Most of us are pretty truthful—and even tall tale tellers tell the truth about lying. Wait, what?
In a survey, more than 500 Amsterdam psychology students reported how often they lied. Forty-one percent said they told no lies, 51 percent told one to five lies per day, and eight percent told six or more lies a day. All told, a mere five percent of the students were responsible for 40 percent of the lies.
The study is in the journal Human Communication Research. [Rony Halevy, Shaul Shalvi and Bruno Verschuere, Being Honest About Dishonesty: Correlating Self-Reports and Actual Lying]
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Ah, but how can we be sure the participants were honest about lying?
The researchers asked some of the students to play games for a cash reward. Lying could earn them extra money. But they did not know that researchers could tell when they cheated.
And the big cheaters were the liars who admitted that they fibbed. Their honesty suggests they feel little remorse about lying. Which jibes with tests that find that liars tend to get higher scores for psychopathic traits. And that’s the truth.
—Sophie Bushwick
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
