BLOGPOST #8: "IT'S IN OUR NATURE"

Do you believe that tooth fairies, Santa Claus, and Easter Bunny exists? Because when I was young I believe in them but now,not anymore. My parents made me believe that there's this kind of things. But why? Why people lie to make things less daunting?

I read an article entitled "Scholars Say It`s True: Lying Is Part Of Human Nature" by Jon Van in the site www.chicagotribune.com, which states that scholars believed lying and the human capacity for self-deception is the thing that separates human beings from other animals. It's not our ability to reason or use tools, but our ability to tell lies. 


Robert Sussman, an anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said that the appearance in the fossil record of burials, burial goods and, later, cave art are the first evidence of the ability of humans to deceive themselves and to create culturally determined perceptions of nature.

He said that deception is socially adaptive for humans. It's almost a necessity for human beings to perceive the world. Loyal D. Rue, a professor of religion and philosophy at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, supported this statement."The 'lies' we see in nature and culture are life-support systems," Rue said. "We can't survive without them. Deception is a strategy that we use to save ourselves from social and psychological chaos." Lying has been in our everyday lives. We even ask someone if how they're doing just out of respect when we don't even really mean it. Even in simple things, we lie but we don't consider it as bad. We lie in order to socialize with everybody.

In addition to that, I read an article entitled "Lies a Part of Human Nature" by Chris Cotter in the site www.headsupenglish.com, which states that lies are an indivisible part of human nature.

From the past, our parents lied to us about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. We lied in order to avoid hurting another's feelings. We lie to ourselves to make our present situations less daunting. Psychologist Paul Ekman said, "We lie to escape punishment, to elude uncomfortable social situations, to give ourselves an ego boost, to receive a reward, to protect someone, or to control the flow of information." We call this white lies. We lie for our own good and sometimes, white lies isn't considered as bad since we do it for good tings.

In the end, lying is literally part our nature. Lies, some experts argue, are the glue which holds society together. It's the bond that makes us socially acceptable.

BLOGPOST #7: "BUSTED!"

There are ways to spot liars. But spotting is hard because it takes a lot of skill in doing it. You need to be patient enough to learn all the necessary things in spotting a liar.

I read an article entitled, "10 ways to catch liars" from the site webmd.com by Heather Hatfield. Stated that, There are some tips in busting a liars. Like inconsistencies. They are not consistent in their words. In every word they say it changes over time. Ask the unexpected, when you ask a unexpected question to the liar. They might lose their focus on the lies that they made. Gauge against a baseline, their behaviour changer over the time because of the situation. No matter what excuses they made truth we'll still prevail.

Newsberry said, "When you want to know if someone is lying, look for inconsistencies in what they are saying." Not all people can excuse his/her self." They're still a hole that the truth will be find out. Even if a person who is so good in lying has some flaws. You just need to be observant in how you deal with them because all of them has a weakest point.

Another article I read entitled, "Evaluating Truthfulness and Detecting Deception" from the fbi.gov by David Matsumoto. Stated that, Lies can be betrayed in verbal and nonverbal  independently. However, the authors have chosen to examine this area, analyzing the combined contribution of verbal and nonverbal to the prediction of deception or truthfulness. In their latest study, the authors examined videos of dedicated members of ideologically motivated groups. Separate studies analyzed two types of lies. One involved participants in a situation in which they chose whether to steal $50 in cash from a briefcase and later were interviewed about their guilt (the crime scenario). In another analysis, participants decided to lie or tell the truth about their beliefs concerning their political cause (the opinion scenario). Each instance involved stakes—if researchers judged them as lying, the subjects lost their participation fee and faced 1 hour of white-noise blasts while sitting on a cold, steel chair in a small, cramped room.

David Matsumoto said, "Training and practice can help individuals and groups leverage facial expressions...other nonverbal behaviors, and statement analysis to better evaluate truthfulness." Because of other facial expressions of emotion, and cues in verbal statements, we must focused to detect them. In many situations, some focus primarily on a suspect's story, rather than how they tell it or what they show while conveying it. They must do more than simply be aware of expressions while not allowing such multitasking to dilute their skills.With training and practice, investigators can become more aware of what they see in the form of microexpressions. They should become aware of microexpressions and how to spot them, as well as the basic techniques of statement analysis. They should learn them well enough.

