This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
It's one of the most common tropes in Hollywood.
It seems the tables have turned, mister powers, the classic turning of the tables, when the person at the bottom of the heap suddenly has all the power.
When I left you, I was but the learner.
Now I am the master, or the unassuming guy with glasses ends up being the superhero.
You mean you think I'm Superman?
Willing to bet my lifeline, Lois, you are priceless.
There's a reason this storytelling technique is so popular.
It allows characters to break out of the box we've put them in.
It allows us to see them in a new light.
Today we decided to turn the tables on me.
We're going to bring you a conversation I had with Chris Boyd, host of the public radio show Think at Kera in Dallas.
She'll be interviewing me about my most recent book, Useful Delusions, this week on hidden the delusions that keep couples happily married, the rituals that help patients heal, and the self deceptions that hold nations together.
Lots of bad things can come from our failure to accept reality.
We find ourselves in denial of our bad habits.
We fall for cons.
We make choices based less on facts than on what we wish to be true.
It seems like evolution might have done away with our tendency for self deception a long time ago.
Since that hasnt happened, its worth asking, are there benefits to our sometimes slippery grasp on the truth?