Psychology of lying

Categories: LyingPsychology

In order for a specific to find that a person is telling a lie, the person needs to comprehend the psychology of lying to understand the factor behind the act.

In reality, having understanding on the psychology of lying can assist you become more watchful to the different signs of lying, along with the mindset that comes with it. This is helpful in order to prevent being put in a sense of doubt or under emotional stress when you are confronted with it.

The psychology of lying can be a complicated principle due to the fact that individuals lie for a different factors, While some individuals depend on an attempt to prevent punishment or to avoid harming somebody else's feelings, others lie out of impulse or due to the fact that they wish to present themselves as someone they are not.

Lies are common. People studying the psychology of lying will soon discover that informing lies does not automatically indicate any type of mental illness.

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Even if there is an instance where an individual informs a lie without very first thinking about the thinking behind it or the effects resulting from the lie this is not thought about a sign of psychopathology. It would just be thought about a symptom if the individual does this frequently and it has negative effects on his/her life.

Lying is not simple as telling the truth versus falsifying it. It is deeper than that, it is not always about distortion or nor disclosure of realities, it may well be about developing an entire brand-new set of realities that just the phony knows of.

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It appears some lie for no factor at all while many lie with excellent thinking, some lie for a cause, and numerous construct a cause to lie. It is not always about the flip side of reality, in some cases, a lie stands on its own two feet: 1upon deep explanation, you will discover that lying is a complex act, a complex elements of ones character. 2it is more than a routine, almost a natural
human trait.

You can range from the reality
You can hide from the reality
You can deny the truth
However, you can not damage the reality ...

Sometimes understanding the fact might hurt even more, yet still, in the longer run, a lie triggers more damage than truth.

Chapter Two

REVIEW THE LITERATURE

Self-esteem is one of the biggest culprits in our lying ways. “We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threaten, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels.” Many lies are simply for the purpose of maintaining social contacts by avoiding insults or discords. Small lies that avoid conflict are probably the most common sort of lie… and avoiding conflict is a top motivator for deception. The farther one’s true self is from their ideal self, the more likely they are to lie to boost themselves up, in others eye or their eyes… or perhaps how they perceive others to perceive them. That is hard train of thought to follow, but lying is a complex phenomenon.—Robert Feldman (psychologist)

A person’s first instinct is to serve his or her own self-interest. People are more likely to lie when they can justify such lies to themselves. When under time pressure, having to make decision that could yield financial reword would make people more likely to lie and when people are not under time pressure, they are unlikely to lie there is no opportunity to rationalize their behavior. – Shaul Shalvi (psychological scientists, university of Amsterdam) & Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer (university of the Negev Investigated)[TITLE: what factors influence dishonest behavior]

To lie is to state something that one knows to be false or that one has not
reasonably ascertained to be true with the intention that it be taken for the truth by oneself or someone else, then a lie is a lie big or small but since lie usually has consequences, people always want to differentiate between some of them. What the people (or court system) are actually trying to do is to weigh the effects of a lie by a liar on its victims the conceptions and outcomes of lying can be many but when a person finally make a choice to speak, write or present something knowingly to be false, that single piece there is a lie unless the liar is insane or incapable to understand what she or he is doing. – Stephanie Ericcson [TITLE: The way we lie]

“Trustworthiness is a highly esteemed commodity, when one has it, one is considered valuable. When one has lost it, one may be considered worthless.” A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally. Lying is when a person doesn’t tell the truth. There are many reasons a person may tell a lie. Usually people lie to get themselves out of trouble. Some people actually have a disorder that makes them lie without realizing they are doing so. it is one of the most common wrong acts that we carry out.

It’s an avoidable part of human nature so its worth spending time thinking about it. Most of people would say that lying is always wrong, except when there’s a good reason for it—which means that it’s not always wrong. Lying is giving some information while believing it to be untrue, intending to deceive by doing so.---

People have reasons for not telling the truth. Whether it's to not hurt someone's feelings, or to not let a parent find something out, or to even make life's harsh reality more bearable. There are dozens of reasons that someone out there thinks is a reason to not tell the truth. Even as I write this, I still wonder. Are the people that justify their reasons for not telling the truth actually hurting themselves?

