Why We Lie So Much...

A professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Robert Feldman has spent most of his career studying the role deception plays in human relationships. His most recent book, The Liar in Your Life: How Lies Work and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, lays out in stark terms just how prevalent lying has become. He talked to TIME about why we all need a dose of honesty.

snip:
Not only do we lie frequently, but we lie without even thinking about it. People lie while they are getting acquainted an average of three times in a 10-minute period. Participants in my studies actually are not aware that they are lying that much until they watch videos of their interactions.

snip:
One of the reasons people get away with so much lying, your research suggests, is that we are all essentially dupes. Why do we believe so many lies?
This is what I call the liar's advantage. We are not very good at detecting deception in other people. When we are trying to detect honesty, we look at the wrong kinds of nonverbal behaviors, and we misinterpret them. The problem is that there is no direct correlation between someone's nonverbal behavior and their honesty. "Shiftiness" could also be the result of being nervous, angry, distracted or sad. Even trained interrogators able to detect deception at rates. You might as well flip a coin to determine if someone is being honest.

snip:
We are living in a time and culture in which it's easier to lie than it has been in the past. The message that pervades society is that it's O.K. to lie - you can get away with it. One of the things I found in my research is that when you confront people with their lies, they very rarely display remorse. Lying is not seen as being morally reprehensible in any strong way.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090819/hl_time/08599191721500

Made me spit my coffee..

thanks for the link

Well, not since the chocolate chip cookie incident when I was four.

(Not counting lying to dates in high school, of course, because everybody does that and it doesn't even count. It's you know, like lying on a resume, which isn't really lying, right? It's "creative writing.")

ON EDIT: OK, I was lying about having dates in high school. I was a nerd. I never got a single date in high school. Happy? But I was an astronaut. (Well, I played an astronaut game once on the PC and flew the space shuttle to the moon.) (Well, I crashed the shuttle simulator into the moon. But hey, I GOT there. Virtually.)

(ON EDIT 2: OK, I missed the moon completely and went sailing into outer space. Damn, this honesty stuff is hard.)

:rofl:

I have a hard time lying. I always think someone's going to find out I'm lying so I tell the truth. Well, if you ask me if those pants make your ass look big, I'd lie and say no. They look great on you. That's the only lying I feel comfortable getting away with.