Mineko Iwasaki once said, “Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
What is a lie?
A lie is conducted with the intention to bring someone to a false belief, or, as more widely the recognized definition, is “a statement made by one who does not believe it, with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it.”
A lie requires that all of four conditions be met: that a statement is made, that the statement is untrue, that the statement is made from one party to another, and that the receiving party of the statement must believe or be brought to the belief that it is true. When one lies, their intentions are normally towards making a difference in how others construct decisions, judgements, or actions in the liar’s favor. People also lie to avoid conflict through "insults or discord."
Lies are often categorized into varying levels of severity; from fabrications and over exaggerations of the truth (e.g. telling stories out of proportion), to small “white” lies (e.g. complimenting what is believed to be bad), to more consequential lies (e.g. betrayals of trust).
Who lies?
Lying has been scientifically proven to be a condition of everyday life. On average, every human being lies at least once or twice a day, sometimes without even noticing it. This also includes quick lies like, "I'm fine, thanks."
Men are more prone to lying about themselves, while women are most known to lie for the protection of someone’s feelings. They say that men lie an average of six times a day, and women lie about three times a day.
Research shows that romantic relationships have a higher deception rate, as significant others lie to one another about a third of the time. These romantic lies are also the most likely to be more severe, simply because relationships are built off of credibility and trust, and the breaking of this bond through deception and lies can cause major issues in the structure of the relationship.
When under pressure, extroverts are more likely to lie than introverts; likewise, certain personality and physical traits (like self-confidence) are linked to the amount that someone lies. For example, if someone is very confident in themselves, they’re more likely to lie to others than those who are less confident., especially when they feel like their self-esteem is threatened. On the other side, people who are responsible, and who have meaningful friendships, are less likely to lie.
More severe liars, or pathological liars, could also be associated several mental disorders described in the DSM. These disorders include Antisocial Personality Disorder (aka psychopathy or sociopathy), Borderline Personality Disorder (impulsive, unstable), Histrionic Personality Disorder (attention-seeking), and Factitious Disorders (acting as if they have an illness). Other people may lie without realizing that what they're saying is a lie includes disorders like Paranoid Personality Disorder (generalized mistrust of others) and some forms of Dissociative Disorders (aka multiple personalities).
When you lie, your brain activates your frontal lobe (the part of your brain best known for decision making and moral understanding) to inhibit the truth from being said. Then the limbic system (used to control hormones and strong emotions like fear) increases your anxiety in fear that the lie may get caught. Next, the temporal lobe (audio and memory) retrieves the information of your lie and confirms that it seems correct.
So in short, your brain comes up with the lie, suppresses the truth, freaks out because it knows its done wrong (unless you have a smaller pituitary gland like those with Antisocial Personality Disorder), and then rechecks it multiple times to check that it sounds like a logical lie.
The more you lie, the more your brain gets used to the idea of disturbing its moral behaviors. "Compulsive liars have up to 26% more white matter in their prefrontal cortex, so they are better at making connections between thoughts not connected in reality."
How can you tell if someone is lying?
Even in the realms of science, lying is hard to detect. Polygraphs are not particularly accurate, as it more-so detects fear rather than lying.
It's explained that "the premise of a lie detector is that a smoke alarm goes off in the brain when we lie because we're doing something wrong. But sometimes we're completely comfortable with out lies."
Some say that lies can be detected through speech hesitation, changes in vocal pitch, or nervous ticks such as "scratching, blinking, or fidgeting."
Others say that the direction in which someone looks can help determine whether their lying, as looking to the left is the response of your brain constructing a sense, while a look to the right means that they are accessing a memory of a sense.
