Self-deception in public relations. A psychological and sociological approach to the challenge of conflicting expectations

•The role of self-deception in public relations is examined.•The conceptual roots of self-deception in evolutionary psychology and organizational sociology are being discussed.•A framework is being developed for the origins, drivers, and functions of self-deception in public relations.•Self-deception is an essential mechanism in the 'arms race' between communicators and their audiences.

The paper enquires into the role of self-deception in public relations struggling with discrepancies between heterogeneous stakeholder expectations and organizational interests and particularly between normative expectations of truthfulness and practical temptations of deception. Drawing on theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology and sociology, we propose a framework for the origins, drivers, and functions of self-deception in public relations. The analysis reveals that under specific conditions self-deception can be an essential mechanism in public relations because it relieves practitioners from tensions driven by conflicting perceptions of truth and legitimacy. Self-deception is most likely to occur in situations of cognitive dissonance for practitioners to balance internal information processing and in situations of normative pressure when practitioners seek to comply with external expectations.