BLOGPOST #6: "CROSSFINGER"

Have you caught someone lying to you? What did you do to him/her? Are you in good terms? If we could just knew what is the truth so that they will not lie to us. Maybe they have certain reasons but lying is still wrong. As much as possible we need to refrain from lying because it might in danger us.

I read an article entitled, "Believe or Deceive" from the site livescience.com by Denise Chow. Stated that, Lying may be a common human behavior to us, but despite the inevitable nature of deception, humans are surprisingly inconsistent when it comes to separating fact from fiction. Example, many people think liars shy away from making eye contact, blink a lot or fidget as they speak. People are no better or worse at detecting lies than if they had left their judgement up to chance. It's harder for people to know if they're telling the truth or not.

Honts said, "People lie for all kinds of different reasons: Impression management, to obtain an advantage, to avoid punishment, and some of these are obviously more serious than others." We lie for a specific purpose maybe it is important or not. But some liars are so good that you can't even detect that their lying. If you knew the person you will easily find it out. But if not, then it will be harder for you.

Another article I read entitled, "Detecting Deception" from www.apa.org by Rachel Adelson. Stated that, "Liars' answer sound more exclusive and ambivalent, the structure of their stories is less logical, and their stories sound less believable," they say. Liars also use fewer hand movements to illustrate their actions but are more likely to repeat words and phrases. Fewer first-person pronouns because liars avoid statements of ownership, distance themselves from their stories and avoid taking responsibility for their behaviour. More negative emotion words, such as hate, worthless and sad. Liars, are generally more anxious and sometimes feel guilty. Fewer exclusionary words, such as except, but or nor words that indicate that writers distinguish what they did from what they did not do. Liars seem to have a problem with this complexity, and it shows in their writing.

Psychologist, Paul Ekman said,  "It's much harder to find the truth than to find a lie. A good lie-catcher is good at identifying truthfulness."  It's much easier to find people who are liars than people who are telling the truth. In lying, you are pleasing a person. You want him/her to feel comfortable and make him/her happy.

BLOGPOST #5: "PARENTAL EYES"

Have you ever thought of your parents lying? Well, of course, they are because they're human beings just like you and me. But the irony is that parents teach their children not to lie. 

I read an article entitled "When parents lie to their children" by Christian Jarrett in the site bps-research-digest.blogspot.com states that majority of the parents lie to control their children's behavior. Gail Heyman and her colleagues presented 114 parents in the USA and 85 in China with 16 so-called "instrumental lies" in four categories - lies intended to influence the kids' eating habits (e.g. "you need to finish all your food or you will get pimples all over your face"); lies to get the children to leave or stay put (e.g. "If you don't come with me now, I will leave you here by yourself); lies to control misbehavior (e.g. "If you don't behave I will call the police"); and finally, lies to do with shopping and money (e.g. "I did not bring any money with me today. We can come back another day.").

84% of US parents and 98% of Chinese parents admitted telling at least one of the 16 lies to their children, and a majority of parents in both countries admitted to telling lies from three of the four categories. The exception was the behavior category - just half the US parents said they told lies to make the behavior of their children better, compared with 80 per cent of Chinese parents. The biggest percentage leads to the lie that the parents were threatening to leave a child alone if he/she refused to obey his/her parents.

In relation to misbehavior and eating, China ranked higher than the US in the rates of lying by parents. "This cross-cultural difference may reflect greater concern with social cohesiveness and a greater emphasis on respect and obedience," the researchers said. Kids see elders lie, so they learn from it. Parents and elders are role models for children so what they saw, they'll also do it. 

Parents tell lies to their children so that they would follow and obey them. Heyman said that their study helps fill a void in an understudied area that may have strong implications for children's social and moral development.

In other article I read entitled,"Parents lie to their children" by Sean Coughlan from the site www.bbc.co.uk. The study, published in the International Journal of Psychology, examined the use of "instrumental lying" - and found that such tactically-deployed falsehoods were used by an overwhelming majority of parents in both the United States and China - based on interviews with about 200 families.

The researchers, headed by Gail D. Heymana, Anna S. Hsua, Genyue Fub and Kang Leeac said "The pervasiveness of this lie may relate to the universality of the challenge parents face in trying to leave a place against their child's wishes."  Important moral questions for parents about when, if ever, parental lying is justified. So that they have an explanation and also to defend their side.

