“You Lie Like a Rug!”: Why We Lie

A recent health article in Live Science, explores the human condition of lying.  Fibbing.  Shifty.  Mendacious. 

We all lie, all the time. It causes problems, to say the least. So why do we do it?

It boils down to the shifting sands of the self and trying to look good both to ourselves and others, experts say.

“It’s tied in with self-esteem,” says University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman. “We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels.”

Not all lies are harmful. In fact, sometimes lying is the best approach for protecting privacy and ourselves and others from malice, some researchers say. Some deception, such as boasting and lies in the name of tact and politeness, can be classified as less than serious. But bald-faced lies (whether they involve leaving out the truth or putting in something false), are harmful, as they corrode trust and intimacy—the glue of society.            Read more at the       Link

How honest do you think you are?  Here are some study findings about Fibs:

  • Most people in a study were suprised to find that on average a ten minute discussion yields 2.92 inaccurate things said.  
  •   Lying is almost reflexive. 
  • Men tend to lie to make themselves look better, while women will like to make another person feel better.  Extroverts tend to lie more than introverts. 
  • People are more willing to lie to coworkers than they are to strangers.

What’s the biggest whopper you’ve ever heard? 

For me, it was the series of lies that lead up to the war of choice by our leaders to invade Iraq.  That and the Big One of Social Security is running out of money.  If we can spend unlimited amounts of money outside the budget on a trumped up war, then we can certainly spend that same kind of money to repair and maintain the social security safety net promised to this nation’s workers.

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