Jake’s Life

Our View On Superior, a blog by two partners in Minnesota, posted an entry this morning titled Do I Look Dumb. In it, Warren (the blog is authored by Steve and Warren, but through the powers of deduction I read that Steve was in the shower) recounts a conversation with an employee of his regarding a friend who lied to him, then goes on to briefly explain lying itself. It’s a good read and gets you thinking, so check it out, because I’m going to reference and expand upon it here.

As people, we start lying at around age 4 to 5 when we as children gain an awareness of the use and power of language.
This first lying is not malicious, but rather to find out, or test, what can be manipulated in our childhood environment.
Eventually kids begin to use lying to get out of trouble or get something they want. White lies, those concocted to protect someone’s feelings, are not a big deal at all. The person, however, who seems to feel compelled to lie about both the small and large stuff has a problem.
…
Quite often the person who has been deceived knows that this type of liar has to a certain extent deluded him and is therefore to be somewhat pitied.

That was a quote from the blog entry, and should definitely strike a nerve in each of us as being true. We’ve all lied, and it’s a part of our natural development as a human being in using our language to communicate with others. A lie is an act of deception (the umbrella term that covers lying and many other verbal and nonverbal ways of deceiving others) and there are many forms a lie can take such as a bluff, an omission, the lies we tell to children (”Santa Claus is real,” “The stork brought you”), the almost laughable bold-faced lie that all those present usually recognize is a lie but the liar makes no effort to hide it (My mom once asked if I had gotten into the Oreos when I was a kid, and despite the tell-tale chocolate dust all over my mouth and teeth I said no), and several other types of lies.

I’m sure we all have tales of childhood lies that we can recount in a way that we all laugh about it and see the valuable lesson learned. I am also sure that we all have more recent stories of those who have not learned from lies and consistently tell them to others. As Warren states in his post, a certain amount of pity is usually shed onto these people because often times people just can’t imagine living a life that is based on lies, constantly covering your own tracks with the people you know, and short of updating a diagram of your web of lies losing track of them and having to scramble to cover them back up again. Augustine of Hippo, in his 395 AD work titled “Of Lying,” separates lies into eight tiers, the top being the worst sort:

1. Lies in religious teaching.
2. Lies that harm others and help no one.
3. Lies that harm others and help someone.
4. Lies told for the pleasure of lying.
5. Lies told to “please others in smooth discourse.”
6. Lies that harm no one and that help someone.
7. Lies that harm no one and that save someone’s life.
8. Lies that harm no one and that save someone’s “purity.”

Why do people lie? As Warren said this begins between the age of 4 and 5 years old, and is tied to the Machiavellian intelligence (the capacity of an entity to be in a successful political engagement with social groups) stage of cognitive development. It is during this stage that the child realizes the difference between its own beliefs and the beliefs of others, and begins learning from experience that lying can help them avoid punishment. Because they lack the ability to discern what is and is not believable they often tell fantastic stories, just like Terry from Reno 911! They also lack the moral understanding to realize that what they are doing is wrong.

Humans are not the only weavers of deceit, as animals often do it too. Various animals have the physiological ability to blend into their surroundings to avoid detection either as a predator or as prey. Many instances of this in the animal kingdom is innate and part of their natural evolution, however some examples in higher creatures are obviously reasoned. This brings up another question in my mind, and can be answered either way with sustainable proof but for the sake of argument, when humans lie to achieve goals in Augustine’s taxonomy of lies, is it due to a conscious effort on the part of the liar, by seeing what they can or cannot achieve based on the lie versus the truth, or is it compulsive and unconscious?

Pseudologia fantastica and mythomania. No, they’re not spells from Harry Potter, but two of many clinical names given by psychiatrists to the condition of pathological lying. The characteristics are:

1. The lie is not completely improbable, but based on some sort of truth.
2. The lies are in depth and continue over time.
3. The lies are told for psychological reasons rather than gain on behalf of the liar (to avoid punishment, avoid being thought of in a negative light).
4. The lies are not delusional (meaning that upon confrontation the person is aware that they are lying whether they admit it to others or not).

How do you pick up on these sorts of things? Everybody knows that nonverbal cues are sent out when someone lies, generally speaking. The initiator of the lie is usually not aware of their own cues unless they really look at them, but even then I think it’s impossible that they would be able to pick out all of them. The mind has so much control over the body, and if the person is in a mental capacity to know what is right and wrong it can be said that the mind rebels against them using their own body as a tool. Of course, for those rare types who can lie and lie and lie and not show a thing, that is an example of someone who could likely be diagnosed with some sort of disorder. But for general purposes, various clues can include posture, breathing, perspiration, vocal frequency and amplitude, eye movement, pulse rate, facial contortions and other movements, and duration between syllables. A general belief in law enforcement and science is that eye movement is critical when speaking with someone. The thought is that looking up and to the left is truth, up and to the right is dishonestly, and has to do with which side of the brain the subject is currently using to answer the question. Many people only look at eye contact and hand gestures/body posture. Just because someone’s arms are crossed and they are looking a certain direction while talking doesn’t definitively mean they are lying, and if you think about it eye contact and posture are two very easily controlled aspects in most people. The same goes for speech rate and the “crossing the arms” cue. Look deeper.