Found these on the web re. self-deception ... even the world knows
about this problem and is concerned about it.

    Ninety-four percent of university professors think they are better
at their jobs than their colleagues.

    Twenty-five percent of college students believe they are in the
top 1% in terms of their ability to get along with others.

    Seventy percent of college students think they are above average
in leadership ability. Only two percent think they are below average.

    Eighty-five percent of medical students think it is improper for
politicians to accept gifts from lobbyists. Only 46 percent think it's
improper for physicians to accept gifts from drug companies.

    A Princeton University research team asked people to estimate how
susceptible they and "the average person" were to a long list of
judgmental biases; the majority of people claimed to be less biased
than the majority of people.

    A 2001 study of medical residents found that 84 percent thought
that their colleagues were influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical
companies, but only 16 percent thought that they were similarly
influenced. --  "I'm OK; you're biased"

    People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in
many social and intellectual domains....This overestimation occurs, in
part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual
burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make
unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the
metacognitive ability to realize it.

    "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing
One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,"

    "Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits."

Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to
accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self-deception, in
short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves.

Maybe more humility would help ... since God gives grace to the humble
but resists the proud?

Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now
ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. John 9:41

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us. 1 John 1:8