The psychology of lying: Understanding the lies we tell every day

It was peak Covid time in New Delhi in 2020. And Sandeep (name changed) was holed up in his studio. The pay cheques had stopped coming, and soon, even one meal a day seemed an uncertainty. As he was scrolling his Instagram account listlessly, a lifeline popped up. 'Need a meal? Reach out,’ read a friend’s post. Sandeep called, but the phone just rang and rang and rang … Sandeep later found out that it was just a post, intended only to impress.

Lying to impress, lying to wriggle out of a sticky situation, lying to protect, to prove a point, for better prospects, to avoid work and hurting people …. there are many reasons why we lie. And though it’s been drummed into us since childhood that lying is bad, we don’t stop. Will there be consequences, apart from your innards getting roasted in the netherworlds after death or cooling your heels behind bars if the lie is huge or err...being caught on camera during Chris Martin’s jumbotron?  Well, that depends.

According to Sreedhar Mandyam, founder-director of Darwin Psychological Centre, Mysuru, there are different kinds of lies. “Mostly, it is to protect ourselves or to protect others. For instance, one may not want to stress one’s parents by telling them the entire truth of what is happening in the office and how there is a likelihood of getting laid off.”

However, chronic lying is different, he adds. “Like a college student who habitually bunks classes and who is constantly lying to his/her parents and teachers. This can have disastrous consequences and will eventually come to light. The guilt and fear of being caught put tremendous pressure on them. It also builds stress in relationships.”

Intrinsic trait?

In his book, ‘Born Liars’, Ian Leslie says that lying is intrinsic to us. We learn to deceive and survive in groups and society at large. He offers the example of a nine-month-old baby faking laughter to be one with other giggling babies.

Even primates fake it, researchers Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten discovered in the 1980s. They observed two young chimpanzees digging for food. However, when they noticed an older chimp nearing, they stopped digging, quickly sat back, scratched their heads (!) and behaved as if nothing was going on. Once the elder was out of sight, they immediately got back to digging.

This kind of deceit requires intelligence, and our brain is forced to work overtime. That’s why Sam Harris calls lying an energy thief in his book, ‘Lying’. 

Priyanka N (name changed) should know. She narrates: “I used to work in Dubai, and when I would come to India for my vacation, I would want to meet as many friends as I could, close and not so close. However, this left me exhausted. So, I learnt to be selective about who I would meet, and I would happily dish out excuses and untruths to the rest to avoid meeting them. While it worked in the beginning, it soon began to take a toll on me… I would forget which lie I had told to whom, and my mind would be in a tangle.”

Physical and mental impact

As Harris says, it takes a considerable amount of mental effort to lie and to maintain the facade. To maintain one lie, we end up telling more. Then there’s the worry that friends and colleagues are exchanging wildly different versions of a single thing. Result: A whole lot of unwanted stress and anxiety. At the other end, truth needs no monitoring.

The fear of being cross-questioned results in a fight-or-flight response, leading to the production of cortisol and adrenaline, hormones associated with stress and fear. The repeated release of stress hormones during deception can have long-term effects on a person’s emotional well-being, leading to issues like anxiety, depression and even physical health problems — remember Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) in ‘Knives Out’ (Netflix/2019) who pukes every time she lies? 

In fact, a Notre Dame research project in 2012 on the effects of pathological lying studied 110 volunteers, half of whom agreed to stop lying and the other half who received no instructions. After 10 weeks, the group that lied less often had 54 per cent fewer mental complaints like stress or anxiety and 56 per cent fewer physical health issues like headaches or digestive issues.

Constant lying also has the potential to spiral into something bigger. It can impact memory for one, as the brain works overtime to keep track of the different versions. Also, “sometimes, we end up believing those lies,” says Sreedhar. “We start living a parallel reality that can lead to mental health issues.”

