How Lying Works

When you're young, there's one lesson that gets hammered into you more often than others: Tell the truth. Tell the truth, you're told, and everything will be OK. Then why does Mom call her boss claiming to be sick when she's not, and why does Dad say Mom's dress doesn't make her look fat? The lesson didn't stick for them when they were little, and it didn't stick with you or me, either.

Lying isn't a sign of moral depravity (except when it is). Lying is a sign of cognitive advancement. It requires a fertile and high-functioning brain to take something as simple as the truth and twist it, palming off the deception on someone else with the earnestness of a choirboy.

The problem with the truth is that it doesn't always serve our purposes, further our careers or keep us out of trouble. When you can take the route made of imagination, best-case scenarios and wish fulfillment, you'd be nuts not to take a deceitful stroll toward your goals, right?

Younger children believe that they're always being watched, and that Mom (or some other authority figure) knows all. For this reason, they're initially more inclined to tell the truth. As they get a little older, they begin experimenting with lies: The dog is blue, my shirt is made of copper, the cookie told me so. For the very young, lying is a series of cause-and-effect experiments. When does a lie work? What kind of lie? What is a believable lie? Is the jig ever up, or should I keep lying until the truth is just a vague memory for all parties?

Around age 2 or 3, children realize that they're not under constant observation by an all-knowing, all-seeing Eye of Truth. A typical 4-year-old stretches the truth once every two hours, while 6-year-olds will tell a whopper every 90 minutes [source: Bronson]. They're applying their earlier lie studies toward the general goals of all truth-stretchers: gaining advantage, staying out of trouble and "bigging" themselves up in the eyes of others. As children become older, they become more skilled at deception. And they never really stop. Continue reading to learn the truth, or something like it, about lying.

The ability to lie is a cognitive accomplishment. While we look down on the practice from a moraland ethical point of view, lying isn't normally done without a pretty good motive. Lies are told for some of the following reasons:

To conceal misdeeds and stay out of trouble

to preserve reputation

To avoid hurting someone`s feelings

Tor increase stature and reputation

To manipulate

To control information

Signs of Deception

There is no single telltale sign of lying, but rather a constellation of possible signs that may "leak" from the liar during the act. We'll discuss both verbal and nonverbal signs of lying in this section.

First, we'll examine some nonverbal signs of lying. One sign that escapes most people is the flashing of a microexpression.Microexpressions are superquick expressions that cross over people's faces against their will and without their awareness. These provide a true look at their honest feelings about a matter. While most people aren't looking for such clues, a good many of us detect them without knowing what just happened. The information we glean -- detecting a millisecond-long look of anger in the middle of a smile -- is often chalked up to intuition or a "gut feeling." If your "gut" is telling you something isn't quite right with a person, you very well may have detected a microexpression on that person's face that doesn't mesh with what he or she is saying.

Another nonverbal sign of lying is a forced smile, which generally involves only the muscles of the mouth and not the rest of the face. A sign of deception is a smile or other gesture -- such as nodding "yes" during a denial -- that contradicts what is being said. When we normally interact, both speech and body language happen naturally, without specific thought. When we lie, however, not only must we appraise the truth, construct a plausible lie and then verbalize it, we must also decide which body gestures best match the lie, or rather best represent the telling of the truth. All of this thought leads to mis-matching words and body language.

Someone who's lying may feel attacked and get in a defensive position. He or she might turn away from the questioner, cross his or her arms or even move farther away. Liars may noticeably fidget, especially during a pause in the conversation.

There are other nonverbal cues that many people think are surefire signs of lying but aren't, such as increased blinking, scratching the face or nose, or placing a hand over the mouth while speaking. These signs are only good indicators when they represent a change in the person's normal behavior (that is, the behavior immediately preceding the suspected lie). Maybe the guy who's blinking a lot has an eyelash in his eye, and the girl covering her mouth is just self-conscious; however, if the person doesn't blink often during the first three statements and blinks like crazy and scratches his or her neck while giving the fourth statement, then that statement warrants closer examination.

Someone telling a lie will also leak verbal clues that point to dishonesty. Since he or she has to invent an answer, a lie-teller will often spend more time searching for the right word in the course of telling a story. The person might take too long to provide an answer or get words mixed up. To get extra time to think, a liar won't use contractions (opting for "cannot" instead of "can't") and may also repeat questions ("Where was I last night?" or "You want to know what I was doing yesterday?").

Since they have to create an alternate reality apart from the truth, liars have difficulty knowing how much of the new story to tell and will often include unnecessary details.

How to Lie

Whether you are complimenting a friend on his unpalatable Thanksgiving dinner or telling the authorities you don't know how the drugs got in your car, all of us at some point tell lies. These lies can range from little white lies meant to lubricate social situations and relationships to hide-saving whoppers that will go down in infamy.

Here's how you do it.

• Stay calm. The person you're lying to will be closely monitoring your speech and behavior. The act of lying may quicken your heartbeat or increase your blood pressure. Behave as if you have nothing to hide. Beware of your own anger at being put on the spot -- this might create microexpressions of contempt or rage.

• Keep it simple. Lying takes great imagination and effort. While we're conjuring up alternate scenarios and realities, our minds fill in all the extra details that come in handy. Liars tend to tell far too many irrelevant details, and they do this to further "prove" the lie is the truth. More often than not, this extra information stands out because it has little or nothing to do with the question. Keeping the lie simple makes it easier to keep the "facts" straight. Adding extra details will only trip you up when the questioning focuses on the details, because these extra bits of information may not add up to a coherent and plausible lie.

• Remain steady. It's important that you keep an evenness to your mannerisms and mood before, during and after the lie. If you're feeling nervous before your lie, keep acting nervous. If you're relaxed before someone hits you with an unexpected question, stay relaxed. It's the shift in tone and body language that will clue someone in to your fabricating ways. Once the questioning is over, don't suddenly relax or appear relieved. If you were agitated while lying, stay agitated after the lying is finished. A person standing watch in a guard tower looks for motion or a change in the environment, and so too does a person looking for a lie. Give him or her as little as possible to work with.

• Make the listener like you. You're trying to tell a lie, and the listener wants to hear the truth. You must make him or her believe your lie is the truth. Think of it this­ way: We're less likely to suspect those we feel close to, partly because it would be too disruptive to the relationship to believe there is deception.

Also, we're offended by lies because they are signs of disrespect. So when we lie, we must give the listener no reason to doubt our worth or our perception of their worth. Think: We're both adults. We both like each other. You have a question? Here's the answer, and let's move on. Don't grovel for the listener's approval or try to be too ingratiating. That's what liars do. Don't include statements like, "Are you mad at me?" Why would the person be mad at you unless you're being deceitful? He or she wants the truth, but running a close second is the need to believe that you wouldn't lie.