by DThere

Created on: July 28, 2010   Last Updated: July 30, 2010

Why do people lie? Before we can answer this question we need to define what lying is. The word "lying" is derived from the word "lie" which means to intentionally not tell the truth or to mislead (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie, 2010). One does not lie by providing a false statement unknowingly. We see that a large component of lying includes an intention to misdirect others.

So why do people intentionally misinform, choose to misdirect, or decide to provide content that is untruthful? There are several reasons: habit, fear of getting in trouble, laziness, or the result of injury or disease. Lying resulting from habit comes from behavior formed from ones past. Perhaps as a child, someone just started lying and did not stop. The more one lies, the easier it is to continue to lie.

Lying out of fear of getting in trouble could be the result of having been severely punished in the past as a result of previous lying or accusations of lying.  But people lie not only to protect themselves from harm but also to deflect attention towards others. Perhaps, in many cases it is easier for someone else to take the blame for something we may have done. Or perhaps there is an issue we feel we are unable to handle so we deflect attention from ourselves. Often lying in order to avoid pain or punishment is a strong form of denial.

Lying derived from laziness results from the idea that often it is harder to be truthful about behavior or events that we participate in. Perhaps we just don't want to perform the required to remember what has transpired and it is easier to provide unchecked or unverified responses. For those not able to be truthful as a result of injury or disease, perhaps they do not lie if intent is absent. In many cases, though we just don’t know if intent is there or not.

There are also different kinds of lies: Small ones and ones that have great consequences. Small lies can include not telling the truth about what one had for lunch, exaggerating what transpired during an event that happened during the day, or just omitting information that was not included for a request - information that did not really need to be disclosed. Significant lies include not reporting all taxable income, not telling the truth about a crime, disclosing secret information, or not being honest with a spouse about our romantic involvement with someone else. These types of lies have consequences that can be life-changing if disclosed.

Often when one is

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