The Causes and Effects of Lying

Ankush Verma
July 9, 2012

Since the beginning of modern civilization, people have been mislead by their
leaders. This is partially because leaders have difficulty leading people who do not
believe in their values, so they temporarily adopt the peoples values. One of the
greatest dictators of all time, Adolf Hitler, led the German people to one of the biggest
genocides known to man based off of a lie. He told people that only Aryans, or people of
blonde hair and blue eyes by his description, were meant to hold power in the free
world. And of course, the Germans bought into his lies. Even closer to home, President
Nixon lied to the American people about Watergate, which illegally obtained information
from civilians, amount various other things. And today, in 2012, lying has become
prominent by leaders, and those in the pursuit of the prudential office. Presidential
candidate Mitt Romney has contradicted himself numerous times, clearly showing that
he is trying to mislead the American people. But why do people even put up with these
lies? Lying has become so common, even in the average Joes life, which has become
accepted to some extent. In a poll, administrators found that in a ten-minute
conversation, sixty percent of people found them lying at least once (Feldman, 2002).
Twelve percent of adults admit to lying often or sometimes (Feldman, 2002). So the
question arises as to why people lie so much? Clearly something is compelling them to
perform the same acts that they tell their children not to perform. And if society has
become a community of lies, then how can people expect their leaders to tell them the
truth? And on a more personal scale, how can the police, or any federal agency,
promise civilian safety if there is no way to determine if a criminal or terrorist is lying?
Luckily, psychologists like Paul Ekman have been able to provide more information
about lying, and how to detect if a person is lying. There have been numerous

technological advances, namely the lie detector, that allow the government to determine
if a person is lying, but are they enough to change the worlds lying culture?
To fully understand the gravity of where the world is headed, and how the
insensitivity to lying will eventually become a big problem, it is necessary to fully
understand what lying is. Lying can be broken down into two realms, one is which is the
lying as it is known, just a falsification of facts, and the other which is called pathological
lying. While there has not been much progress in the field, there have been a few
definition of pathological lying that provide a general sense of what the disorder is. The
Webster Dictionary definition for pathological lying is when a person tells excessive lies
habitually, and usually those lies are so exaggerated and odd that they give the sense
that the person has some sort of a mental disorder. However, this definition does not
really give a good understanding of what the difference between a pathological liar and
an ordinary liar really is. According to Paul Ekman, one of the leading psychologists in
the field of lies and dishonesty has defined the two, and made a clear distinction
between the what is a lie, and what is a pathological lie. According to Ekman, a
pathological lie is a lie that has to be to, or a lie that a person cannot help but telling. It is
a mental disorder that forces a person to lie, but because the study of pathological lies
has not matured, Ekman does not go into full detail about the disorder (Ekman, 2011).
According two Ekman, a lie is one that has a predetermined outcome (Ekman,
2011). In Paul Ekmans, Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage, he
writes, A liar can choose not lie. Misleading the victim is deliberated; the liar intends to
misinform the victim. The lie may or may not be justified, depending on the opinion of
the liar or the community (Ekman, 2011). In other words, Ekman feels that a liar is a

person who purposely says something to mislead another person, or a group of people
(Ekman, 2011). Ekman also states that a liar is not judged by their lies. They are mostly
judged by the intent of their lies, and the fact that they knowingly do something that they
know to be wrong.
In Ekmans second writing, Why Dont We Catch Liars?, Ekman further describes
his definition of lying, and provides reasons for why it is so hard to catch a lie. Ekman
explains that he believes that there are actually two criteria for distinguishing a lie. The
first is mentioned in the above paragraph, the intent of deceit. The second is victims
knowledge of the lie. To clarify, Ekman believes that people who knowingly get
deceived, like those who go to magic shows, are not actually being lied to. However, he
does believe that if a magician, like Uri Gellar does lie to his audience because he
claims that he is not performing magic (Ekman, 2009). To further expand on the realm
of lying, he writes that he does not believe that lies have to be told verbally told be
considered a lie. For example, he describes a lie as any type of concealment or
misleading that a person does knowing, and so concealment constitutes as a lie as well.
If a person purposely leaves a the previous work sections of a job application empty,
then that person is lying.
In this piece, Ekman also discusses on why people lie and why people cannot
catch people who are lying in the act of lying. Ekman engaged in experiments that
persuaded a group of students to tell lies, and a group of students to catch lies. To
make these lies relevant to the students, Ekman and his co-workers picked lies that
each group could relate to. They picked high-risk lies because the students would try
harder to catch and tell the lie, and because society is more concerned with high risk

lies than low risk lies (Ekman, 2009). In one of their experiments, Ekman and his group
told a group of nursing students that they would have a chance to learn a trait for their
jobs. The nurses had to successfully lie to a victim with severe burns, and act like
everything was okay. Ekman found that the nurses did very well because they felt they
were getting a chance to learn a new trait for their line of work (Ekman, 2009).
In another experiment, Ekman told the students that they had a choice to lie or
not, and that if the interrogator found them to be lying, they would be punished severely.
Therefor, both the liar, and the person who told the truth would be afraid. Ekman found
that people were very poor at catching lies, and his reasoning for that is because they
had no incentive to do so (Ekman, 2009). These interrogators were not given higher pay
for the percentage of people they correctly labeled as lie detectors, nor did they have
any person stake in the outcome of the experiment.
Through all of his experiments, Ekman found that there were six general reasons
why it was so hard to catch a person lying. His first explanation for why people are such
bad lie catchers is because the human race has never been very good lie preceptors.
When cavemen roamed the Earth, people did not have that much to lie about, and so
the need for the ability to catch lies did not form until the modern civilization dawned. To
have the skill of lie detection in the caveman era would have very little value. Ekman
writes that because the communities were so small and because the majority of the lies
were caught, there was no real reason to develop lie detection skills. He writes, Our
ancestral environment did not prepare us to be astute lie catchers. Those who might
have been adept in identifying a liar from demeanor would have had minimal advantage
in the circumstances in which our ancestors probably lived. Serious lies probably did not

