This is startling indeed! Sixty percent people lie at least once during a ten-minute conversation and tell an average of two to three lies. This observation is based on the result of a research study published in 2009 by Robert S. Feldman, a professor of psychology in USA.
So, don’t get upset if your close friend lied to you last evening for no apparent reason and you discovered it later somehow. Your friend conforms to the generally expected behavioral pattern in our society. We live in a world full of lies.
We are taught from childhood that lying is a sin; the virtuous is always truthful. Yet the atmosphere is filled with lies all around.
Why do people lie? In what way does that help them? Can the society sustain itself when lies routinely contaminate the truth in our day-to-day conversations? Are we living in a make-believe world because what is told to us by others could potentially be lies?
Some people believe that there are ‘good’ lies and they tend to attach no element of sin with those. For example, a doctor may lie to the patient when he says, ‘you have a minor problem; we will deal with it… you should be fine soon’. The patient cheers up with these encouraging words and smiles with hope. However, a minute later, the same doctor may confidentially turn to the patient’s attendant and disclose the truth, ‘the condition of the patient is indeed critical and there is very little doctors can do to save him at this stage. Keep your trust in God.’
There are also ‘good’ lies that prevent a crime or save a life. Not only at the individual level, lies are often carefully dispensed out at the level of the government on the grounds of public order, national security, etc. There is half-truth or suppression of truth in some form or the other. The Home Minister often declares normalcy after a communal tension although the situation on the ground may not have improved much. His words calm tensions in other parts of the country and serve a larger good. Similarly volatility in the forex and stock markets respond to the soothing words of assurance coming from the regulators. These words are carefully crafted, which are not lies, but are not the whole truth either.
Our perception and attitude get greatly influenced by what we are made to believe through media campaigns and through our textbooks. History is a narrative presented to us about our past enemies and friends, about our achievements and follies – all propagating certain points of view. The element of truth in such narratives is often blurred as the story is passed on from one generation to another. We tend to accept cardinal truths passed on to us from our forefathers without realizing that some of them may just be based on years of unquestioned falsehood.
Let me not step into the big canvas of lies influencing the society at large and just confine myself to the lies in our day-to-day conversations. There are small lies and big lies in our conversations, some are meant to deceive while some are innocuous. Some element of lies gets unnoticed, as it does not materially influence the topic of a discussion. Perhaps little lies in conversations spice up the discussions. Little exaggeration attracts and retains others’ interest while one narrates, say, an incident in a party. Does it mean that a layer of lies is acceptable in our general conversations as long as it is not stretched too far and remains non-malicious?
People have various provocations to lie. At an instinctive level lying may be a defence against an odd. A person may lie to escape an embarrassment, avoid a punishment or simply to make a personal gain. But habitual liars constitute a different breed – they lie in all conversations. Often they misrepresent facts in a manner suitable to the situation. One of the seemingly universal provocations behind habitual lying is to project oneself in better light. These people simply twist facts to make coherent stories about themselves. For instance, my friend told me about the great experience he gathered during the last Mumbai Marathon, giving me an impression that he ran the 22 kms beautiful track from Bandra to the Nariman Point. In reality he actually stood for sometime on the roadside to cheer the participants while they were running. Similarly, my boss in office has successfully given an impression to everybody that he has graduated from the famous Stanford University; the truth is that he visited the university only for three months on an executive development programme sponsored by his previous employer. Some people try to create an aura around themselves by resorting to small to big lies. Interestingly, the stories are believed and propagated with layers of additional lies till the time the person making the story himself starts believing in his own lies!
It may not be easy to sustain specific lies told in long conversations – the liar needs to be consistent in what he falsely represents.
Another research in recent times deals with lies in on-line conversations. The research article is going to be published in the November 2016 issue of the journal, Computers in Human Behavior. The world of Internet (i.e., social media, online dating, anonymous chat rooms, and sexual websites) is fraught with greater density of lies as revealed through this research. As less as 16 to 32% of the people (in the sample) were believed to be honest across the sites. Further, 55% to 90% believed that others were also lying in these sites. Such is the extent of deception in the on-line conversations; it far exceeds the lies told in face-to-face conversations.
It is not known whether these lies can be categorised as ‘good’ and non-malicious and whether they fall in that acceptable layer of lies that just spice up on-line interactions.
In all probability, the layers of lies in our day-to-day conversations are fragile and can threaten relationships. A sustainable relationship thrives on truthfulness. Honesty continues to be the best policy – perhaps little lies would spice it up. Hope some professional research would throw up tangible results in this area as well.
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Manoranjan Mishra 