The oddest thing happens if you are constantly not telling the truth. Somewhere in there, you start to forget what truth is. If someone is constantly lying to everyone around them, how in the world can they go on telling the truth to themselves. Usually people don't even know that they are doing it. After awhile, the alter reality takes over and you won't be able to tell the difference between a lie and the truth. So, in essence, you could say that one of the realities of not telling the truth is that you lose yourself, literally, but you may not even notice it.

You would think that this phenomena would be something that would take a lot of big choices--large decisions to arrive at a point where you didn't recognize the truth. Actually, it's the opposite. It takes just one tiny step at a time to lose yourself somewhere in non-truths. —unknown( What Kinds of Reasons Are There for Not Telling the Truth?Is it Okay Not to Tell the Truth? )

Chapter Three

RESEARCH PROBLEM

To determine the causes of telling a lie, the consequences it takes, the types of lies they told, and the different kinds of liars that there is.

Chapter four

Design the Study

a) Research design

In order for an individual to detect that a person is telling a lie, the person needs to understand the psychology of lying to know the reason behind the act.

In fact, having knowledge on the psychology of lying can help you become more observant to the different signs of lying, as well as the mentality that comes with it. This is useful in order to avoid being put in a sense of doubt or under emotional stress when you are confronted with it.

Everybody lies, it may only be white lies but everyone tell lies or omits the truths sometimes we start lying at around age of four (4) or five () when children gain an awareness of the use and power of language. This first lying is not malicious but rather to find out or test what can manipulated in a child’s environment.

Eventually children begin to use lying to get out of trouble or get something they want. The person who seems to feel compelled to lie about both small and large stuff has a problem. We often call these folks pathological liars they lied to protect themselves, look good financially or socially to avoid punishment. Quite often the person who has been deceived knows that this type of liars has a certain extent deluded him or herself and is therefore to be someone pitied.

A much more troubling group is those who lie a lot and knowingly for personal gain. These people may have a diagnosis called anti social personality disorder, also known as being a sociopath and often get into scrapes with the law.

Lying often get worse with the passage of time when you get away with a lie it often impels you to continue your deceptions. Also liars often find themselves perpetrating more untruths to cover themselves. We hold different people to different standards when it comes to telling the truth we expect. For example, less honesty from politician than from scientists, we have a vision of purity about those who are doing research, while we imagine that politicians will at least shade the truth about themselves in order to get elected.

There are many reasons why does a person tell a lie, but here are the major causes of why people choose to tell a lie: 1Fear, One of the reasons why a person tells a lie is because of the fear of possible consequences involved when telling the truth. This psychology of lying is quite prevalent in younger generations when they are hiding something sensitive from their friends and family members -- opting to tell a lie rather than being punished for telling the truth.

It is a sign of escape of possible punishment that comes with the act of telling the truth. 2Self-Image, improving their own image in the eyes of their friends and families is one of the reasons why people tell a lie. In order to uplift their social on par with others, a person would often create stories, usually on the spot, to make sure that the other party is kicked out of the limelight. This psychology of lying is just a temporary rise on the social ladder, and will often be replaced with embarrassment when the truth comes out. 3Harming Others, Another purpose is to attack other people, indirectly, by telling a lie about them. In fact, this is often seen felt by prominent individuals in the society.

In order to lower the status or career of this individual, a person will often create a lie that will put others into a state of doubt regarding their own beliefs and truths. To summarize, people may lie due to the fear of the consequences when they tell the truth, to boost their self-image inappropriately, or to deliberately harm others. Using the psychology of lying, you'll be able to handle circumstances when people are not telling the truth.

Lies might have been part of human life since language appeared. Although they are something people frown upon, they are not all vicious. According to the purpose to tell lies, they can be divided into three types: “the types of lies people tell”, Beneficial Lies. Usually means to help. They are told out of kindness and people benefit from them. They help avoid hurt, sadness, insult, and impersonality. For example, a peasant lied to the Nazi Army that no Jews were hiding in his place; parents lie to the children that their beloved grandpa is living happily in the heaven. These do cheat the listeners, but the liars ought to be praised instead of being criticized. Spiteful Lies. Mean to gain benefit and hurt people.

They may come in the form of deceit or rumors. For example, lawyers lie on the court to help his criminal client to win the lawsuit; sellers lie to their customers to talk them into buying the fake and shoddy products. These liars just benefit from the lies and get reputation, profit or toleration. In comparison, rumors are more vicious. Liars make them to revenge or to pull their rivalries down. These happen a lot in politics, business, and entertainment world.

