Mind Matters: Everyone lies

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on October 13, 2018

Do you lie? Have you ever lied? You lie if you say you never have. Everyone, even a toddler, has lied sometime, somewhere. Our ability to lie goes hand in hand with our wanting to trust others. “Our capacity for dishonesty is as fundamental to us as our need to trust others, which ironically makes us terrible at detecting lies,” says Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (“Why We Lie,” National Geographic, June, 2017).

Some people lie to deflect from their own bad behavior, either blaming someone else or making up excuses. We may lie to ourselves or to others by rationalizing, which is a great way to dodge chores: “Oh, I didn’t know where to put that … so I left it in the car.”

People also lie as an inflation of themselves: the grandiosity of making oneself bigger and better than anyone else.

Lying is manipulation. Yet there may be times that it is innocuous or may even save your life. I remember the prospective boyfriend in college who wanted to win me over by saying that he read the liberal Catholic magazines (the ones he knew I subscribed to). He lied, but I dated him anyway.

I also remember the times when I lied. It may not have been life-saving, but it felt like it was at the time. In this case, my future husband (not the magazine fellow) and I were leaving a restaurant in Washington, D.C., after having gone to a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War (this was 1968). As we were walking down the street, we were met by a cadre of large men in blue, not allowing us to go past them. I could feel the tension rising in both them and my beau. I said gently, “But officers, our buses are that way and we are getting on the bus.” They let us through. No, we weren’t getting on any bus — we had driven ourselves — but we also weren’t going to cause any trouble either.

Even as a kid I remember using my mother as an excuse not to go somewhere or do something that I didn’t want to do. “Mommy, can I say ‘No, you don’t want me to?’” It was my way of saving face with a friend. The hope is that as we mature, we can be more forthright with our convictions.

However, in the grander scheme of things, because lying is a manipulation, it is a power game. What complicates matters is that we humans are so easily deceived and are so gullible.

Bhattacharjee cites how researchers have found that, “We’re prone to believe some lies even when they’re unambiguously contradicted by clear evidence.”

Sadly, we can be easily duped by people in power who lie powerfully. The brain of an habitual liar, scientists say, actually changes in a way that makes the lying easier. The amygdala in our brain gets inured to recurrent lying. There is a reason why, with the age of reason, we want our children to internalize a moral compass and understand the difference between truths and lies, right and wrong.

Sissela Bok, a noted professor of ethics who wrote Lying: Moral Choice and Private Life, tells Bhattacharjee: “Lying is so easy compared to other ways of gaining power.”

We want to trust and want to hear what we want to hear. “When we are fed falsehoods by people who have wealth, power, and status, they appear to be even easier to swallow …”

Unfortunately, all the facts and evidence that even a Sherlock could produce is not enough to refute errant beliefs and prejudices. Both Professor George Lakoff and Briony Swire-Thompson’s research would attest to this, according to Bhattacharjee.

So, “you can fool all the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time!” Or can you?

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “Honesty may be the best policy, but scheming and dishonesty are part of what makes us human,” National Geographic, June, 2017.
Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 1978.
William Wan and Sarah Kaplan, “Why liars lie: What science tells us about deception,” The Washington Post, October 8, 2018.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.