LYING ASSIGNMENT 1 Due: 22 October, 2013

Submitted by Ebrahim Shahid

Partial Requirements of the Course Introduction to Psychology 2301-062 for Professor Gaye Hughes Austin Community College Northridge Campus Austin, TX

Why do people lie? Can one tell if a person is lying or not by just simply looking at them, their facial expressions, or their body language? Both these questions can be answered by examining a persons brain and environment. Some people lie to avoid trouble, others just lie all the time, and some people dont even lie at all. Seemingly the most common lie is Im OK, which is especially said after experiencing physical pain. Individuals lie for their own personal reasons, but the brain itself doesnt simp ly provide an explanation, it does many fascinating things all the time, especially however when a person is telling a lie. Every form of brain scan indicates a difference in brain waves when people tell lies or tell the truth. The Autonomic Nervous System is what determines the truth from falsehood and can even be checked through a lie detector machine (Proverbio et al., p 11). The lie detector itself is a blessing, because before its invention the only plausible methods of getting the truth out of people would have been horrible means such as blackmail, extortion, bribery, and even torture. Various brain scans done in Italy testing how the brain works when telling lies vs. telling the truth give more information as to the Ws: who, what, when, and where people lie. Everybody lies. People lie about many things among which include: age, accomplishments, past experiences, accomplishments, and even something as simple as what they did or why there are doing something. As for where, a person will lie basically everywhere except in cases of emergencies so a person reporting something to an emergency doctor or describing a crime they witnessed to a cop will rarely lie; beyond hospitals, ERs, ambulances, and police stations, people generally lie everywhere. This goes to prove that in every situation in which there is a benefit of lying a person will lie, whereas in a case where

the truth is necessary either to retain ones own life or even give justice to a stranger lying is not only pointless but rare. An experiment was done in Poland in 2012 to try to figure out who lies more, men or women. Results of this experiment also indicated whether a person would take longer to lie or tell the truth. People were asked general and personal questions and through fMRI scientists were able to see what the brain looked like when lying and also were able to find out which gender had the better liars. The participants were told to lie in advance, however what they lied about and how long it took to respond concluded a lot about psychological differences between genders. The study found men more likely to lie about general information, while women found it very easy to lie about their personal lives and vise-versa. The experiment also proved that it actually takes longer for a person to lie than to tell the truth (Marchewka, p. 1-3). So who is the champion of deception? In both fields the women were victorious. Lying is actually a developed habit, says Chuck Falcon. Child psychology plays a significant role in why people lie. The biggest influences for lying are parents and school teachers or mentors. Understandably so, factors such as verbal and physical abuse play a huge role in lying. It would be a practical thing to lie if telling the truth means getting yelled at or beaten or even having their lives threatened in extreme cases is definitely a major problem. Lying alone isnt really a problem; however constantly lying can corrupt ones personality. Maintaining relationships, having hospitality, and even avoiding drugs and alcohol all are highly likely to be a hard thing to do for a constant liar. Falcon proves in his article that deception taught through improper parenting is destructive for their childrens characters. (Falcon)

An article from Psychology Today from 1997 examined who lies to whom, and at which levels of relationships people lie. The results can also conclude why people lie. Pretty obviously, the largest group of liars is teenagers with politicians as runner ups, while the smallest group are married couples. The research provided also proved that women actually develop the ability to tell whether people are lying to them over time, while men werent able to do so. As to why people actually lie, there are several factors. Among the reasons why people lie are maintaining close relationships, people who are not depressed, simply being a bad person or con artist, and even simply being a teenager. Oddly enough, people with depression are less deceptive and tell the truth more often (Kornet). People do and without any scientific research lie simply to impress others, to some lying about how well they are to the individual is a sign of strength and being tough. If people told the truth more often, one may wonder how significantly the definition of the word weak would change. Recent studies in the United Kingdom have also proven that it takes longer for a person to lie than to tell the truth. Why does this happen though? Some may answer this with common sense, but common sense is even better with proof to back it up. The real reason it takes longer to lie is because an entire cognitive process is involved in which the brain has to develop the lie, while when speaking the truth the brain simply has to dig through memory banks. Anybody who has ever written any story can say that it takes much longer to write about a real event and just simply change the name of the characters over writing something completely made up which never happened. Science and Psychology have the proof to back it up. The scientists at Cardiff University werent necessarily able to determine the reason of why people lie, but rather they concluded a

more complex definition of what a lie actually is. Lying is simply a choice as shown by the researchers: First, lying involves suppressing truthful information and suppressing or rejecting a default response will increase response time. Second, there can be costs associated with choosing to tell the truth, just as there can be with choosing to lie therefore maintain that the decision to depart from the n ormal type of communication can be costly, and while this is often to be a cost associated with a decision to lie, it is not an obligatory component of lying. Lastly, lying often requires more choice in generating response than telling the truth. There is typically only one truth but there are many possible lie options. Making a choice about which lie to use is a difficult job and contributes to the longer time needed to tell a lie (Williams, p 13).