A politician and his party make rumors that the rivalry involved in sexual scandals or corruptions; an enterprise tell the media that their competitors use forbidden additive to their products; a famous star expose to public that another star has a bastard raised somewhere. These lies are mean and should be condemned. Neutral Lies. Are meant nothing and much more simpler.

When asked about private things, people may avoid answering the truth by telling a lie. This does no harm to both sides and is a protection to privacy. White Lies. Is often called the least serious of all lies. People tell white lies claiming to be tactful or polite. It can create distance between you and others, and destroys your credibility.

If there are lies are not mean to harm others, there are also lies that mean to hurt others and these are: 1Fabrication. Is telling others something you don’t know for sure is true. It is extremely hurtful because they lead rumors that can damage someone else’s reputation. Spreading rumors not only a lie but is also stealing another’s reputation. 2Bold-faced Lie. Telling something that everyone knows it’s a lie. Simple and sometimes cute for a little child to tell a bold-faced lie about not eating any cookies, even though there’s chocolate all over his face. As we get older, we try to be more clever with our cover-ups, some people never grow up and deal with their bold-faced lying even though others know what they’re saying is completely false.

When people hear a bold-faced lie they are resentful that the liar would be so belittling of their time and intelligence. 3Exaggeration. Is enhancing a truth by adding lies to it. The person who exaggerates usually mixes truths and untruths to make themselves look impressive to others, an exaggerator can weave truth and lies together causing confusion even to the liar. After a while, the exaggerator begins to believe his or her exaggeration. 4Deception.

Tries to create an impression that causes others to be misled by not telling all the facts or creating a false impression. It is a dangerous one because the liar intends to harm or disadvantage the victim for their own benefit. 6Plagiarism. Is both lying and stealing. It consists of copying someone else work and calling it your own. It is a very serious act, some college and graduate students have even been kicked out of school because of it.

Lying is bad because it treats those who are lied to as a means to achieve the liar’s purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves. Many people think that it is wrong to treat people as means not ends. it makes it difficult for the person being lied to make a free and informed decision about the matter concerned. Lies lead people to base their decisions on false information. it cannot sensibly be made into a universal principle. Many people think that something should only be accepted as an ethical rule if it can be applied in every case, it’s a basic moral wrong. Some things are fundamentally bad—lying is one of them. it’s something that good people don’t do.

Good behavior displays the virtues found in good people. it corrupts the liar. Telling lies may become a habit and if a person regularly indulges in one form of wrong-doing they may well become more comfortable with wrong-doing in general. Some religious people argue lying is bad because it misuses the God-given gift of human communications. God gave humanity speech so that they could accurately share they’re thought—lying does the opposite. To make it short, lying is bad because language is essential to human societies and carries the obligation to use it truthfully.

Some people are so expert at deception that it often takes a long time to find out that we have been lied to, the following are the example of different liars that we encounter in our everyday life:

The Occasional Liar. These people seldom lie. But when they do they are blown away by their actions and feel guilty for what they have done. These types of people are the ones who are quick to seek forgiveness from the person their lied to. The occasional liar is not perfect but is usually respected for his/her strong attempt at being a truthful person and humble enough to admit their mistakes. Frequent Liars. The frequent liar goes about his/her life lying every which way. This person is not concerned about covering his tracts, or making sure his lie make sense. Everybody knows this person is lying because he is sloppy with his lies.

This person has very few friends, because people get sick of his obviously twisted stories. The Smooth Liars. The smooth liar is just what their description sound like—this person has become very smooth and skilled at telling lies. There are those that say they can pick out a liar every time, but that’s not necessarily so when it comes to the smooth liars. This liars is so good with words and body language people tend to believe him even when they know he has a reputation of being a liar. Yet, all the time, the smooth liar knows he’s lying.

These people are fun to be around, and very entertaining, but after being found out, the smooth liar tends to move on to others to whom he can apply his dark talents. The Compulsive Liar. This person lies when they don’t have to, even if telling the truth makes more sense than the lies they tell. These people have an addiction to lying, and they simply cannot stop. They are out of control. They spend hours studying situations to come up with more lies that will allow them to maintain all their previous lies. These people are totally untrustworthy and end up unable to keep friends.

