Obscuring the truth: reading informational text; Why Do We Lie? 8

Why Do We Lie?

1. Honesty is the best policy . . . right? According to philosophy professor David Livingstone Smith, that might be the biggest lie of all. In his book Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind, Smith explains that not only is lying sometimes advisable (when your teacher asks if you were paying attention, for instance), it might even be downright unavoidable.
2. Smith’s interpretation of the research indicates that people lie both to themselves and others far more often than they realize. University of Massachusetts psychology professor Robert Feldman conducted an experiment in which people reported how many lies they told in a recorded conversation. People told an average of three lies for every ten minutes they spoke . . . and that’s assuming they weren’t lying about that!
3. Far more prevalent than the lies we tell others are the lies we tell ourselves. Often, these lies take the form of wishful thinking. When asked to rate themselves intellectually, 25% of people put themselves in the top 1%. That’s a statistical impossibility; the vast majority of those people are deluding themselves. Consider praise and blame: we tend to give ourselves more credit than we deserve when things go well; for instance, we might minimize the contributions of other group members if we get an A on a project. On the other hand, we're quick to assign blame to others rather than ourselves. If we fail the group project, it’s all because of those lazy, procrastinating group members.
4. On the surface, self-deception seems like a negative trait. Research shows, however, that it has its benefits. According to studies, people who experience depression have a much more realistic conception of their own abilities and how much credit or blame they deserve for the success of their endeavors. In other words, artificially inflated self-esteem might be all that separates people who don’t have depression from those who do.
5. The fact that we lie incessantly, both to others and to ourselves, doesn't answer the question of why we're so untruthful. For that, we turn to the field of evolutionary psychology—the study of how evolution has controlled the development of the human brain. It turns out that our brains are hardwired to lie because, throughout the existence of our species, lying has been necessary for survival.
6. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution holds that the traits or characteristics that help a living being survive and thrive will get passed down to its offspring. This means that those traits gradually become more common in a species and influence its development over time. For instance, imagine a world of short-necked giraffes romping happily across the grasslands. They’d do just fine . . . until a drought caused the trees to have fewer delicious leaves. The longer-necked giraffes, who could reach higher into the trees for leaves, would have a better chance of surviving to adulthood and being able to reproduce. Two long-necked giraffes would produce long-necked offspring, who would then survive longer than the short-necked giraffes during the next drought, until finally the entire breeding population of giraffes had long necks.
7. Now, for human evolution, imagine you’re living in the Ice Age. You live in a tribe composed of mostly extended family; you’ve mastered the use of fire; you communicate with language and have developed sophisticated tools for hunting; you’ve even gotten pretty good at drawing antelope and buffalo on cave walls. You’re also excellent at lying. You use deception both to hunt—sneaking up on an animal from upwind, concealing your scent or appearance—and to escape predators, perhaps by stretching out your arms and making a lot of noise so a bear thinks you’re a much bigger animal than you are. You also need the ability to tell lies verbally, both the white lies that make social interactions possible, and the bigger lies that protect you from imminent danger—like an angry rival who suspects you’ve stolen his charcoal for those antelope sketches you’re so proud of.
8. If you need further proof that lying is an instinctive, evolved gift, consider the research of French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne. He described the difference between a Duchenne, or genuine smile, and the fake smile you give people when you want them to believe you’re delighted to see them, although your actual emotions may be more ambivalent. The fake smile is characterized by lips stretched to the side (rather than up) and no laugh lines around the eyes. Remarkably, even infants have a version of the fake smile; they give Duchenne smiles to mothers and caregivers, and a polite fake smile to strangers.
9. Humans are capable of lying practically from birth, and they continue to deceive both others and themselves throughout their lives. While it’s certainly best to avoid lies that are harmful to others, the idea of living a completely honest life is pretty much a biological impossibility. In fact, rather than feel remorse for our lack of honesty, we can admire the complexity of the human brain that has enabled us to evolve into such stellar liars.

Practice question