All About Lying and the Liars who Lie

The check is in the mail. Those pants don't make you look fat. It's company policy. That line of dresses runs small and so you need to go one size up. I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. How good at you at spotting a liar? Are you a good liar?

Everybody lies to some degree every day. One UCSB scholar calculated that people lie twice a day. That seems a rather low figure. I guess if you're alone in a Ivory Tower doing esoteric arithmetic then you don't have much opportunity to lie as much as a Washington politician. A lawyer gets paid to lie, not seek justice. Not outright lies but colored truths to get his client off - even if he knows the client is guilty. I'm sure that if your job involves lying for a living then perhaps an average of 600 lies a day would be normal.

Paid professional liars who earn a buck by it are not the same type of liars as are people who lie in their personal relationships. Lying to young children about Santa Claus is not considered evil or wrong. If your girlfriend asks you if she needs breast implants, it's best to always say no - even if they look like two raisins on a ironing board. Being brutally honest and honestly brutal are two different things.

Lying is definitely OK if it would save a person's life. If a genocidal crowd was at your door demanding if you're harboring any unwanted outcasts then it would be morally right to hide a defenseless would be victim. Or to save your own life, it could be possible to say, "No! I killed them yesterday and had them for breakfast this morning. I love to join you in your killing rampage but I'm a bit full right now."

There are different degrees of lying. Bearing false witness in court is a criminal act. Putting up a snow job with your boss during a performance review is par for the course. Enron fudged facts that hurt thousands of people. Voodoo economics is a failed national policy. Disinformation is a winning stratagem of war and diplomacy. Most of these events are beyond a person's control.

What about the person who you are sharing your life with? The closest one to you? Your significant other? Surely if there is anybody you would like to be completely honest with you is your significant other.Or would you? We all lie to ourselves to prop up our own ego.

That orgasm was real - hey I'm a really good lover! The dryer shrunk my jeans. I wasn't a jerk last night when I said yes, she needed a boob job. I can quit cigarettes anytime I want to - I just don't want to right now. I'm going to quit drinking and this time - I mean it! If I can fake sincerity, then she will realize what a nice honest guy I am.I'm fine. I'm not angry. It's OK with me. I don't care.

In the 1993 movie by Quentin Tarantino, 'True Romance', Vincent Coccotti, (Christopher Walken) is using enhanced interrogation techniques on Mr. Worley, (Dennis Hopper) in the infamously brutal Sicilian scene. Part of the script is as follows.

Vincent Coccotti: You know… Sicilians are great liars, the best - in the world, I'm Sicilian, my father was the world's heavy weight champion of Sicilian liars. From growing up with him, I’ve learned the pantomime of liars. There are 17 different things a guy does when he lies - to give himself away. A woman got 20, but guys got 17. But if you know them - like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. Now, what we’ve got here is a little game of show and tell - you don't wanna show me nothing but you tell me everything.

How to Rebuild Trust.