Five Fascinating Facets Of Lying And Deception

We all lie and deceive on a somewhat regular basis... whether we choose to admit it or not. Check out these five factoids to gain a better a better understanding of how lie and deceive each other.

1. How We Approach Lying and Deception

There are four ways in which we approach lying and deception when we communicate with others.

1. Survival: As human beings have evolved, deception has become an instrumental key to survival.

2. Part of Cultural Discourse: It's completely natural for humans to lie, this is why it has become a regular part of the culture's discourse. |

3. Inconsistency: We both condemn and accept that we lie to each other. (depends on the day you're having?)

4. Truth Bias: We as a culture have the expectation that people will adhere to cultural guidelines set by each other to not deceive, and tell the truth as they know it.

2. What on Earth is the TRUTH?!

With all this lying happening in the world, how do we know what is true? We can figure that out in four steps.

1. The truth we feel. This can be instinctive or intuitive. Sometimes we might "know" something is true, but cant put into words why we believe that. We usually rely on this approach when we have little info available to us, we're trying to make effective or complex judgement, or there are time constraints.

2. We believe the truth we are told. Sometimes we rely on other people to figure out the truth for us. We usually anchor the truth in reality that has been perceived by one or more people. We might also choose to being someone else because we don't personally have the time or energy to investigate for ourselves.

3. The truth we figure out through reasoning. Everyone reasons differently for what they believe to be the truth. We have various ways of thinking systematically that we use as a bias for what we believe is true. Many times, what we believe is true has been previously ingrained in us.

4.We believe the truth we observe. Sometimes we figure out the truth simply by observing or surroundings. Our senses serve as certification.

3. Self Deception: Why do we do this?!

Everyone lies to themselves from time to time, sometimes this is in our control, but a lot of the time it's not. Here's why we put ourselves through the agony of self-deception.

1. To protect self-esteem. It's every man and woman for themselves in the world, so it makes sense that sometimes we self-deceive to protect what self-esteem we have. Sometimes we throw on the rose colored glasses so we can see ourselves in a better light. We also sometimes distort our memories of the past.

2. To enhance deception skills. If you start believing something about yourself that isn't true, other people are likely to jump on the bandwagon.

3. Enhance physical and mental health. This is what we call a placebo. We use this to manage illness and stress.

4.Enhance competitive performance. This includes enhancing your performance. This is a huge reason why athletics are successful.

4. HOW do we self-deceive?

We have four defense mechanisms when we are self-deceiving.

1. Refusing to attend something. This is when we reject unpleasant reality by simply not putting ourselves in the situation to begin with. Also known as an act of willful ignorance.

2.Rationalization We justify inconsistencies on a subconscious level. This thirst for rationality causes us to use 'makes sense; excuses.

3.Repression. This includes every mental block we have ever out up in our brains. Something traumatic happens like peeing your pants in front of your third grade class? Shove it far enough back in your memory and maybe you wont think about it until your twenties!

4. Projection. This is simply when we place the blame on others when we do not feel like it's fitting to take responsibility.

5. Gotta catch 'em all! (Lies that is)

So now that we know that we lie to ourselves, its apparent that others will lie to us as well. Here are four ways people detect lies.

1.Obtaining info from other people. This is when third parties provide us info that could help aid us in detecting the truth!

2.Finding physical evidence Sometimes we are lucky enough to come across a piece of physical evidence that seems to expose a lie... but that doesn't guarantee that it's going to work. Sometimes even when a piece of evidence is found, it may not be entirely credible.

3.Receiving a confession Lies can easily be uncovered when the liar simply confesses. This is sometimes a result of confrontation, or the confession could come unsolicited.

4. Behavioral observations and listening.This involves decisions about the suspected liar's nonverbal and verbal behavior. Global judgments are the most effective in determining deceptive behavior. They are usually assessed by a person who is interacting with the person being judged.