In our social environment, we run into the danger that someone is lying to us, distorts a fact when reproducing it, or perhaps entirely omits an important detail. It is widely known that people from time to time say an untruth. The high prevalence of deception and lie telling is well documented in research (e.g. DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996). Our ability to notice or recognise deception and lies and in a next step to respond appropriately is not very far-reaching. We are only marginally capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Even trained people, such as police officers, succeed only slightly better than a lay person in detecting liars. Further on they are in no greater degree sure that a person is telling the truth (Akehurst, Koehnken, Vrij, & Bull, 1996).
Function of distrust
However, due to the very high probability of being deceived and being lied to in combination with our incapacity of knowing whether we can bestow somebody's faith, a good portion of distrust can be seen as healthy and in some extreme cases even important for survival? Previous research showed that distrust leads to a deeper and more accurate elaboration of information and as one possible consequence to the formation of alternative hypotheses, so-called counter scenarios (Schul, Burnstein, & Bardi, 1996; Schul, Mayo, & Burnstein, 2008). Distrust leads to a more elaborated information processing that allows a controlling for possible alternative explanations as well as possible inconsistencies. We assume that one of the most relevant functions of distrust is not to be guided through a first impression, or an obvious plausibility (Schul et al., 2008):
“distrust is interpreted as the tendency of individuals to...
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...). Additionally we asked them how they felt at that moment (scale -50 to +50).
Memory test. Afterwards the subjects were advised that the next task would again rely on the read report at the start of the study. They were told that their memory for these reports would now be tested. The subjects were presented to twenty statements (10 per report). They had to specify in each case (on a scale from 1 to 4) whether this statement coincide as regards content with the report or not. They were asked to decide as quickly and spontaneously as possible. Per report five statements were consistent with the report and five more were not in line with the story/report and represented a so-called counter scenario. We were interested in the false alarm rate, as proxy of the formation of counter scenarios. Finally the participants had to answer some demographic questions.
Results
In the article “Is Lying Bad for Us”, Richard Gunderman persuades his readers the effect of lying can have on our daily lives. He expresses strong opinions towards being honest and how lying has negative consequences on not only our mental health but
Although it is considered wrong to tell lies, it seems that literature has offered us situations where telling lies isn’t necessarily bad. Of course, lying often has a tragic outcome, but not always for the person or people who told the lie or lies. Oftentimes, these unfortunate outcomes are directed at the person about whom the lie was told. Furthermore, these stories have explained that dishonesty can result in success for both the liar and the target. Maybe we have been teaching the wrong values to our children.
As John Ruskin once said, “The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.” This essence is debated in “The Ways We Lie”, written by Stephanie Ericsson, and “Doubts about Doublespeak”, written by William Lutz. In “The Ways We Lie”, Ericsson talks about the different ways people lie on a day to day basis. By comparison, in “Doubts about Doublespeak”, Lutz discusses the different forms of doublespeak that many individuals frequently use. Lutz considers doublespeak as a language that distorts the meaning of words in order to deceive another person, and only “pretends to communicate” (83). Although both authors agree that lying is about the use of deceptive language, Ericsson describes this use of language as occasionally being necessary,
22). People mindlessly respond to avoid their true emotions. Truthfully, I was not fine, but exploding inside with nervousness. However, I didn’t attempt to burden anyone with my lack of confidence, so I told this untruth. Even though white lies may be harmless, they can lead to other deceptive lies labeled by the authors as gray, red, blue and colorless lies. Why do we tell lies? Interestingly, according to the (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013), “evolutionary biologists have proposed that Homo sapiens is indeed hard-wired to tell lies,” (page 25). Furthermore, we want to appear favorable to our friends and family and this may pressure us to justify our lies. According to (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) it is referred to as “impression management,” by social psychologists (p.27). Thus, lies allow others to see us as we want to be seen, such as I wanted the group to see me as a confident person who could handle obstacles and superbly interact with
We live in a world full of doubt and The Alchemist, a novel written by Paulo Coelho, surely grasps that concept. This is what human nature is to be cautious around the unknown and to not trust until the trust is earned, at least that is what I believe in.
