Ways People Deceive

Common Practices of Deception

Knowingly say something that's untrue with the intent to deceive.
Intentionally create a false or misleading impression, but avoid saying anything technically untrue in the process.
Intentionally misconstrue what someone else says.
Mislead by letting someone else believe something that's untrue by not informing them of a critical fact.
Detour people away from known truths that would unveil our false narrative.
Find ways to prompt others to repeat a lie to make it broadly accepted.
Flood communication channels with a lie to give a false impression that it must be true because "everyone says it".
State a series of agreed-upon truths, but use false logic to navigate someone else to a false conclusion.
Say we weren't aware of the falsehood when we were well aware that it was false.
Say, "I was just joking" when it was not a joke.
Ridicule those who stick with the truth.
Ridicule those who stick with a falsehood when we ourselves are clinging to an even greater falsehood and know it.
Get the attention off me and point to something else when I see my lie unraveling.
When I refuse to admit to an obvious truth because I don't want to admit to any truth the opposing side raises.
Oversimplify the issue so something false rather than the truth sounds right.
Overcomplicate the issue so something false rather than the truth sounds right.
Build evidence to support my lie that I know is false but evidence that's hard to verify as false.
Be intentionally vague with too few details to further my lie.
Distraction, sleight of hand.

Terms of Deception

Lie: make a false statement with the intent to deceive.
Deceit: a dishonest action or trick, such as fraud or lying. True statements can be deceptive and some forms of deception do not involve making statements at all.
Pretense: make something that is not the case appear to be true. "He excused himself from the lunch on a pretense of urgent business."
Propaganda: the deliberate dissemination of information to influence public opinion. Information of a misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a point of view.
Sleight of hand: manual dexterity in performing deceptive tricks.
Distraction: something that prevents someone from giving full attention to actual truth to something else that just gives an illusion of truth, but is false.
Camouflage: hide or disguise the presence of something important by making it blend in with its surroundings.
Concealment: hide something or prevent it from being known.
Beguilement: deprive someone of something through deceitful cunning, duplicity or charm. "He beguiled unwary investors." "She beguiled him with her beauty."
Bluff: deceive someone else as to my abilities or intentions. Deter or frighten by pretense of strength when, because of fear or inadequacy, I wouldn't dare carry through on that pretense.
Dissimulation: conceal thoughts, feelings, or character. "She had been trained to dissimulate, so she had no trouble hiding her true feelings offstage."
Mystification: make someone feel very confused by making something impossible to understand. "And then, to the audience's mystification, the professor demanded them to accept his assertions since they were beyond their ability to understand, or so he claimed."
Ruse: an action or plan intended to deceive or trick someone. "She tried to think of a ruse to get him out of the house".
Subterfuge: a deceptive device or stratagem used to conceal, escape, or evade. It can also mean a secret, usually dishonest, way of behaving. For example, journalists often use subterfuge to obtain material for stories.
Contextomy: Isolate words from their original context in a way that distorts someone's intentions. They create a false impression of what the other person actually said, even to the point of making people believe that the person said something opposite to what was actually said.

Thoughts on Self-Deception

Deceiving others is bad enough.

Self-deception is worse. It damages us without our even knowing it when we become willing to deceive others in order to achieve something we perceive as good. The self-deception tends to create a greater bad than the little bit of good that we thought we were achieving.

Self-deception invariably bites back pretty hard over time, but because we became self-deceived, we won't even be aware of how much damage we caused ourselves, let alone all the damage we caused others.

Instead, we will blame our problems on others who are innocent as we continue to pursue our own deceptions that we've talked ourselves into. After all, we've reached the point where we are deceiving ourselves and accept that deception as truth.

Self-deception could be one of the toughest addictions for us to admit to and then overcome.