BLOGPOST #4: "LOOK INTO MY EYES"

Have you ever heard of the saying that if you look directly to the eye of the person, you can see if he's lying or not? Well, basically for me, I heard that a lot. Others say it's true because a lying person can't look directly into the eyes while some don't.

I read an article entitled "The truth about lying: it's the hands that betray you, not the eyes" by Adam Sherwin in the site independent.co.uk which states that the "lying eyes" are actually a myth. Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire, conducted a research says that verbal hesitations and excessive hand gestures may prove a better guide to whether a person is telling untruths.

Many psychologists believe that when a person looks up to their right they are likely to be telling a lie. Looking up to the left, on the other hand, is said to show honesty.But the experts are wrong, according to Professor Wiseman and his team of researchers, who tested whether eyes really can reveal lies.

The claimed link between lying and eye movements is a key element of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a method of enhancing people's lives using psychological techniques. An important aspect of NLP involves teaching people about the relationship between their eye movements and their thoughts. According to the theory, when right-handed people look up to their right they are likely to be visualizing a "constructed" event. In contrast, when they look to their left they are likely to be visualizing a "remembered" memory. For this reason, when liars are constructing their own version of the truth, they tend to look to the right.

Co-author Dr. Caroline Watt, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "A large percentage of the public believes that certain eye movements are a sign of lying, and this idea is even taught in organisational training courses. Our research provides no support for the idea and so suggests that it is time to abandon this approach to detecting deceit." We should not assume that everybody is a liar but they can be a liar. So we should be careful enough, even our friends can lie to us. I'm not saying that leave your friends. You should just be careful in everything that you will say if it's the truth or not.

In another article I read entitled, "The truth about lying" by Jenna Mcarthy from the site realsimple.com. Stated that, Most lies aren’t meant to be hurtful to others; rather, they’re meant to help the one doing the fibbing. For self-preservation. While it may be instinctual, people who frequently cover up innocent errors may start to feel as if they have permission to be irresponsible. Also, lying for them to shift the blame on others.

David Smith said, “It lets you manipulate the way you want to be seen by others.” Though lying can have a advantage still lying is not right. But sometimes it applies to a situation. Manipulating the minds of the other is not good. You are making them believe a story that you made up in order to see in you what you want to be seen.

BLOGPOST #3: "TELL ME, WHY LIE?"

People lie all the time. Well, not always, it's just that they need it to escape their own troubles and problems. Black lies and White lies are just the same, whether they're big or small. They're still lies wherever you look at it. I experienced when I was a kid, I always lie whenever I break a glass. I'm scared because, if my mother will know about this, she will scold and shout at me for breaking it. So, to escape this situation, I will lie and tell her that I don't know what happened and maybe a kid knocked it off somehow. So, why lie?

I read an article entitled "Why We Lie " on the site www.livescience.com by Robin Lloyd which states that some lies are not really harmful. Some researchers said that lying is the best approach for protecting privacy, ourselves, and others from malice. 

University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman said, "It's tied in with self-esteem.We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels." People lie because they don't want to be stepped down by other people. They have this genuinely pride in themselves. They always thought that they are higher than other people so, when someone comes in who is better than themselves, they're scared. They lie by saying they're better.

Men lie no more than women, but they tend to lie to make themselves look better, while women are more likely to lie to make the other person feel better. For example, Donna who is a very fat lady asked Lily, her friend, if she looks fat in her dress. Lily, as all women would normally do, would say she looks pretty in her dress, leaving the unanswered. She doesn't want to hurt her friend's feelings.

Extroverts tend to lie more than introverts, Feldman found in similar research involving a job-interview situation. Feldman said that People should become more aware of the extent to which we tend to lie and that honesty yields more genuine relationships and trust. The default ought to be to be honest and accurate ... We're better off if honesty is the norm. It's like the old saying: honesty is the best policy.

Another article I read entitled, "Lie" from the site online.wsj.com by Dan Ariely. Stated that, Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats—just by a little. Except for a few people  at the top and bottom, the behavior of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible; on the other hand, we want to view ourselves as honest honorable people.

Dan Ariely said that, "Nearly everyone cheats a little if given the opportunity." We are not perfect that's why all of us cheats or tell lies. It's part of our human life, most likely it is normal. But it is not normal to make it as a hobby. It all depends in a situation because sometimes lying and cheating can be effective and sometimes are not.