A compulsive liars ends up lonely, sad person who tragically lies the most to their own self. The Pathological Liar. A pathological liars is a liars who believes the lies he/she is telling, he/she manages to convince him/herself they are true, in comparison to a compulsive liar who will lie for any reason, and knows they are lies but apparently can’t stop him/herself from dong so.

There is no proof way to detect weather we are being misled or not but there are often clues you can see in behavior that should make you suspicious.

Avoidance of Eye Contact. Usually someone makes eye contact at least half the time they are talking to you. If you notice them avoiding eye contact or looking down during a specific part of a conversation, they may well be lying. Change of Voice. A variation in pitch of voice or rate of speech can be a sign of lying so can lots of ummms and ahhhs… Body Language. Turning your body away, covering your face or mouth, a lot of fidgeting of hands or legs can indicate deception. Contradicting Yourself. Making statements that just don’t hold together should make you suspicious.

Lies obviously hurt the person who is lied to (most of the time), but they can also hurt the liar, and society in general. The person who is lied to suffers if they don’t find out because: (a) They are deprived of some control over their future because they can no longer make an informed choice about the issue concerned, (b) They are not fully informed about their possible courses of action, (c) They may make a decision that they would not otherwise have made, (d)

They may suffer damages as a result of lie, (e) They doubt their own ability to assess truth and make decisions, (f) They feel badly treated—deceived and manipulated, and regarded as a person who doesn’t deserve the truth, (g) They become untrusting and uncertain and this too damages their ability to make free and informed choices and last and more worst, (h) They may seek revenge.

The liar is also hurt because: (a) He has to remember the lies he’s told, (b) He must act in conformity with the lies, (c) He may have to tell more lies to avoid being found out, (d) He has to be wary of those he’s lied to, (e) His long-term credibility is at risk, (f) He will probably suffer harm if he’s found out, if he’s found out, people are more likely to lie to him, he’s less likely to believed in future, (g) His own view of integrity is damaged, (h) He may find it easier to lie again or to do other wrong. Those who tell “good lies” don’t generally suffer these consequences—although they may do so on some occasions.

Society can also be hurt because: (a) The general level of truthfulness falls—other people may be encouraged to lie, (b) Lying may become a generally accepted practice in some quarters, (c) It becomes harder for people to trust each other or the institution of society, (d) Social cohesion is weakened, (e)Eventually no one is able to believe anyone else and society collapses.

In some culture, lying is part of everyday life for most people (like in japan) and people are used to it and don’t expect to be told the truth (esp. about opinions and feelings) all the time. In other cultures (e.g. France), even a white lie is objectionable, as the truth is more important than “flattering” or avoiding shocking people.

Some lies lead to someone’s death, the best example of this was the movie about “I know what you did last summer” it is the story of four friends who are being attacked by a killer, one year after covering up a car accidents in which they were involved.

Most of the people choose to believe in lies because believing in lies make less thinking and sheep hate to think. They like others to think for them and lie is sweet and truth is bitter. Sometimes the truth strings and some people cant handle it so they choose to believe the lies that been told to them.

Lying takes many forms, whether it is mere exaggeration or blatant untruths.
It is the severity of the lies, the frequency of the lies and the reasoning behind the lies that points to a psychological problem.

The capacity to lie is noted early and nearly universally in human development. Social psychology and developmental psychology are concerned with the theory of mind, which people employ to simulate another's reaction to their story and determine if a lie will be believable. The most commonly cited milestone, what is known as Machiavellian intelligence, is at the age of about four and a half years, when children begin to be able to lie convincingly. Before this, they seem simply unable to comprehend why others don't see the same view of events that they do — and seem to assume that there is only one point of view, which is their own.

Those with Parkinson's disease show difficulties in deceiving others, difficulties that link to prefrontal hypometabolism. This suggests a link between the capacity for dishonesty and integrity of prefrontal functioning. Pseudologia fantastica is a term applied by psychiatrists to the behaviour of habitual or compulsive lying. Mythomania is the condition where there is an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating.

