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From KQED.

From KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim.

Coming up on forum, can self-deception be beneficial?

That's one of the questions animating Shankar Vedantam's new book, Useful Delusions. It argues that holding false beliefs is not necessarily a sign of pathology or ignorance, but rather a means for accomplishing certain goals.

We'll talk to the Hidden Brain podcast host about the lies we tell ourselves and each other and the role some forms of deception play in sustaining relationships and making us happy.

Join us.

This is F. I'm Mina Kim. If you've listened to Shankar Vedantam's podcast, Hidden Brain, then you know that it's about seeing reality clearly, about recognizing the mental errors

that can keep us from the truth and from becoming our best selves.

But recently, Vedantam says, he's come to realize that holding false beliefs also has a vital role to play,

that seeing what we want to see can keep us from dysfunction and despair.

...