There’s absolutely no doubt everyone lies on occasion, often for good intent. They can be little white fibs to outright criminal fraud of deception. Males as well as females will often lie to themselves, to one other, for a variety of different reasons and motives.
Women will generally lie to preserve or guard someone’s feelings, not always necessarily their own.
Men will just outright lie or exaggerate to impress others, usually to pad their ego or to pump their chest.
Just based on the subject matter alone, it may also become rather difficult to tell if someone is telling the truth or not.
For clinical purposes, detecting lies becomes an issue under a lab or experimental setting, especially when the subject knows they’re being tested, about telling lies.
If you’re wanting to look good, or stand out, you’ll most likely make yourself look better by maximizing the extent of your tall-tale.
Once you tell a lie, you might become more motivated which hides all of your fears, faults, or your deepest personal secrets.
Flushing Out The Truth
For the sake of squeezing out the truth, enforcement such as police use lie detectors which reveals if someone is dishonest or not. These devices are also limited.
The most deceptive “liars” in the world have proven to defeat these mechanical instruments, at will, by controlling their emotions such as their breathing, stress, and anxiety levels.
Another method is closely observing the subjects facial expressions, however micro changes there may be.
But then, a good liar can also easily control the muscles on their face and pass any grueling cross examination.
Electronically Revealing The Truth
What’s also used is magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, which is expensive but can be effective.
This method scans the brain, while attempting to solve certain problems, remember words or passages, answer questions, or by looking at various images.
It examines the reaction of the brain to decide whether it’s telling the truth or not.
Researchers claim by using this scanning method, our brains are able to make decisions a split second quicker than we can actually express them.
What these results does is also raises questions regarding the nature of consciousness and free will.
Lying Is Harder Than Telling The Truth
Cognitively, it takes more effort to tell a lie than to tell the truth.
Once someone decides to tell a lie, they need to store that lie in their short term memory to remember what the lie was.
The brain needs to do so while also suppressing the actual truth. As a result, the lie uses a lot more mental energy.
The way most liars avoid getting caught is if their story is consistent.
Even if the truth involves facts which are complicated, there’s only one story you need to tell, and not the fabrication.
So regardless of how many times you’re asked, your answers will always be the same when it’s the truth.
The only exception is when the person is under duress, these individuals may stray or alter the truth because of fatigue, confusion, or being misdirected by the question.
Men And Women Lie Differently
Men and women will lie to one another or the opposite sex, for a variety of reasons.
Recent experiments compared the length of time men and women took to respond to a simple “yes” or “no” question, which also monitored their brain activation patterns.
Men took longer to respond when they lied about some personal information, than when lying about something general.
The male brain scans revealed telling personal lies absorbed more energy in the frontal lobes, which motors decision making and executive control.
Women on the other hand showed no difference in response time between personal and general questions when they were lying.
So the conclusion from the research revealed the differences when it came to male and female motives to lie.
On the surface, it’s thought it may be more biological than socialization.
They found women, biologically, find it easier to lie about their personal information, such as their weight or age, just as easy as it is to lie about something general.
The Motivation To Lie
The debate remains if it’s really “biological” or is it more based on socialization. Is it based more on the evolution on being either a male or female, which has different life pressures.
The biological brains we’re born with, isn’t the same brain we use once we evolve into adults.
Various life experiences will significantly alter and reshape our neurons as they adapt to our experiences, cultures, and lifestyles.
Women learn it’s important as well as necessary to tell little fibs about themselves, for instance, their weight.
The reason for this is because of the general negative attitude which society has towards women who are obese.
As we age, our brains are able to continuously rewire itself, based on the life experiences we feed it.
The more we’re forced to lie about ourselves, the easier it gets, and the less effort it is for our brains.
The Truth About Lying
So apart from why we lie because of being either male or female, the true reveal is how we can detect those who lie, and those who are telling the truth under different circumstances.
Since you won’t have access to an MRI lab to test whether your next potential date, friend, or new employee is a sociopathic liar or not. You can use more readily available cues.
You can check their response time, any movement in facial expression, or inconsistencies in their stories, which remain the best bets to spot a liar.
When it comes to your very own little white lies, you’re better off being as honest as possible.
It is after all not only ethical to tell the truth, but it also preserves the brains energy, so you can put it to better productive use.