behind their actions - it would be really nice if only we were truly so different from others so that nobody can model us.
unfortunately, this has several drawbacks. first, being understood deeply by people is valuable for building trust. also, it means you will have a deeply inaccurate model of yourself because you won’t be willing to recognize parallels between your own actions and those of others. finally, it deters you from doing things that are obviously optimal but also very legible.
this is also not entirely a bad tendency. in many instances, the fiction of individual sovereignty is good to uphold. but it’s best to have a clear mind about it.
When I think about my own experience, I think it depends on my perception of my strength and the hostility of my environment.
If I am weak and my environment is hostile, there are no advantages of showing my true desires.
If the environment is friendly, exposing my true desires allows better cooperation.
If the environment is mixed but I am strong, I can take the risk and still benefit from the cooperation on average.
The situation often changes as you grow up, and I find it plausible that many people are stuck in the past, responding to the memories of threat... (read more)