Why do people lie even when they don't have to?

1 - Lying is important to this person in some way

Pathological lying is a condition in itself, but it can also be a symptom of other psychological issues, such as personality disorder or some manic episode of bipolarity. The fact is that these people lie because they believe it has some function and that the story they made up is meaningful in some way. Realizing that someone is raising a point, it is worth asking something like "It seems that this is really important to you, why?".

2 - Feeling like telling the truth is like losing control of the situation

Many lies are told by those who seek to be or remain in control of any situation. For these people, saying something that is not true is a way of influencing individuals to think or do what they want - they are afraid that the real scenario is "inconvenient" because it is not compatible with the things they say.

3 - Sometimes they don't want to disappoint someone

People deal differently with what they feel, and while you may see the truth as the greatest way out, it may not make sense to the compulsive liar. He, at heart, ends up telling one lie after another so as not to lose respect for those in his life. He wants to be well-liked, to make a good impression and to be valued, but he fears that if others knew the truth they would be ashamed of him or reject him.

4 - There is also the case of the lie that turns into a snowball

One thing leads to another, and suddenly what started out as lying information turned into a complete story, with other people and circumstances. This is because to cover a small lie you have to tell another lie, then the thing gets out of control. To the chronic liar, admitting a lie is the same as assuming to be a liar, which means lowering your guard completely and "losing."

5 - To the liar, that is not even a lie

The way we create our memories is not very reliable and always depends on the moment we are in and the pressure we feel. When an event is really intense, in a good or bad sense, we tend to create more emphatic, exaggerated memories, and each time we talk about it, our brains put new bits in the stories, as if they were a LEGO sculpture, and we ended up creating a new version of the event.

This happens to everyone, including the compulsive liar, who sometimes, from telling a lie so much, actually believes it. In some more serious cases, people who lie compulsively even create extremely complex parallel realities.

6 - They would like the lies they tell to be true

This is a very concrete possibility: sometimes the liar would really like his lie to be a truth, and so he overrides his natural instinct to tell the truth. Unconsciously, it is possible that liars believe that repeating a lie eventually becomes reality in some way.

In general, people speak the truth - so much so that many agreements have already been and will still be made based on the word spoken by someone. Our entire language was built on the belief in honesty, so we always use the same words - and their synonyms, of course - to talk about their meanings: whenever we say 'car', for example, we are referring to the object of four. wheels that serves as a means of transport, and possibly this will continue to be so.

Everyone lies to a lesser or greater extent, but even those who lie compulsively tend to be honest most of the time. While it's not good to know that someone is telling us a lie, it is interesting to try to understand the motivation behind the lie they are telling - questions such as “why is it so important to you?” Or “why do you need it? do I see the situation as you do? ”are interesting; and you shouldn't ask “why are you lying?” as this would only make the person defensive.

Demonstrating understanding with a person's feelings can make them more truthful, as well as recognizing how interesting it is when that person speaks honestly. We live in society: nothing more natural than helping each other understand and express themselves better, don't you think?

* Posted on 2/10/2017

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