Lie and let lie
Who do I believe, who do I not believe? Most people are pretty bad at spotting untruths. Because good liars know clever tricks - and often don't even let lie detectors look at their cards.
Do you think you're a good liar? I mean, let's be honest! If you just spontaneously nodded internally, you're probably… male! Because, as psychologists led by Brianna Verigin found out, men consider themselves good liars twice as often as women. And they often say they get away with it.
The theme is as "Image" as humanity. Who do I believe and who not? Who can I trust and who is using this to twist the truth. Researchers have long tried to identify the characteristics by which liars can be identified. Sometimes it was said that they avoided eye contact, or they stared far too obviously into the eyes of the other person. Because lying requires additional thinking, it encourages small pauses and interruptions in the flow of speech, as well as particularly large gestures intended to cover up the fibbing. The catch with all these telltale signs: They are no good! At least little more than guessing. Apparently we're a lot worse at detecting lies than we think we are. And the so-called lie detectors look for stress signals such as a rapid heartbeat or reduced skin resistance - and they often miss it, too, because decent people are already excited by the procedure, while psychopaths play their game ice-cold without a beat of the pulse. alt="
The researchers around Verigin asked almost 200 people how often and to whom they had lied in the last 24 hours. Lo and behold: there are quite a lot of honest ones! According to their own statements - okay, this restriction must be. The second surprise: 40 percent of all lies come from a small but hard core of false fifties. This reminds me of a study of social media frenzy, where most of the bullshit was posted by very few, but distorted the worldview of many. The anonymous lie on the net is not the most common form, but – hold on tight: telling the other person straight in the face, and in the closest circle at that.
The self-confident liar's strategy for success is: remain as plausible as possible by embedding the smut in a true story. Bad liars tend to be vague because they don't want to give themselves away. Clever tricksters, on the other hand, say a lot of things that are halfway true, exaggerate mildly, withhold what is important and invent no more than they have to - and if they do, then things that are hardly verifiable. Italians know the beautiful saying "Se non è vero, è molto ben trovato" - "It is not true, but beautifully invented"! I didn't make it up, it really does exist. Don't say me, Giordano Bruno said. say. I was not there. But it's on the internet. Oh, it won't work anymore once the trust is gone.
Unsurprisingly, most lies are found in the family. After all, most accidents happen at home. Because you're there often. It seems particularly difficult to deceive people who know you well. So the bottom line is the well-known truth: How can you tell if a man is lying? He moves his mouth.
