Self-Propaganda

Self-propaganda is the way people convince themselves of something regardless of the evidence against it, a form of propaganda and indoctrination that a person or group performs on themselves rather than on an outside audience. It works partly through selective processing, in which a person rehearses their own side of an argument without genuinely considering the alternative case, and it operates at both the individual and social level, including political, economic, and religious belief. Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance can further entrench self-propaganda, since a person motivated to protect an existing belief will tend to reaffirm and reinforce it despite contradicting evidence, which can shape later perceptions and judgments and become a self-fulfilling prophecy; researchers treat self-propaganda as closely related to, and sometimes a form of, self-deception.