Next comes the most unsettling implication: pretending can change not only how others see us, but how we see ourselves. A person who “pretends” not to care may eventually blunt their capacity for care; someone who performs superiority may start believing they are entitled. The danger isn’t simply hypocrisy—it’s the gradual internalization of a convenient story.
This resembles what psychology calls cognitive dissonance reduction: when actions and beliefs conflict, people often adjust beliefs to match actions to restore coherence. In that way, a performance can become a conviction, and the pretense can recruit the mind into defending it. [...]