Young children learn from experience that stating an untruth can avoid punishment for misdeeds, before they develop the theory of mind necessary to understand why it works. In this stage of development, children will sometimes tell outrageous and unbelievable lies, because they lack the conceptual framework to judge whether a statement is believable, or even to understand the concept of believability When children first learn how lying works, they lack the moral understanding of when to refrain from doing it. It takes years of watching people tell lies, and the results of these lies, to develop a proper understanding.

Propensity to lie varies greatly between children, some doing so habitually and others being habitually honest. Habits in this regard are likely to change in early adulthood. Lying takes longer than telling the truth. Or, "It does not require many words to speak the truth." Researchers find that college students lie to their mothers in one out of two conversations. We're not talking little white lies, here. We are talking about actually misleading someone, deliberately conveying a false impression.

If your niece is very young and she lies, it may be a sign that she needs more attention from her parents or caregivers. Kids may resort to lying when a new sibling is born or when parents seem distracted by their own problems. It could also be a signal that something is going on in school that needs remedying. It's wise for a parent to ask a child what's going on. It could be as simple a conversation as: "Tell me about some things that happen in your day that you like," followed by, "Now tell me about things that happen to you that you don't like." That's generally a good way for adults to get helpful information without making the child feel ashamed about her lying.

If your niece is older and concocts fabulous stories, perhaps her work and other aspects of her life need to be more challenging. It may be that she feels overly constrained by rules and regulations or a situation that deprives her of stimulation and experience. Most people who lie are not entirely comfortable doing so. The conversations in which they lied were not as pleasant or intimate as truthful encounters. But the mental distress felt from being untruthful doesn't last long…

b) Operationalized the Variables

Lying & Deception
--no, no, what I mean is...
the art of mendacity...
Lying. Tell a lie? Nah, you'd never do that--would you? Recent research on lying is showing that up to 60% of people lie, males doing so more than females by two to three times. People lie an average of 25 times a day, mostly to dodge trouble, make themselves look good, or to avoid discomfort to others. By about age 2.5-3 about 70% of children are capable of lying, and some can do it well. At age four, they will peek when told not to do so. Young children will lie about actions, but not about how they feel. By age 10 they are more sophisticated because they can pretend.

As they get older, cheating becomes more common. In a self-test experiment in which they were asked to take a test but not look at the answers on the back of the page, 40% routinely cheated (60% if there was a reward for performance). 100% of those who cheated lied about doing so. In experiments at the University of Massachusetts, students were encouraged to introduced themselves to others. Over 60% lied about themselves (3 times every 10 minutes!), made up fictitious information to make themselves look better, yet there was no benefit to the lie.

Regarding detection of lying: FBI agents and judges actually no better than others at detecting a lie. Robert Feldman at the University of Massachusetts reports that most people aren't aware of how often they mask the truth. His research shows that people "shade the truth" 1-6 times per hour in interactions. Gender differences show that women more often lie to protect others, while men lie to promote themselves (The truth about lying, 2001).

c) Set up observation

d) Write questionnaire

What is lying?
Why lying is wrong?
What are the difference between a compulsive liar and pathological liar? What is hypometabolism, Pseudologia fantastica, and Mythomania? Why does people usually lie? Is plagiarism can be considered a minor lies? Why do most of the time people believed in a lie, Even they know that it is a lie? What should a parent do to encourage his/her children to tell the truth instead of lying? Is lying can be considered as a crime or an offence?

What are the effects or consequences of telling a lie? And how to tell truth despite the consequences?

Chapter Five

The truth about lying
(understanding the psychology of lying)

Some people are so expert at deception that it often takes a long time to find out that we have been lied to.

If you lie all the time even about unimportant things you are likely to have a problem that will eventually cause you real relationship, financial or
legal troubles.

Figuring out what is driving you to lie in the first place will help you heal this self-destructive behavior. This may mean going into treatment with a therapist to discover why you feel the need to deceive.

Most of the people choose to believed in a lie because some lies are hard to take and just like what they say what you don’t know wont hurt you, some cannot handle the truth so they choose to believe what others say even though they know it themselves that it is not true.

We hate liar or dislike liar because it’s a matter of trust, when person lies they have broken a bond—unspoken agreement to treat other as we would like to be treated serious deception often makes it impossible for us to trust another person again.

