by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: September 05, 2009   Last Updated: September 26, 2009

Lying is an art form. By the time a person reaches adulthood, the art of lying is either well developed because it works; or it has been abandoned because it results in painful consequences. The glib, gifted, skillful liar either has mechanisms for discouraging negative consequences, or considers the punishment to be less than the rewards of the crime.

Lying comes in various forms: The lie of commission is a deliberate fabrication expressed willingly in a statement that is untrue. The lie of omission, is an easier lie to tell by simply not including facts or statements that would be truthful. The lie of imposition is the act of passing on information that is known to be suspect or false.

At the worst end of the lying spectrum, the glib and habitual liar develops a compulsion to tell lies. Most of the lies are told for no obvious or reasonable purpose except to upset, control, infuriate, create attention, or to create as much negative drama as possible.

When confronted, the habitual liar argues aggressively and endlessly to wear a person down, has temper tantrums, infantile forms of automatic denial, flight, and a host of other mechanisms for avoiding resolution. When exposed, the habitual liar can just sit there and tune the whole situation out as if it is not happening.

The habitual liar is easily found out when groups of friends, coworkers or others begin to compare notes about what the person is saying. But when the habitual liar maintains different groups of people and keeps them well separated from each other, it is not as easy to discover the lies. The habitual liar generally exhibits no tell-tale signs, can adopt a complete lack of emotional engagement and affect, and cannot be negotiated with.

The ineffective liar will reveal a host of physical signs of lying: body language, sweating, refusal to make eye contact, eyes darting to the left (to the right if on television) while speaking, fidgeting, blushing, and twisting the body are examples. Ineffective liars are simply not used to lying, and have not developed the self control that allows concealment of the physical signs of lying.

Conflicting statements are the first sign that lying is going on. The honest person will admit to making a conflicting set of statements, even showing embarrassment or upset over not having caught the conflict. The glib liar will easily make excuses for the conflict, change the subject, or distract the listener from pursuing the matter so effectively that it is not until

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