Have you lied in the past and do you lie today? If you answered truthfully like me the answer is yes.
Of course not all lies are created equal there is a scale ranging from the small white lie or lie of convenience to the great whopper at the other end of the scale. I'm pretty sure we have all used different lies throughout the scale at some time or another.
With text messaging so popular nowadays a few studies seem to indicate that the number of lies increase dramatically over text compared to voice or video chat. One study concluded "Our results confirm that the more anonymous the technology allows a person to be in a communications exchange, the more likely they are to become morally lax,” Karl Aquino, a business professor at the University of British Columbia and co-author of the study, said in a statement". You can read more here.
Researchers at Cornell came up with similar results "We’ve always lied; new technologies are merely changing the ways and the reasons we lie. Witness the “butler lie,” a term coined by Cornell University researchers in 2009 to describe lies that politely initiate and terminate instant messaging conversations. (“Gotta go, boss is coming!”) Like butlers, they act as social buffers, telling others that we are at lunch when we are just avoiding them" You can read more here.
So why do we humans lie and why do we humans hate to be lied to. There is no single answer to that question. Generally speaking I believe that humans lie because we perceive that the other person would not like hearing the truth, or perhaps we are embarrassed by the truth, or we fear punishment if we tell the truth, or we fear judgment if we tell the truth, we sometimes want to make someone feel better or make ourselves feel better. In business we fear we might lose a sale or a loss of business, in politics we might lose an election, in government we fear we might cause panic if the truth comes out. These are just a few common examples.
Humans hate being lied to, yet clearly have no problem being the one to lie, something we tend to forget. Why do we hate it so much, well we all want the truth and feel we deserve the truth, when we eventually hear the truth and find we have been deceived then it hurts, especially when it's family,we often find we have been scammed such as the Madoff scandal. We often personalize it with I treat you so well or trust you so much or I do so much for you why would you treat me this way. I am sure these will sound familiar.
If we can accept humans will lie, then how can we increase our odds of hearing the truth. The most obvious answer and something to look at is, how do we react when we hear something that has gone wrong, a mistake, something broken, someone wants some time to themselves, or want to discuss a problem. If humans overreact, get angry or don't handle it well in other ways that the other person feels diminished in anyway they will quickly learn to lie to you to avoid that experience again. Or as the famous line in the movie said, "you want the truth, you can't handle the truth" well can you?
It's natural to protect ourselves from emotional discomfort like that or not having our needs met and if someone constantly denies another their needs being met or unleashes verbal abuse for breaking a glass or something, then the self protective mechanism will activate.
One of the easiest, albeit risky ways to self protect is to lie. If you don't believe that then look at the times you felt the need to lie. What happened when you first broke something, or were late for dinner what did you do the next time?
Things happen in life, if you remain calm you increase the odds of getting the truth from others. However it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect 100% compliance from everyone all of the time, we are emotional as well as human beings after all.
The other side of the argument is to fight and insist on the truth every time, with severe punishment if the truth isn't forthcoming. It would certainly be ideal if we received the truth every time, but human nature being what it is, how successful would you be? Would it increase the chances of being told the truth or would people become even more deceptive?