Because the issue of truth is on the line, coming clean about the lies as soon as possible is the best way to mend fences. If the truth only comes out once it is forced, repair of trust is far less likely. For example, as a parent, the most important message you can send your children about lying is that you always want them to come clean with you no matter how big a whopper they have told, remind them that you would always rather hear the truth, no matter how bad it is than be deceive.

There are many kinds of lies. Lying in court after taking an oath is called “perjury” and is usually treated as a crime or offence. At the other extremity, there are “white lies”, which give good feelings to another person (e.g. telling your friend that you like their new jacket, when in fact you hate it)

Logically, white lies can be good because they avoid creating unnecessary trouble and make people happy. But on the other hand, when people find out about a lie (even a white lie), they may be even more hurt than if they were told the truth at first in a tactful way.

Lies that create a serious trouble and can even lead to some people’s death or serious injuries, damages or lead to paranoia or depression. Imagine someone who is in love and the loved person tell him/her that they also love her/him, but after some time, when the first person is already deeply committed emotionally, they find out that their loved one really doesn’t care at all about them and he/she commit suicide. Or what a person selling his/her car and telling the buyer that everything is fine, when in fact he knows that the breaks are dysfunctional, and the buyer dies in an accident because of that?

What about someone lying to their partner about their faithfulness and transmitting them a fatal STD by abusing their trust these lies are simple and pretty common examples of lies that can have tragic consequences.

That is why lying can be considered as crime, even a white lie (like the first and last example in the above paragraph). What differentiate of crime from an offense, is that a crime harms people or create physical or psychological damages. An offense (like speeding, drunk, driving, etc.) means not respecting a law or rule, without causing any harm or damage to anybody else (if a person drives under the influence of alcohol and commits an accident, it becomes a crime)

The problem with lies (esp. white lies) is that the harm is not direct and does not always happen afterwards (e.g. if the person doesn’t find out and nothing bad happens). But as it depends somewhat on the motivation of chance of the person who is lied to, to find out the truth, lying is always a potential crime (people can always find out if they try or just by chance). That is why any lies can considered as a crime, even if the harm has not yet been done, because it can still happen in the future. Of course, lying about how much you like your friends new clothes is a benign crime.

Lying is very much like stealing in that it can be graded, from benign to extremely serious, stealing a blank sheet of paper from your company is not even punishable but stealing a Leonardo da Vinci in a Museum is quite another matter. Lying is the same, a small lie with little consequence is a
pardonable crime, but it’s still a crime, like stealing.

Lying causes anxiety, depression and physical illness. You constantly worry your lies will be revealed. Keeping your stories straight requires a lot of work. After you lie to someone, you may not like being around that person. Lies ruin friendship, work relationship and marriages. If someone catches you lying, he or she wont easily believes you again. Your status in that person’s eyes drops to zero.

You lie because you are afraid of what might happen, if you tell the truth. You afraid you can’t handle the consequences, but then the lies become a problem and you suffer worse consequences. So instead of worrying about the consequences as your first priority. Tell the truth as your first priority and then deal with the consequences.

There are some benefits that a person can get from telling a truth, (a) Because you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said to whom. You wont accidentally contradict yourself, (b) You earn the reputation as an honest person, if you are a manager, your staff members tell each other, “our boss might be more honest about your work than you sometimes want to hear, but it’s better to know the truth ”, (c) People follow your example and are more truthful to you, (d) Your stress level drops.

You sleep better, eat better and look better, (e) You can look at yourself in the mirror. Lying causes self-criticism and depression. Honesty causes self-confidence and pride, (f) You’re more persuasive, To be persuasive, you need to be believable. To be believable, you must be truthful, (g) Most of all, you are trustworthy. When people can trust you, you earn their support. You need people’s support to reach your goals.

In general, lying is not considered a good habit. But it is always depends on the situation and purpose of lying. If it is meant for achieving some superior objectives with some universal interest like universal peace or universal happiness, one can lie, But it is not suggested for anyone to tell a lie.

A lie has three essential features:
A lie communicates some information. The liar intends to deceive or mislead. The liar believes that what they are saying is not true. A lie doesn’t have to give false information.
A lie doesn’t have to be told with a bad(malicious) intentions.

Lying is bad because a generally truthful word is a good thing. Lying diminishes trust between human beings: if people generally didn’t tell the truth, life would become very difficult, as nobody could be trusted and nothing you heard or read could be trusted—you would have to find everything out for yourself. An untrusting world is also bad for liars—lying isn’t much use if everyone is doing it.

