A man in San Francisco ran his car into a telegraph pole.
When the police questioned him, his description of the event was as follows: "The pole was
approaching my car, when I attempted to swerve out of the way and it struck me".
Was he lying, technically no, he was just placing the blame upon the telegraph pole.
That's just distorting the facts, real lying however, requires, a whole new level of dedication
and cognitive thinking.
From a scientific point of view, being a good liar is tremendously difficult.
So why do humans do it?
Let's find out.
When children are younger they believe they are constantly being watched by their parents,
who they see as authority figures.
So for this reason, they're considerably more inclined to always tell the truth.
But as we get older we start experimenting with not always telling the truth, this usually
happens around the age of 2 or 3.
Studies show the average 4-year-old will tell a lie once every 2 hours, but by the time
they reach 6-years-old, that increases to a lie every 90 minutes.
Lying is quite a difficult skill that were not born with, we have to learn it.
The more we lie the better we get at it and the frequently we will lie in the future.
The ability to lie isn't easy, it's something that few species can do effectively.
Although scientists have found evidence of lying elsewhere in the animal kingdom, for
example.
Koko the Gorilla who is able to understand sign language once ripped a steel sink out
the wall and when her handlers confronted her about it, she signed "the cat did it"
and pointed at Koko's pet kitten.
Animals lie to each other in nature to secure an advantage over their peers, wether it be
food, territory or a potential mate.
But no species is as proficient at lying as us humans.
But our brains don't find it an easy task to accomplish.
In order to lie our brain must hold two conflicting pieces of information at once, those are the
truth and a lie.
Our brain then has to suppress the true bit of information, and then tell the lie without
displaying any symptoms that one is lying, which isn't easy.
Some people are much better at this than others.
The best liars are pathological liars.
Pathological liars are so good at lying because, unlike the average person, they don't feel
a single bit of remorse for telling a lie or even worrying about the consequences.
They accomplish this by convincing themselves that their lie is actually the truth.
When a pathological liar tells a lie, they believe in their mind that what they're saying
is the whole truth and nothing but.
Which makes them so utterly convincing.
At the other end of the spectrum of extreme liars are compulsive liars.
These are people who lie at the first given opportunity, even when there's no obvious
gain or reason for doing so.
Compulsive liars are much worse at lying that pathological liars, even though they do it
on a regular basis.
This kind of behaviour often stems from childhood abuse, when they grew up in an environment
where lying was necessary for emotional wellbeing.
But how did the act of lying originate?
Well like most human behaviour lying is a product of evolution.
Thousands of years ago the individual who could tell the best lies and most effectively
manipulate their peers into doing their bidding, would often get the biggest rewards, such
as, a bigger portion of the food from hunting trip, or their pick of the women.
And over thousands of years, through a combination of practice and evolution, humans got much
better at lying.
But even in todays age there are a lot of advantages to being able to tell a successful
lie.
For example, we often tell white lies to keep a relationship running smoothly or keep our
superiors happy, for example, when your boss asks you if you did that all important spread
sheet they asked for an hour ago, you could tell the truth and say no, but to avoid a
good rollicking, you instead say yes, then do it as fast as you physically can.
But scientists say these small white lies we tell every day often aren't as successful
as we may believe.
In actuality research shows that most people can tell when a person is lying 54% of the
time.
But then there's the more serious lies, such as denying a crime that you know you committed,
or telling your significant other there's no one else when really there is.
Whilst these may be morally wrong, they can often result in reward for the person telling
the lie, so it's easy to see why lying is often the first place that most people go
to in a sticky situation to get themselves out of it.
In short we lie because it can bring us many benefits and give us an advantage over our
peers, often without consequence.
However most people are in denial over the amount they actually lie.
Because of the inherently secretive nature of lying, when asked most people won't admit
to lying often, but studies show that the average adult actually lies ten or more times
a week.
But don't fear, there are ways you can tell for certain wether someone is lying to you.
Our body emits certain signals and symptoms when we lie, which we can't control.
Even the best liar in the world can't avoid these telling signs of a lie.
Such as.
A change in breathing, when a person lies they start to breath heavier, their shoulders
will rise and their voice gets shallow.
Also a person will stand very still when they lie, almost appearing frozen in place, this
is because the body is preparing for possible confrontation, if their lie doesn't go quite
as planned.
People will also change their head position quickly when they lie, jerking it about unnaturally,
this will happen right before the person is expected to respond to a question.
The liar will also provide way too much information, believing that if they talk a lot and be completely
open with you, you're more likely to believe their story.
So if someone is going on and on about the same point, they're probably lying.
liars will also touch or cover their mouth whilst talking, it's a subconscious way of
their body closing off their mouth because there is information that they don't want
to slip out.
As well as their mouths liars may also cover the most vulnerable parts of their bodies
whilst lying, such as their throat, chest, head or abdomen.
We often associate liars with not being able to maintain eye contact, but research has
shown it's actually quite the opposite.
Whilst telling a lie people will usually stare directly into your eyes without blinking much,
this is a subconscious attempt by the brain at trying to intimidate and control the person
you are lying to.
Oh and in case you were wondering, lie detectors don't really work, at least not the way people
believe they do.
The word lie detector is a misnomer, because they don't actually detect lies, lie detectors
detect increases in anxiety levels.
And since some people are able to stay calm whilst lying, lie detectors don't work on
everyone, and are generally unreliable.
This is mainly why they're not used by the police to question criminals.
Because well-seasoned criminals are particularly good at staying calm under pressure, rendering
a lie detector completely inaccurate.
Oh and truth serums don't work either, that's purely a fictional idea portrayed in books
and films.
But in real life there's no known substance that can reliably make someone tell the truth.