Arenas of Influence – Part 3: The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Arenas of Influence: Shaping Belief in the Digital Age 1 Arenas of Influence – Part 1: The Politician's Playbook 2 Arenas of Influence – Part 2: You Are What You Buy 3 Arenas of Influence – Part 3: The Lies We Tell Ourselves ← Series Home Experiencing self Transient sensations and emotions Kahneman Narrating self Coherent fictions and plans Behavioral psychology Peak-end rule Prioritizing dramatic moments Memory bias Consistency Shield against admitting error Psychological defense The Tyranny of the Narrating Self The human experience is characterized by radical discontinuity—a constant flux of transient sensations and fleeting emotions perceived by the “experiencing self”. To impose order on this chaos, the mind constructs the “narrating self,” a psychological entity perpetually spinning coherent, simplified fictions about the past and making plans for the future. This narrator is inherently duration-blind and often unreliable, prioritizing dramatic moments (peak-end rule) and internal coherence over factual accuracy. ...