Did you lie?
I did.
Oh, did you not?
Let me tell you something. We are liars. We all lie.
But why? Let me impart you some wisdom today.
We lie because it works for us.
It helps us with a situation.
It helps us get out of work.
It helps us save our face.
It prevents us from hurting the other person.
We have seen so many people lie to our face. We have heard about false confessions in a trial. We have heard lie to proceed with a kill.
Lying is a deception, for sure. No lie there.
But why every single one of us are lying?
Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., psychologist at the University of Virginia, argues that we use lies as a social lubricant. When you consider everything, we can agree with that statement since when we socialise, the need to impress the person on the other end is unintentionally prioritized.
Why do we try to impress the other person? I don’t know, you tell me.
Aja Raden in her book ‘The Truth about Lies’ puts forth an excellent point that if you lie, it means that your brain is working. [Paraphrased]
The ability or skill to lie develops from childhood. If your child lies, it means the child can differentiate between lie and truth, which corresponds to their brain development, she states.
In a podcast, Victoria Talwar, PhD, professor in the department of educational and counseling psychology at McGill University, speaks about the little experiment she did with children of the age range 3 – 11; mostly primary school children. When they were presented with unimpressive gifts, like plain socks, for instance, they found that the children lied so as to not hurt the presenter’s feelings.
When we lie, interestingly enough, several areas of our brain work exceedingly in a short span of time to successfully go through with the lie.
Our frontal lobe is responsible for hiding the truth. Limbic system handles the anxiety and guilt associated with the lie. And our temporal lobe takes care of creating a mental memory with the lies we spin on the go.
Our brain is very active, or rather busy, when we lie.
Bella DePaulo had confirmed that lying is simply a condition of life. Our best psychiatrists at drgalen.org agree with the statement. They also point out that as the time progresses, research about lies has faced a downhill. It did not take long for the researchers to bring the topic back to the spotlight.
Here are some interesting facts I found from scouring those resources about lying.
- Children with older siblings have better cognitive development than the children without one, which in turn make them better liars.
- On an average, out of five conversations, one is a lie.
- Altruistic lies are found in high numbers among children and women.
- The older we age, the less likely we will lie.
- On an average, a person lies the most in his work place.
- People who are on a high scale of responsibility are less likely to lie.
Can you detect lies?
Are lie detectors legit, then?
Legally, lie detector—polygraph—evidence is not accepted as evidence inside the court. Reason being, polygraph reads signs like increased heart beat, accelerated breathing, sweating, etc., which are not exactly the signs for a lie.
It works if a person who lies gets nervous. But when the liar is comfortable with his lie, there is no use for lie detectors. However, there is a possibility for an honest person to get labelled as a liar if they felt nervous during the test.
A seasoned liar lies exceptionally well. For example, infamous serial killers including, but not limited to, Ted Bundy. They also find least difficulty in manipulating other people.
There is also this misconception that liars are always manipulators.
Well, it depends on the person. If he's anything like Ted Bundy–intellect, conventionally attractive with a charming smile, run.
If your child is lying, it means his cognitive development is going well. You don’t have to worry about him turning out to be a manipulator. It all depends on how you raise your children since they follow their parents rather than listen to them.
Does that mean punishing them for lying would make them disciplined?
Punishing a child for something they did would often backfire. Making sure they understand the impacts of their actions is the important thing. In North America, children were found to lie out of politeness, due to the moral discipline their parents instilled in them. It is obviously not an easy task to raise a child, let alone a polite and non-criminal one. Understanding your child is different than thinking that you know your child better than themselves.
At the end of the day, we lie on a regular basis. What right do we have over a child who lied out of politeness?
References:
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/why-kids-lie
https://www.psychologytoday.com
Book: ‘The Truth about Lies' by Aja Raden.
