The Relationship between Frequency of Lying

Introduction

In the article, Why We Lie: The Science behind Our Deceptive Ways, says “Our capacity for dishonesty is as fundamental to us as our need to trust others, being deceitful is woven into our very fabric and so it would be truthful to say that to lie is human” (Bhattacharjee, 2017). In a study participated by 147 adults, DePaulo, a social psychologist at the University of California, found out that the participants lied on average at least once or twice a day. The subjects lied for different reasons including an intention to hide their inadequacies, excuses, lying to protect other peoples’ feelings while some lies were just innocuous. In another study, DePaulo identified that a majority of people have in their lifetime told at least one “serious lie” such as a person hiding an affair from their spouse, or a college applicant making a false claim. In the article, The Truth about Lying, Leonard Saxe, a psychology professor and the Brandeis University and a polygraph expert says “Lying has long been a part of everyday life. We couldn't get through the day without being deceptive” (Green and Levi, 2004). To understand lying, Serota, Levine and Boster, (2010) explored a few aspects of lying and observed that, people think that there are small and big lies and that a lie occurs every time there is an intention to try to mislead another person. Lies are told for different reasons, some are for a good reason such as to protect others, while others are selfish. Also, some lies are completely false statements while others are truths with a few details left out or made up. For students studying psychology, understanding these nuances of human behavior is crucial, especially when exploring topics in psychology dissertation help.

It seems that given adequate incentives, everyone will lie. However, studies have identified that people who lie frequently are more manipulative and may have personality traits that make the lie. Also, research has associated sociable people with a higher tendency to lie maybe because of their over-concern with the impression they make. Personality and physical traits are some of the factors that have been attributed to an individual's tendency and frequency to lie. In particular, according to Charles Ford, a psychiatrist, people with a high score on the psychological scale of responsibility are least likely to lie (Ford, 1996). Machiavellianism is a trait involving deceit and manipulativeness as a result of a cold attitude towards other people. This trait is related to psychopathy and narcissism which are characterised by poor emotional attachments, less honesty and no empathy. A Machiavellian is a strategist who will cheat, lie and deceive to achieve goals. Because of these personality traits, an individual who is Machiavellian will not hold back from causing harm to others using deception and lies to get it their way (Wastell and Booth, 2003). As such, this study is conducted with the assumption that Machiavellism is positively correlated to an individual’s lying frequency. People with Machiavellism have zero empathy and therefore, they will lie as often as it is necessary for them without the concern that they are hurting their victims (Grubin, 2005).

When a lie is told to prove oneself or to take control, the liar is forced to construct layers of deceptions in fear of losing this control. As such, lying becomes addictive as a defensive strategy. In this case, the lying becomes rewarding in that as long as the liar keeps lying, they retain their position (Karim et al., 2009). To a liar, fabricating stories feel more rewarding and therefore pleasurable than telling the truth as they can control what other people think of them and manipulate the world around them. Even when a person might benefit from being honest, a person addicted to lying will just lie because they perhaps are proud or they feel happy when their lies succeed. The more lies this individual tells, the better they get at it; they learn to lie convincingly, quickly and more elaborately. At this point, the person perceives lies as a tool to achieve their personal needs. Such a liar believes they cannot be caught and if they are, they can always cover the discovery with other lies.

Frequent lying is not as a result of a decision to keep lying but rather, it forms a significant part of the liar’s psychology, physiology and identity. It triggers the reward system in the brain making the liar be delighted with getting away with a lie and therefore making this habit hard to break (Turri and Turri, 2015). Based on these observations, this study was conducted on the hypotheses that there is a significant relationship between the frequency of lying, Machiavellianism, ease of lying and the pleasure of lying.

Discussion

Everyone lies at one point or another for whatever reasons. The problem with lying as studies have revealed is that, the more someone lies, the easier it gets for them to lie and therefore the more likely they will lie again (Verschuere et al., 2011). Lying has been portrayed by some experts as a necessary skill for survival. Studies show that as young as at the age of 2 years, children have already learnt to lie (Karim et al., 2009). Some experts claim that lying is a milestone in the child's development just like walking. Lying is an art, it is a skill in that a liar needs to plan on a lie and when telling it, pay attention to see the other person's perspective to success in manipulating the perception. On other studies, however, claims have been made that as a sense of responsibility and morality develop, people learn to self-regulate and therefore they lie less. This means that while lying is human and everybody is likely to lie given the right incentive, most people will avoid lying if they can and will only choose deception if telling the truth will land them into problems (Wiegmann, Samland and Waldmann, 2016).

Lying takes a lot of work as Joshua, a Harvard cognitive neuroscientist, claims. According to findings made in a study in which participants were given an opportunity to lie for money, the participant’s brain was examined through an MRI machine, and for those who opted to lie, the MRI results showed characteristics of complex and difficult thinking as they were struggling with whether, to tell the truth, to lie. For this reason, experts say it is the reason why people do not lie all the time (Stokke, 2013). As such, it is the internalized social morn that differentiates a liar from non-liars. External factors on the other hand matter in the determination of how often people lie (Karim et al., 2009). For example, lying is often rewarded in the society, a politician is elected because of a lie that they told to impress. When lying is rewarded, or generally not punished, people will likely lie.

Lying alters the brains of people according to Garrett et al., (2016). The extent to which an individual engages in lying affects the possibility to repeat. Machiavellism or psychopathic lying is seen as a result of many small breaches of the moral code that grows over time. When there are zero consequences for lying, Garrett et al., (2016) claims that people engage in small lies that overtime gets bigger and bigger.

People lie to impress, get gratitude from people or just to appear interesting is social situations. According to a study conducted in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in a ten minutes conversation, 60% of people will tell at least one lie. The reason people would think they don’t lie is that according to The Day America Told the Truth, generally, people lie about things they think they are not important; things that make them likeable and to fit in (Patterson and Kim, 1991). When people tell these white little lies, they do not notice the way it rewires their brains, therefore, making it even easier to lie again. It desensitizes the brain to the fear of being detected lying or hurting others through lying. The brain learns that lie is beneficial for one’s benefit and as a result, it becomes much easier to lie.

But is there pleasure in lying, be it the little white lies that people always tell or the big serious lies? While people with Machiavellianism will tend to tell compulsive lies, a non-Machiavellianism will lie because there is an overlying benefit for telling the lie. For example, when a person tells a lie to appear more interesting and likeable, they are doing so probably to avoid a social embarrassment (Wertheim, 2016). There is also a tendency for people to lie to seek attention. When people feel insignificant or lack qualities that make them relevant, they are likely to exaggerate and fabricate stories about themselves. In day to day interactions, lying is also pleasurable and beneficial when used maliciously to manipulate other people to get what they want (Turri and Turri, 2015).

In conclusion, therefore, the findings in this experimental study show a positive link between the frequency of lying, the pleasure of lying, Machiavellianism and the ease of telling a lie. It was established that the more people lie, their brain is altered in that it gets easier to lie and get away with it. Also, altering the truth to feel important makes lying pleasurable and as long as the liar receives a reward for their lying, the more likely they will frequently lie. Lastly, there is the Machiavellianism personality which is linked to high frequency lying. Lying is embedded in this personality trait making an individual lie with a motive or engages in compulsive lying. Those with the Machiavellianism trait find it easier to lie and when there is a reward for lying, any person will also lie with ease and do so repeatedly.

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References

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