From internet, television, and media tabloids the brains lacks the ability to differentiate between what is true and what is a lie. Each person has the
Lying is simply an act of not telling the truth, and this definition of lying will be used in future sections of this paper. There are three groups of lies t...
American writer and speaker, Dorothy Allison, once said “things come apart so easily when they have been held together by lies” (Allison). One of the first lessons that kids are taught is to be honest and always tell the truth. Being honest is not always easy, but the result of lying is much worse then telling the truth. In Animal Farm, George Orwell demonstrates how lies and deceit will ruin society if everyone always believes what the leader says, people lie to themself, and if laws are changed to benefit the group in power.
In our society there excites a general feeling of distrust. We live in a culture of false advertising and as a result we don’t know who we can trust. People are constantly afraid that the government, corporations and media, are lying to them. Stephen L. Carter’s article The Insufficiency of Honesty, captured my attention because it addressed this issue at its core and left me contemplating the issue of integrity vs. honesty. Currently, there is an outcry for honesty. But in truth honesty is not enough and not quit what we are looking for. Honesty is often used to deceive, to induce harm and to avert blame. What people are really searching for is integrity. Carter’s article address the difference between honesty and integrity and how honesty can be used dishonestly. He also discussed how long held beliefs effect our perception of honesty. All of these factors affect how we view our society and add to our feelings of mistrust.
In Gabbert’s social misinformation experiment, researchers have found that misinformation received from social sources are more likely to be imprinted into a subjects memory and be recalled later. It can even have an effect on memories not even discussed. This can be detrimental to not only everyday scenarios but in a police investigation it can be harmful to the investigation. In an investigation if witnesses discuss what occurred and one gives a false memory then the police may arrest the wrong suspect. This is also important if the investigation...
Ericsson argued that “telling the truth all the time is nearly impossible” (159). Lies are part of everyday life, like drinking coffee for breakfast. For Barkley, lies became a stifling part of his life. The two authors explained how lies can impact a society.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
People fail to notice when they are presented with something different from what they originally chose and tend to come up with explanations as to why they picked that specific choice. In this research paper, Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus discuss how choice blindness can lead to distorted eyewitness memories. In their experiment, the studied if the participants in their research realized modifications to their memory reports and if these changes could possibly effect the participants’ memory. Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus conducted two different experiments. Experiment 1 was constructed on two self-sourced vs. other-sourced between participants and two misinformation vs. control within participants. They had participants watch a slideshow that showed a woman intermingling with three other characters and one of them steals her wallet. Then they completed a personality measure in 15 minute retention interval which was followed by questions about their memories from the slideshow. After, they were given another 15 minute retention interval and then shown their responses to the memory question, but three of their responses were revised. According to Cochran, Greenspan, Bogart, and Loftus (2016), “experiment 1 demonstrated that when witnesses were exposed to altered versions of their own memory reports for episodic details of an event, their memories changed to be consistent with
Perina, Kaja. "Brain scans may be foolproof lie detectors. (Truth Serum)." Psychology Today Jan.-Feb. 2002: \. Student Resources in Context. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Goodwin, Kukucka, and Hawks (2013) investigated the relationship between confidence and memory in eyewitness testimony in their study. The goal of an eyewitness is to provide the information to an investigator as accurately as possible. However, eyewitnesses can be pressured into providing information that conforms to someone else’s views and provide wrong answers to fit into the society. Often, researchers discovered that, participants answered more correctly when they were alone versus when they were in a group (Goodwin, Kukucka, & Hawks, 2013). Moreover, confidence is an important part of a witness’s personality. Seventy nine percent of the participants were confident about their statement when they heard similar statements from other witnesses. The purpose of this study is to explain how witnesses’ confidence level rely on other people’s