The Truth About Lies

While watching Judge Judy the other day, I saw a case in which a woman was suing a man (actually, his underage teenage son) for damages to her car. The woman and her witness had been parked at an intersection when they were rear-ended by another car. The driver of the other car left the scene, so the woman followed him, finding him (first) in a darkened parking lot with his lights off. When the driver noticed that he'd been seen, he drove away. The woman followed, and her passenger was able to write down the license number and make/model of the car. The woman made a report to the police and was in the courtroom suing for her car repair costs. The man insisted not only that his son hadn't been involved in the accident, but that the woman was lying (not was mistaken, but was lying). And his insistence was maintained despite the woman and her passenger having visually identified his son as the driver, having correctly identified the car color/make/model and license number, and there being visible damage and relevant color transfer on the rear of her car and the front of his. This spectacle prompted me to want to write something about lies.

Where (Mentally) Do Lies Come From?

Lying is a form of control. To use the above example, it's no surprise that the son would lie, since protecting oneself (whether financially, legally, emotionally, physically, or other) and avoiding consequences are motivations for lying. However, it is interesting that he continued to lie when the lie made him look like a fool in front of the studio audience and millions of TV viewers, and when it was clear that lying was not going to gain him any benefit.

Another motivation for lying is altruism, and seeking to avoid harming others (e.g., "Of course the stew is tasty" or "Why yes, your goatee is nice"). This form of harm-avoidance is often called a "white lie." Though lying by omission (e.g., allowing someone to believe something to be true that you know or believe is false) is usually done to one's personal benefit, lying to kids (e.g., about Santa Claus, about where babies come from) is usually done for their (temporary) benefit. There is also bluffing (e.g., in poker), careful speaking (similar to lying by omission, where one avoids saying certain things), and politics. And of course those who lie all the time are labeled pathological liars.

Where (Physically) Do Lies Come From?

According to an article in the February 2007 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, MRI and PET scans show that the prefrontal cortex is the major contributor to lying. Specifically, in the case of falsifying truthful responses, there is increased brain activity in the left dorsolateral and right anterior prefrontal cortices, while in the case of deceiving an interrogator, there is activation of the ventromedial prefrontal (medial orbitofrontal) cortex and the amygdala. Authors conclude: "… activity of the right anterior prefrontal cortex [indicates] that this region has a pivotal role in telling lies. Our results provide clear evidence of functionally dissociable roles of the prefrontal subregions and amygdala for human deception."

Who Lies?

Who Lies?, published in the May 1996 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the people who told more lies were more manipulative, more concerned with self-presentation, and more sociable. People who told fewer lies were more highly socialized and reported higher quality same-sex relationships.

And a February 2005 article published in CyberPsychology & Behavior, which looked at kids aged 11-16 who used the internet, found that kids who misrepresented themselves most often on the internet (e.g. by pretending to be older) had poorer social skills, lower levels of self-esteem, higher levels of social anxiety, and higher levels of aggression.

Who Tells What Kind of Lie?

Who Lies? also reported that manipulative people, less highly socialized people, and people with less gratifying same-sex relationships told more self-serving lies, whereas people with higher quality same-sex relationships told relatively more other-oriented lies.

Additionally, the article Lying in Everyday Life, which was also published in the May 1996 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and used the same data as Who Lies?, found that subjects told relatively more self-centered lies to men and relatively more other-oriented lies to women. The authors wrote, "Consistent with the view of lying as an everyday social interaction process, participants said that they did not regard their lies as serious and did not plan them much or worry about being caught. Still, social interactions in which lies were told were less pleasant and less intimate than those in which no lies were told."

And the article Everyday lies in close and casual relationships, which was published in the January 1998 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and used the same data as Who Lies?, reported that, because altruistic lies communicate caring, relatively more of the lies told to best friends and friends would be altruistic than self-serving, whereas the reverse would be true of lies told to acquaintances and strangers.

How Well Do Adults Detect Other Adults' Lies?

Not very well! The article Adults' ability to detect children's lying, published in the September 2006 issue of Behavioral Sciences & the Law says, "Adults are poor deception detectors when examining lies told by adults, on average. However, there are some adults who are better at detecting lies than others."

Indeed, the numbers show that making accurate judgments between lies and truth are little better than random chance. The article Accuracy of deception judgments, published in the 2006 Personality & Social Psychology Review found that without aid or training, people achieve an average of 54% correct lie-truth judgments, correctly classifying 47% of lies as deceptive and 61% of truths as nondeceptive. Researchers also noted that that people appear deceptive when they are motivated to be believed – perhaps because they try too hard.

How Well Do Adults Detect Kids' Lies?

Not very well! The previously mentioned article (Adults' ability to detect children's lying) reported, "…adults are no better at detecting children's lies than they are with adult lies. In particular, adults were very poor at identifying children's honest statements." At least, authors found, adults who have experience working with kids do better in detecting lies and truthfulness.

Meanwhile, a February 2006 article published in Law and Human Behavior found that adults detected children's lies more accurately than adults' lies, and that adults detected adults' truthful statements more accurately than children's truthful statements. Researchers also noted that further analyses revealed that observers were biased toward judging adults', but not children's statements as truthful. Also, researchers found that those who were highly accurate in detecting children's lies were similarly accurate in detecting adults' lies.

What Are Some Signs of Lies?

While warning that spotting deception is tough and is an inexact science, a July/August 2004 Monitor on Psychology article listed a number of clues and cues gleaned from various studies:

What Kinds of Lies are People Best at Detecting?

The article Accuracy of deception judgments found that people are more accurate in judging audible than visible lies.

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