The reassurance can give a frightened psyche time and space to work on possible solutions, which is harder to do when you are in a state of panic, anxiety or dread. Sometimes the comfort of believing someone is the solution to their lies, as it was with my friend whose denial allowed her to stay with her husband.
When parents find clear proof that a pre-adolescent child is drinking alcohol or doing drugs, for example, denying the evidence can be highly destructive. Of course, it is important not to make unfounded or untrue accusations, but it is equally important that a child know that you will not simply hide from painful truths.
A young person who is drinking or doing drugs needs parental guidance and a failure to acknowledge this need might make everyone feel better in the short term but create difficulties in the long term. In other cases, children who are sexually assaulted by an adult are not always believed by other adults. It is sadly common to hear stories of some mothers accepting lies told by boyfriends, husbands and siblings over the truth told by a child.
For a variety of reasons, they may not have the emotional strength to respond in any other way. Sometimes mothers are more afraid of the offender than of the offense. Or, they may have been molested or otherwise hurt as children themselves, or feel incapable of caring for their children on their own. They come to feel like their only psychological choice is to believe the lie.
In business as well, it can be hard to accept that a trusted colleague is doing something underhanded, so we accept their lies until the damage is done and undeniable. More often than not, you will hear something that sounds off if you are being lied to.
Watch this fascinating video of Pamela Meyer telling you how to spot a liar. If you are certain you are being lied to, you can react in one out of four ways:. However you react, make sure you allow the defendant to admit to their wrongdoing without harsh accusations. As we already discovered, lying is not much more than an instinct in a lot of cases. React with compassion.
Ask questions. Learn about the root of the behavior. What brought them to lie? Is it possible to continue the relationship forward without damage from the lie?
Empathy goes a long way. You may benefit from actively convincing the liar you have walked in their shoes. And they try to deceive you out of petty cash. See how they will react. More often than not, a liar will back off from their bold claims, and let you have your money. They might even admit to their lying. What should you do if it is a close one that you are catching in a lie?
First rule, calm down and try to be objective. You have probably told them a couple white lies here and there. And maybe a couple heavier ones. You have benefitted way too many times from them not being able to catch you in a lie.
What is more scary, even CIA specialists, whose work it is to spot lies, are not as good at doing it. But when you do catch a close friend it could feel very bad. You immediately forget about all of the times you lied to them. And you feel betrayed and ashamed. It is almost like you did something wrong. It feels like an insult.
Our advice is to not avoid the conversation about it. Lies between friends and family must be cleared immediately, otherwise they could be very toxic to even the most unmovable relationships. Try to be objective. And to let them off the hook easily. They only lied to you this one time. Avoid projecting on them all those times you were suspicious, unless you have admission of guilt. Do not perpetuate the bad behavior. Be careful not to use insults, too many accusations… or new lies.
Stay honest, and speak your truth. Only time will tell if your relationship is doomed. What if it is serious? Even criminal? Before you decide how you will react to the lie, consider the recent history of similar situations. The more serious the lie, the more significant the consequences. And some of those may reflect on you. If it is criminal, make sure you are taking the right course of action legally — reporting, confessing, testifying. Sometimes, not reacting will also be detrimental to you.
It could cost you your family, your job, or you could even serve time, depending on the context of the lie. We all lie a lot. Mostly, to protect ourselves from… God knows what. And we rarely get caught. So we are used to ignoring the consequences. We take disproportionate risks. We lie about serious matters in order to get ahead, even if the consequences could cause us our family, our money, or even our freedom. We know how to avoid getting caught. But do we? Becoming braver and braver in our lying, taking larger and larger risks with diminishing returns?
Is it worth it? Next time before you are about to tell a lie, think again. From Mr. Blonde to Jack Bauer, Ethan Hunt to Dexter and across a slew of cop shows we're offered fictions in which heroes and heroines are torturers, who threaten torture, who ramp up their interrogation violence in glitzy, even funny ways - although the camera shies away from showing anything too dreadful.
It's sexier to flirt with the idea of torture than show the hours of degradation, the scars of abuse, still punishing decades later. And politics being, as they say, showbiz for ugly people - the lure of torture as a no-nonsense, macho necessity can seem irresistible. What once was held to be a practice of dark regimes is now presented as a not-too-embarrassing home truth, softened by a Hollywood makeover.
It has been redefined as "torture lite", or something a refugee victim did to themselves, the bad habit a useful ally may yet grow out of, the useful habit we exploit in bad allies, something threaded darkly through UK court proceedings. But those who find the practice of torture acceptable have not only abandoned their humanity, they have also forgotten their history and fallen for a lie in search of truth.
Arguably the first manual for witch-hunters, the Malleus Malificarum - first published in - included a warning that torture victims might say anything to stop the pain.
In Cautio Criminalis, printed in , former witch confessor Friedrich Spee also warns against the tainting effects of pain and the tendency of one untrue confession to unleash a cascade of exponentially unreliable information.
He notes that if both confession and silence are taken as signals of guilt then everyone is guilty. Truth evaporates. Combine observer bias with unfettered cruelty and paranoia and you get the Holy Inquisition's centuries of pain. You walk inside Abu Ghraib, the Columbia Haus, the Lubyanka, buildings where innocence becomes impossible and the only truth that emerges concerns torture itself - that torture isn't about information.
What it gathers is often useless, or worse. Torture is a promise of terror - enough terror to subdue a mind or a population. Except, of course, the promise is a lie.
Torture blinds security forces with repetitions of the nightmares they brought with them and it begs for justice, creates opposition. Among other forms of resistance, torture produces whistle-blowers, people who can walk into buildings infected with inhumanity and remain human.
Analysing the content of the tweets themselves, the MIT team found that lies tended to be more novel and exciting than the truth. The lies were also better at triggering an emotional response — tweets that users sent in reply to a lie often contained words conveying their surprise or disgust. So not only do lies push our emotional buttons, but sharing them makes us feel good, too.
So whoever it was who said that lies travel fast was right… now we just need to find a way of stopping them. Subscribe and get the full article delivered to your door, or download the BBC Focus app to read it on your smartphone or tablet.
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