The lies you tell tell a lot about your personality.
Do you know the difference between white lies, compulsive lies, and pathological lies?Dec. Why do we justify some lies and condemn others? The lies you tell tell a lot about your personality.
Few things create as much insecurity as lying. Ask anyone, they'll tell you they don't like being around liars. Some lies, however, are socially accepted. We call them white lies, and everyone says those lies to some extent.
In a University of Massachusetts study, researchers showed that 60% of adults cannot speak for more than ten minutes without lying. Even worse, this ratio applies when they talk to someone they know. If this conversation is a passing conversation between strangers, this rate increases three times in the first Dec.
So it comes across as a disturbing fact that people seem like born liars. The above-mentioned work was done when even social media platforms had not yet been invented. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other apps have probably pushed those rates even higher. After all, they give people more chances to lie, and the lies reach even more people.
Many people place the blame on digital media and fake news. Although they are partly right, what we know for sure is that they increase the tendency of people to lie, which is already present. Psychologist Paul Ekman, an expert on facial expressions, argues that lying is one of the fundamental characteristics of human life.
White Lies
As soon as children learn to speak, they start using language deceptively. It starts with very simple lies at the age of two or three. By the time they're four, they can make up much more complex lies. This may seem like a negative thing, but developmental psychologists tell us that these abilities are a sign of social intelligence.
It's natural for children, and indeed adults, to tell white lies. They are relatively harmless, people often tell white lies to protect their own feelings and those of others. You could say that little white lies are the fat that helps society's gears spin smoothly.
Truth and lies
I mean, everyone's lying, which means you can't separate people by whether they're telling the truth or not. Instead, we separate the types of lies that people tell.
From saying “I'm fine” when you feel really awful to making up an excuse for our misfortune to a cruel and self-serving lie, people resort to all shades of lies. Some argue that the need to live up to other people's expectations drives people to lie. Not to mention that this society is full of contradictions. You tell children not to lie, but you also expect them to pretend to be excited about their grandmother's gifts, even if they don't like it.
If we didn't trust the people around us not to lie, society would probably be at our feet. However, the same can happen if everyone always tells the truth.
Compulsive lies
Some people embellish their lives with an endless series of stories, events or anecdotes that are exaggerated or completely false. The people who do this are addicted to their own fantastic stories because they are deeply insecure. Usually, the only person hurt by compulsive lies is the liar himself.
Pathological lies
Such lies are the most insidious lies. They are cold and calculating and the people who say them often have selfishly concrete goals and something they are interested in. They are manipulative and intelligent. Pathological liars base their lives on their deception. Unlike white lies and compulsive lies, they negatively affect other people. Pathological liars can hurt their victims deeply.
Studies show that pathological liars have more white matter in the pre-frontal area of their brains. In general, white matter is associated with faster connections, more verbal fluidity, and faster thought processing. It has been observed that people with more white matter have problems with empathy and that there is much less activity in the emotion-related areas of their brains.
Most people don't like lying. We use white lies to protect ourselves or others. At least that's what we want to think about. At the end of the day, each of us has to deal with our own internal debate about whether to tell the truth and decide which choice makes the most sense.