We are all liars!
Everybody lies. Some people do it more often than others, but we all do. As Pamela Meyer, from the TED presentation below, says, “Lying is a part of our everyday life, it’s a part of our culture.”
Many people think they are honest people and they don’t lie, or at least they don’t lie very often. Obviously, that’s not true. I’m not trying to say that everybody who lies is a bad person and I’m not saying that lying is always bad. There is no need to divide everything into good and bad. There are times when it is better to tell some small lie, which won’t really change anything but will please those who hear it. On the other hand, we can face lies which hurt us directly, which make our day, mood or even our life worse. Unfortunately, even people who we trust can lie to us and it hurts even more afterwards when we discover the truth.
I think it’s a useful skill to know how to spot a liar. Of course, I’m not talking about taking the course of physiognomy to recognize every face movement of your companion, but the knowledge of some basic signs, which can help a lot in everyday communication.
I’m inviting you to watch Pamela Meyer’s TED Talk presenting her point of view on lying and liars.
Questions:
- Can you recognize when people are lying to you? Do you know some special signs or face movements?
- Do you agree with the statement that “Lying is a cooperative act”? Why?
- Do you often lie? Do you think you are a good liar?
- Will you use Pamela’s suggestions to spot a liar?
Comments
I'm not a good liar and I don't lie at all. I know that my lies will appear sooner or later so I rather tell the truth.
As I said before I don't pay a great attention to spotting liars and I probably won't use suggestions mentioned in the video.
I honestly do not like to do it and do not do it too often, since I prefer telling how I feel, but when I know I can hurt somebody's feelings, well, I have to do it.
In general, I try to lie as little as possible and I expect the same from other people. The only lies I tell are those with a good intention, not to mislead somebody. That means I’m not even trying to be a good liar.
I don’t think I will use any of those suggestions to spot a liar as it requires too much effort. I guess you have to invest a lot of your time to become an expert liar spotter. Anyway, the examples presented in the video were really interesting.
In my opinion the difficulty of recognizing liars is that we never know if we guess. We cannot check it. Sometimes it comes out, but not as often as we would like. Therefore we cannot 'train'.
What's more, people try different tricks. There are so many possibilities we cannot learn it. There will always be somebody who finds a new one.
To be honest, everybody says 'well.. I lie if it's possible.. and only in a good faith'. But, come on.. I don't believe that. I don't want to say that somebody lies saying 'I don't lie', but I don't believe that people don't lie despite they can lose. Unfortunately, I think it's human nature
I think that they must have some reason not to tell the truth.
Everybody lies and as long it’s not motivated to harm someone, I think that it’s just normal human behavior. I also lie and I don’t know if I’m a good liar but VERY often people think I’m lying when I’m actually telling the truth, and it’s slightly annoying.
Sometimes I'm trying to lie, but I'm not good at it and people always know that I'm not telling the truth.
When I'm talking with someone, I'd rather focus on what we're talking about not on how we do it so I'd rather not use Pamela suggestions.
To recognize the lies I only use my intuition, it could be very strong sometimes. And I do believe, that there are situations when you'd better not searching for the truth. Sometimes people have a reason to lie and you will sleep well without that knowledge.
I knew some of those tips, in fact, I even user them one or two times, but usually I don't care that much - if somebody is lying to me in important matter, (s)he is not a person I should care about, if being honest towards me for somebody is not possible.
2) Lying is not a cooperative act. Why? Because you don't need another person to lie. You can always lie to yourself...
3) With the exception of throwing out trash i am trying not to lie so i'd say that i'm a moderate liar.
4) No i will not as these suggestions are nothing but stereotypes, and in truth each person acts differently while lying.
Now I don't have to tell my parents when I came back home so I'm not lying almost at all. And if I do it's rather small lies (I'd rather not tell someone I don't feel like meeting with them today, I'd prefer to say I have much to do. Which most of the time is true).
Then comes the 'good lies' when we lie for a good reason, not to hurt someone and such. Oh well, it depends but decision whether or not use a small/good lie must be a well thought one.
It's a bit hard for me to understand the statement about cooperation in lying, what's the difference and why does it matter? Personally, I'm a horrible liar, my parents always were able to tell when I was not telling the truth and now I always feel like everyone around me is able to do it, so I have a hard time even trying.
As for Pamela's advice, I don't think I'm going to try and spot the signs of deception during normal day to day conversations.
Do you agree with the statement that “Lying is a cooperative act”? Why? Yes, it's cooperative cause in many cases when someone is lying to other people, this person wants a confirmation and you have to predict whom he/she is going to ask and talked to those person before to establish a common version of events :)
No, I think I'm terrible liar and I'm trying not to lie.