The lies we tell online

The compunctions we may have about lying in the real world are thrown to the winds in the virtual world. Especially when you need to stand out among the millions of images posted on, say, Instagram. Bring on the filters, the camera tricks and editing apps to put out your carefully curated life, to make that fish pond look like an exotic locale as you sip a tequila against a setting sun, or to pretend that the swanky car along the sidewalk is your latest buy. Or, in the experience of Sandeep, a post to impress that keeps the like button ticking.

“The deep desire to be recognised and get fame is being fulfilled by not achieving something in career, academics, etc. Today, you can get famous by just acting famous, which is such a shortcut, says Aabharna Sudhakar, a counsellor and psychologist. “Most people have low resilience, desire immediate gratification, so to wait patiently for years to get recognised for their hard work seems a Herculean task, while getting on social media can make them famous by just one viral video,” she says.

However, the likes may boost one’s morale and esteem in the present; over time, this can lead to other consequences.

“We try to project who we are not and move away from our authentic identity,” says Sreedhar. “This increases stress levels as we have to continue being who we are not. And when we are caught, it leads to humiliation and loss of credibility, leaving us more isolated and with lower self-esteem.”

Very few human beings can go through life without lying. That said, if these lies can unleash disaster in your lives, mentally, physically and socially, isn’t it simpler to just state the plain truth? Just ask a certain CEO and HR head, last seen enjoying an intimate moment at Chris Martin’s concert …

The Pinocchio effect

Turns out, there’s some truth behind Pinocchio’s nose. But unlike Carlo Collodi's famous character, whose nose becomes long every time he lies, ours doesn’t. On the contrary, it actually shrinks due to a drop in temperature, and yes, it’s called the Pinocchio effect. And relax, the change is invisible to the naked eye. Meaning, your grandma won’t know when you tell her you love the black-and-yellow jumper with big red buttons that she knitted for you!

So, what really happens when we lie?  According to a research paper published in ‘Psychophysiology’ (The Pinocchio effect and the Cold Stress Test: Lies and thermography, 2017), participants invented a lie and narrated it over the phone to a close associate while they were recorded by a thermographic camera. The results threw up a connection between changes in body temperature and mental activity. The temperature of the nose and hand dropped — the body’s way of trying to regulate and manage the strain.

When deception helps...

Sometimes, deception works and can help the human body heal. In 1944, Harvard professor and anaesthesiologist Henry Beecher was treating Allied troops in Anzio, Italy, when they brought in an injured soldier. He desperately needed an operation, but Beecher did not have any morphine.

A frantic nurse resorted to injecting the soldier with diluted salt water, telling him it was morphine. And, guess what? It worked! The soldier went through the operation, mostly calm. Thus was born the phenomenon called the placebo effect — when the belief that you’re receiving treatment that's as effective as the real deal. 

The earliest polygraph tests

A lie can lead to increased heart rate, a dry mouth, excessive sweating, a shaky voice … some of which form the basis of the once-popular lie-detector or polygraph test. But the ancients had their own devices:

Ancient China: A thief or a liar was made to chew dry rice while being questioned. They were then asked to spit out the rice. If any grains were sticking to the tongue, it was a sign of guilt. The ancients believed that the stress of lying would slow down saliva flow, leading to a dry mouth. 

Ancient India: In 500 BC, priests would make thieves go through the ‘donkey tail test’. They would cover the tails of donkeys with soot and put them in dark tents or caves along with the suspected thieves. The suspect’s task? Pull the tail of the donkey. If the donkey brayed, the thief was guilty. And if he left the tent with soot-free hands, the priests would know he had not pulled the donkey’s tail for fear of being revealed as a thief. Heads, you lose; tails, you lose! (Source: www.ancient-origins.net)

Numbers don't lie

Nearly 50% of Gen Zers (born 1997–2012) said they lied on job applications, outpacing older generations, according to a survey by career.io. The survey showed 47% of Gen Zers put down details to align with expectations, compared to 38.5% of millennials, 20.4% of Gen X, and 9.4% of Baby Boomers. Here’s what they lied about: job responsibilities (28.38%), work experience (22.97%), and job titles (17.57%), with some lying in multiple areas.