Why do people lying

I mean, I have no problem telling my close friends that I would rather stay home in my pajamas than go out to a bar on a Friday night.

But when it comes to people I'm not as comfortable with, I'll go with the old, "I wish I could go, but I'm busy. Sounds about right. He uses the example of a salesman. For our purposes, let's say the salesman is hawking a facial cleanser.

They might rave about the cleanser, saying they had acne their whole life, and nothing worked to clear it until they found this product, the holy grail of facial cleansers. It changed their life. And it can change yours. Is it true? Probably not. Is it an effective tactic? Often yes. Think of a child who broke a glass, Feldman says.

When their parent asks if they broke the glass, they're probably going to say no, even though it's an obvious lie. The threat imposes an emotional load, generating involuntary changes that can betray the lie. In serious lies the falsehood is usually told to conceal the reward or benefit the liar obtained by breaking a rule or explicit expectation. The curfew violator was able to stay longer at the party; the speeding driver is rushing because he pushed the snooze button when the alarm went off.

In each of these examples, the rule breaker decides before breaking a rule that he or she will if questioned lie to cover the cheating. Sometimes the reward could have been achieved — a high mark on an exam — without cheating but not as easily, it would have taken more effort hours of study in this example. Protecting someone else from harm is the next most important reason why people tell serious lies. It is not certain whether society approves of these lies.

When policemen refuse to testify against a fellow officer they know has broken the law, we respect their motives but many people believe they should be truthful.

Yet the terms we use — rat, fink, snitch — are derogatory. Anonymous call-in lines exist so those who volunteer information can avoid any loss of reputation or danger by informing. Do we have different standards for people who take the initiative to inform as compared to those who inform when directly asked to reveal information? To protect yourself from being harmed even when you have not broken any rule is still another motive. Some lies are told to win admiration from others. Boasting about something untrue is an obvious instance.

It is common in children, some adolescents, and even adults. If discovered it harms the reputation of the boaster, but not much more than that. Claiming falsely to have earned money for previous investors moves into the criminal realm. This is different from being punished, for the threat of harm is not for a misdeed. An example would be a child who is home alone telling a stranger at the door that his father is asleep now and to come back later.

To win the admiration of others. To get out of an awkward social situation. Examples of how telling lies can look when motivated by this are claiming to have a babysitter problem to get out of a dull party, or ending a telephone conversation by saying there is someone at the door.

To avoid embarrassment. The child who claims the wet seat resulted from water spilling, not from wetting her pants, is an example if the child did not fear punishment, only embarrassment. To maintain privacy without notifying others of that intention. For example, the couple who claims to have eloped because the cost of a wedding was beyond their means when, in reality, they were avoiding the obligation to invite their families.

To exercise power over others by controlling the information the target has. Famously embodied by Hitler, this is arguably the most dangerous motive for telling lies. I suspect there are motivations behind telling lies that fall outside one of the above nine categories , such as trivial deceits like lies told out of politeness or tact, which are not easily subsumed by these nine motives. However, these nine were presented in data I collected myself and can, at least, be used as the foundation to explain why people lie.

When lying, the face often contains two messages- what the liar wants to show and what the liar wants to conceal.