Have you ever caught yourself lying? If the answer is no then you are a liar!

Even though most of us have a direct response to this question which i bet is yes, the real tricky part is "the why" we do this? At first i thought to keep this post a bit philosophical but if you know me, you are aware that science is my bible. So what i am going to do is to divide this post in 2 "sections".

The first one would be about my opinion regarding lying and the second one will add science to the game in order to bring some validity over, learn what the hell is actually true and how far or close my personal opinion is to reality. For that reason while i am writing this i won't read the actual science behind. I wanna present my opinion and be as "raw" as i can, then search through every corner of the internet and see what's actually going on, otherwise i will be probably be extremely biased when expressing my opinion!

What I Think About Lying

To begin with i think that we are all liars but let's suppose you think otherwise. Just remember your childhood when your mom or dad told you to make your bed, eat all your food or generally speaking do some chores in order to watch your favorite cartoon or eat a sweet. I bet all of you at least once told them that you are done but in reality you either tried to hide the problem or did nothing.

Another example that you are probably continuing to do it is to keep lying when someone asks you "How are You?". It's a very simple question that all of us hear at least one each day and no matter the reality we tend to lie. Sure there other reasons behind, like unfamiliarity, mistrust,insecurity or simply you may don't wanna make someone sad, but still technically you are lying.

Lies in my mind have 3 different levels

White Lies

White lies are everyday little things like the "How are you" "I am fine" kinda thing that don't cause any real issues to others and most of the times we are telling them not for our sake (not always) but for the other people's sake. Except the above example another quick one that pops in my head is when a person that isn't that familiar to us like a co-worker or a friend of a friend asks us a question like "how do i look"? i don't think anyone will say "like an ugly son of a bitch". The same can be said for a new haircut or tattoo. We just don't wanna make the other person feel bad or get into an argument with him/her.

Some little white lies that we do for our sake but are a little bit frustrating for the others is for example the "I am 10 minutes away". Ah god I have listened to this a million times and you know 10 minutes means, i am now getting dressed! Another one is "I am busy" which basically means that "i am bored to go out with you" but instead of heart a little your feelings i will use a white lie to cover my ass and don't let this get into your head.

Finally,the epitome of white lying i too pledge guilty of using it multiple times and it's a mixture of many white lies together is when i meet an old friend in street or anywhere else and we have that brief moment of 2-3 minutes talking. It usually starts with a:

Old Friend: "ohh eeehh long time to see How are you?"

Me:"I am fine you?"

Old Friend: "I am fine too"

Me: "I am busy i have somewhere to attend"

Old Friend: "Let's keep in Touch"

Me:" Yea Sure! Let's keep in Touch"

If you say that this hasn't happened to you, you gonna get a slap from the God with that power that gonna drive you straight to hell!

Filthy Lies

This is the next level of lying that sickens me. Don't get me wrong i get frustrated with white lies too but these one can cause actual problems. A bright example is couple that one of them is cheating and ofc saying 1 million lies in order the other person never to finds out. The same can be applied for robbers and thieves, governments that constantly lie to the face of their people. Another filthy lie is when people start badmouthing you and say things that don't have validity (filthy lies) for you that can easily destroy your school days, career and therefore life.

Pathological Lying

This is a disease that the person has which makes him/her saying all time lies. It comes to a point in which the person keeps lying for no personal gain. As you can imagine these people need help for experts cause it's pretty hard to maintain friendships and relationships. I don't know if it's right or wrong but i too wouldn't want to have a person like that around my inner circle.

What I Think People Should Do

I get that sometimes lying feels or is necessary but above everything try to erase the filthy lies out of your lives, as well as the people that are bright examples of it. It's not right to saying something that doesn't represent reality for a person that you don't know cause easily you can be that person and if this continues it's an endless loop of destruction by lying. Also, some people may be kind and cool but if you keep spouting lies about them, you play with their patient,lives and mind and that can turn ugly really fast.

For me people that use filthy lies in their lives are a disgrace and i cast them aside, so if you ever wonder why you are lonely and what you did to deserve this maybe this can be the answer. Also, about the white lies i suggest that at least to best friends or family members to start being completely honest and trust me their will appreciate it. Slowly Slowly you can start being more and more honest in your everyday life, i don't say dead honest and insult others.

Just for example in case a friend of a friend asks you "how this outfit looks?", instead of saying ugly (dead honest) or awesome (white lie) you can say " I think it will be better if you wore these shoes with these t shirt etc etc" As far as it concerns the "let's keep in touch" with people that you don't wanna get in touch then yes white lies are perfect :P

What Science Thinks About Lying

According to psychologists the line of lies is usually come down to the purpose of the lie or the inner thought. The "acceptable lies" or as i said White lies are the ones that are meant to protect others or make a little bit easier their lives, just remember the outfit example. Also, if you are lying to ease the pain of others it can considered as sign of empathy but basically if you try to protect only your ass this is not a good sign.

According to Kang Lee a psychologist at the University of Toronto not only learning to lie is a natural stage in child development but as children grow and age, their lying ability grows as well! Bella Depaulo a social psychologist at the University of California was one of the first to document systematically the ubiquity of lying. She gathered adults and told them to basically write down each time they used lies. The average was 1-2 per days and the majority of the lies were white lies with the intent of protecting the feelings of someone. Later on the experiment which i speculated tried to generally find if the people that she gathered had lied big time in the past, she discovered that most people at least one said a "big lie" (or filthy one).

I didn't find the correlation but this is another speculation of mine in which i think that those people that kept saying small white lies in their lives, somehow this was evolved into a big one. It's like they got used to lying so much that to go one step further didn't felt like much difference to them. This is truly amazing in a way if you think and ofc it isn't just a speculation cause it seems like at the end of the day if we follow a tendency like that we get "eaten" by it.

Below i will show you an image, more like a diagram that shows the Lying Frequency by Age

RYAN MORRIS, NGM STAFF; SHELLEY SPERRY

SOURCES: TIMOTHY R. LEVINE AND OTHERS, JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, 2016; EVELYNE DEBEY AND OTHERS, ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA, 2015; KIM SEROTA, OAKLAND UNIVERSITY

As you can see this also validates the fact that we start lying as kids. You should keep an eye which i am sure you all agree, at the age gap of 13-17, the teens years. These are the years that most kids are trying to fight a place to fit in, a group to belong and truthfully speaking an answer to who they are. In these years aside from what i said above they start little by little to understand better how the world and system works as well as what their "powers are" with a little overconfidence ofc like the world belongs to them! In other words as psychologist Bruno Verschuere says "They are Testing their Independence!" (see how i built it here?)

Conclusion

The tendency of lying is a human trait according to science and we should embrace it. It is categorized a little bit like the way i categorized it too, with smaller lies that protect others and their feelings to bigger ones that have actual impact in lives. Honesty int he way i explained and using slowly steps can be beneficial not only for ourselves but for the people next to us and who knows it might become the new trend! Finally, because i am too cool to be true if you want to spot a liar ask them many "Why" questions. Most of the times they won't expect these kinda of questions because the believe that with their lies they basically eliminated that category so in other words they will struggle to answer and therefore "Liar Alert"!

Images

All images released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0.

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Sources

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/201804/is-it-ever-okay-tell-lie

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/06/lying-hoax-false-fibs-science/

https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hancock_3_types_of_digital_lies

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X14528804

https://www.scienceofpeople.com/9-things-know-liars/