occur often, because a lack of privacy would have made the chances of being caught
high (Ekman, 2009). These circumstances did not equip people with the lie detection
skills needed in a vastly population society, in which there are so many people that it is
easy to conceal something from some (Ekman, 2009).
So why have people not learned how to catch lies now? One reason for this is
that children are not taught how to catch lies. They are actually lied to by their parents,
in attempt for privacy, pacification, or concealment. Another reason for not being able to
develop the attribute of catching lies is most likely because it would become a burden.
Having to be cautious and suspicious of another person would surely be bothersome for
the person who doubts, as well as the person who is being doubted. According to
Ekman, having such an attribute would most likely lead to problems with intimacy and
forming relationships (Ekman, 2009). The fourth reason, and probably the most
troubling reason, is that most people choose to be misled. The people of Germany
followed Hitler to commit one of the biggest genocides of all time, but all the blame
cannot be placed on Hitler. The people of Germany had to have known that what they
were doing was wrong, especially in a world where all people were equal.
All of these explanations are of why regular civilians cannot detect lies, but what
about the officers of the law who have to be able to distinguish a lie from the truth?
Ekman found that the amount of criminals that actually lie to interrogators is close to
seventy-five percent (Ekman, 2009). This is not an optimal percentage for interrogators
to learn how to detect lies because they have little feed back of when they are right and
when they are wrong. Ekman reports that if an officer is given a group of ten people, five

who are lying and five who are not, and he is given corrective feedback there after, he
will likely be able to develop lie detection skills.
As shown on TV, the success of interrogators is usually high, but that of course is
not a proper depiction of how the system works. Polygraph tests, or lie detectors as
criminal shows call them, are often used to help determine if a person is lying or not. Lie
detectors are used for three reasons. They are used from criminal cases, employee
screening, and pre-employment screening (APA, 2010). Data collected by the National
Academies Press shows that there are few errors that occur with a lie detection device.
According to APA, American Polygraph Association, sixty two percent of police
agencies have active polygraph screening programs (APA, 2010). Lie detection tests in
such agencies are mainly used to swear in officers who are serving in sworn positions.
In fact, over twenty five percent of officers who are in the process of being sworn in are
rejected because of the results of the polygraph (APA, 2010).
Even with the polygraph handy, the effects of where society is headed, in regards
to deception, is quite frightening. The world has come to a crucial point in which it must
define itself for the years to come. In a time where moral values and honesty seem to
be deteriorating, it is hard to see where the country, and the rest of the world will end up
in the distant future. For the first time in at least two decades, the American people have
a leader who has not misled them. For the first time in a long time, it feels as though the
country is finally on course to reestablishing foreign affairs, and becoming the great
power it once was. But for the first time, sadly, the country is torn between two parties
instead of view points that will help the nation get back on its feet. Granted that both
parties have their own faults, and that both parties do not always follow through with all

of their promises, but the fact that there is even a debate on who to elect is frightening.
One candidate is the President of the United States, who has not done everything he
has promised to do, but he has followed through with is beliefs. And the other is a rich
Republican who is trying to sway the citizens of the United States by playing a role that
he is not fit to play. One party stands by its beliefs, for the most part. And the other party
merely says things to sway voters, even if they do not believe in what they are saying.
For whatever the reason may be, the people are being lied to. The world is being
lied to about the severity of the genocide in Darfur, the oppression of the Palestinians,
the reasons why there is a war in Iraq, what they are eating, their safety, their health,
and numerous other things that probably have not been brought to light yet. It is time for
this generation, to change the culture of the world. If the people expect to be in charge
of their lives, and their government, they must call out their leaders and elected officials
for lying and misrepresenting them. As Ekman explained in his article, the leaders are
only lying if the people do not know that they are being misled. But the people do know
that they are being misled, and they do not do anything about it.
Lies engulf the world. From the top to the bottom of the social hierarchy people
lie and are being lied to, but no one cares anymore. There are numerous reasons why
people choose not to call out lies, but societys biggest reason is that they do not want
to do anything about it. A lie is something that someone says or does to mislead
another person, or a group of people. But for the lies people are being told today, there
is no need for a polygraph. The people of the world know that the people they elected
are lying to them. Yet they choose to look the other way.

Works Cited
APA. (2010). American polygraph association. Retrieved from
http://www.polygraph.org/section/resources/frequently-asked-questions
Ekman, P. (2009). Paulekman.com. Retrieved from http://www.paulekman.com/wpcontent/uploads/2009/02/Why-Dont-We-Catch-Liars.pdf
Ekman, P. (2011). Telling lies, clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage.
W. W. Norton & Company.
Feldman, R. (2002, June 10). Eurek alert. Retrieved from
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-06/uoma-urf061002.php