Wondering if your date is lying to you when he says he forgot to respond to your last text because he was so busy? Well, he might be. Men are convinced they’re better at lying and getting away with it than women according to new research from University of Portsmouth.
A research study led by Dr. Brianna Verigin indicates men are ” twice as likely as women to consider themselves to be good at lying and at getting away with it.” People who are good at lying typically prefer to do it face-to-face rather than via text or social media and are more likely to lie to people close to them, like romantic partners, family and friends.
Dr. Verigin also said: “We found a significant link between expertise at lying and gender. Men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it.
“Previous research has shown that most people tell one-two lies per day, but that’s not accurate, most people don’t lie everyday but a small number of prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies reported.
“What stood out in our study was that nearly half (40 per cent) of all lies are told by a very small number of deceivers. And these people will lie with impunity to those closest to them.
“Prolific liars rely on a great deal on being good with words, weaving their lies into truths, so it becomes hard for others to distinguish the difference, and they’re also better than most at hiding lies within apparently simple, clear stories which are harder for others to doubt.”
The study was conducted via quizzing 194 people, meaning that the men and women answered the researchers how many times they lied in the past 24 hours. Meaning, this type of self-reporting comes with some problems of its own since people can lie about their tendencies to lie.
The researchers found that liars tend to use the strategy of withholding information and staying as close to the truth as possible in order to get away with it. Expert liars tend to go a step beyond that and embellish the lie with a lot more truths sprinkled in so it’s harder to spot the lie.
The people not good at lying tended to be vague with their lies. The most common type of lies, in descending order, tended to be “white lies”, exaggerations, hiding information and burying lies in truths. The final on the list, blatantly making things up.
Citation:
University of Portsmouth. “Men think they’re better liars.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 December 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191220105633.htm>.
