Lying Phenomenon

A phenomenon, in a scientific context, is something that is observed to occur, or fundamentally exist, such as lying, which is any communicative act that aims to the cause receivers to adopt, or persist in, a false belief.

Most people lie occasionally, although there are individual differences in how often lies are told. Lying is a part of normal child development, emerging early in life. This compulsion usually starts during childhood, often as a way of coping with difficult feelings of shame or anxiety.

For many lies, the reasons are complicated. Sometimes it's to avoid being punished; to protect someone else from punishment; to escape being embarrassed; to hide an awkward situation, or to simply have others think better of the person telling the fib.

In summary, a lie is an assertion that is false, typically used with the object of deceiving or misleading, often explained by different psychological principles of psychodynamic theory; humanistic theory; behavior theory etc...

Pathological lying, also known as 'mythomania' and 'pseudologia fantastica', is the chronic behavior of compulsive or habitual lying. Unlike telling the occasional ‘white lie’ to avoid hurting someone's feelings or getting in trouble, a pathological liar seems to lie for no apparent reason and can be a symptom of various personality disorders.

Meanwhile, a big lie is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used especially as a propaganda technique.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels

Lying politicians?are a product of society's devaluing of the truth. In a world that has so undermined veracity, a person who could not lie (a truthful person) is called a "Pinocchio".

While our brains have evolved in magnificent ways to help us learn, grow and thrive, we still need to be cautious of believing everything our mind tells us. This is because our brain deploys hacks and shortcuts to make sense of all the information received and attend to it. In particular when we're tired, overloaded or under pressure, and when we feel at threat or out of our comfort zone, our brain will deploy shortcuts.

These hacks and shortcuts (referred to as cognitive errors, in psychology) can lead our brains to essentially tell us lies and lead us to make errors in our thinking, decisions and interpretations. In turn, this distorted thinking can show up in the way in which we behave, the actions we take, and the actions we avoid.

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.” ?Benjamin Disraeli

Typically, lying is a scalar phenomenon that allows for a number of intermediate cases, the most obvious being cases of uncertainty. It's usually easier for a person to believe and live with a lie, than to have one's mind changed by information that is new and novel.?

One can't always change the behavior of a liar, but can change how one feel and react to them. Believing?that?lies?would become true blunts moral condemnation.

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” ?Friedrich Nietzsche

'Nature?Neuroscience' reported a study of the amygdala (the part of the brain dealing with emotional responses), whereby, researchers affirmed that the amygdala manifest less and less, as we lie more and more, essentially, making our guilt feelings tend to weaken and shrink.

Thus, the act of lying to yourself, having false notions about things, and refusing to acknowledge the truth is self deception. The roots of such seem to?lie in the mind's ability to allay anxiety by distorting awareness.

When reality bites, denial soothes. It is a type of defense mechanism that involves ignoring the reality of a situation to avoid anxiety, it helps?us process the storm of emotions that comes with grief by shielding us from the blow of a great trauma.

Sigmund Freud saw that the mind, with remarkable alacrity, can deny a range of facts it would rather avoid and then not seem to know that it has done so...

Food for thought!