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How would one go about measuring self-deception?

Here's an example; hopefully someone here will know what I'm talking about, and maybe will have some suggestions.

Let's say Jack is self-deceived about what kind of girl he's attracted to. He thinks he goes for a vibrant intellectual personality, but what he really goes for is physical attractiveness (as his dating history shows).

Likewise, Lucy believes she is attracted to sensitive men, but what she really goes for is aggressively self-confident men (as her dating history shows).

Now say you wanted to provide evidence for this somehow (i.e. that people don't really know what they're attracted to). What could you do?

Maybe cleverly designed questionnaires of some sort, but how?

Reply 1

batman_

Original post by PrimateJ

Probably something like:

- Questionnaire probing/determining what type of person that they claim to like.

- Some sort of chat (online?) between the subjects of diff. and same personality types, where physical attractiveness, as a variable, is absent.

- Then a real-life situation/simulation where personality affinity is determined.

Then compare results in the presence of diff variables. I'm presuming you need to basically ascertain the anomaly between what the subject claims/believes and how they would behave in actuality.