Types of Liars

A “Natural Liars” is someone who does have a conscience but is confident of their ability to deceive, and has been doing so since childhood. Often they learned to lie to their parents to avoid terrible punishments that would be handed out if they told the truth. Many natural liars capitalize on this ability as adults by becoming trial lawyers, salespeople, negotiators, actors, politicians and spies.

An “Unnatural Liar” is a person who, as a child was convinced by his parents it was impossible for him to lie and that the parent and others would always detect it, These poor saps go through life telling everyone, insisting “I can never tell a lie” and causing anger and trouble among everyone they meet.

Chapter Six

Analyze the Data

Lying is a skill that requires intelligence, intuition, emotional intelligence, quick-wittedness, and knowledge of what makes a lie generally believable or generally not believable. You can’t tell a lie if you start out looking untrustworthy. When you’re deceiving people you care about in a way that would harm them, lying can be fatal. Lying has its share of problems, especially in the compulsive or pathological sense, but people also couldn’t exist entirely without it.

Bad thing about lying is that it can affect your psychological well being if you lie most of the time. It can create a conflict between your super-ego (conscience) and ego (the reality principle). It creates tension, which makes you feel unpleasant. And in the end, you might have disorders or behavior problem due to constant lying, and lying will not solve any problem

Lying is often a useful skill to have in the short-term. The problem is when you’re revealed to have a reputation for lying, and thus everyone will be less willing to help you with anything. Most of the time, people will believe anything, as long as it’s a logical, at least in their minds. But if you lie to absolutely everyone, someone’s going to call you on it, and everyone else you’ve ever spoken to is going to know about it. It can be disastrous for your reputation, including occupationally.

Over a long-term, it is not so useful, and can get you in trouble in all areas of life. It should be used only when appropriate; as in, when you can get away with it without needing to think too hard about the lie itself. In situations where you have to defend your lie, it becomes more difficult, as well as risky.

Lies doesn’t only hurt the one who’s been lied to but also the society and the liar itself.
Lie have a different reasons, its either to hide something or are afraid to the consequences it would create. There are lies that comes even if it didn’t intended to. But there are also others who would lie to hurt others, these kinds of lying is not good to exercise and may consider as a crime. Avoidance of the eye contact can be considered as one of the proof that a person is lying.

People who have psychological problems that result in perpetual lying can seek treatment with a competent behavior professional. Treatment may include counseling, behavior modification or contracts between the patient and therapist that include negative consequences for lying and positive reinforcements when the patient consistently tells the truth. If you have trouble with a compulsion to lie despite efforts to stop, consider seeking out professional assistance from a specialist who has experience in helping people who cannot seem to stop lying. Lying is well researched in the field of psychology, and for this reason there is hope for people who have a problem with compulsively telling a lies for whatever reasons

Chapter Seven

Conclusion

There are different reason why we lie, its either we didn’t have a choice because of the situation or because we cant face the consequences if we tell the truth. For example, if a person was saw the crime scene and he/she’s the only witness and the investigation found out that he/she was on the crime scene and they would interrogate him/her that person would choose to lie to be able to save her life and he/she was afraid that if he/she would tell the truth the criminals would chase him/her and eventually kill her/him.

Sometimes we lie not because we are afraid at the consequences we would face if we tell the truth, sometime we didn’t lie for others, most of the time we lie to ourselves, we choose to tell a lie to others so they would not pity to us, sometimes we tell to them that we are happy even if we don’t really, sometimes we tell to them that we are ok and we will be ok even though we knew to ourselves that we’re not.

We choose to lie to them because we love them, we don’t want them to worry for us anymore, telling a lie doesn’t always means we want to harm others, its not simple to tell a lie because you’re not only making that person believe you but you want to believe yourself that it is ok, sometimes lying is our only way to scape those scenario that we cant handle, it is our self-defense for us not to be hurt from those person who hurt us badly.

Even there are different reason why we lie it is still consider as a sin and
should not be exercise, we should always tell the truth and face the consequences it would take.

Updated: Jul 06, 2022
Cite this page

Psychology of lying. (2016, Apr 25). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/psychology-of-lying-essay

Psychology of lying essay
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