Could you
spot a liar? Even if the liar would be a child? It turns out that it’s harder than we though. And it also
turns out that we should be happy when our children start to lie because that
mean (in short) that our kid is growing and he’s getting smarter. If you want to
test yourself and check if you can really tell if a kid is lying, check out
Kang Lee’s lecture. Kang
Lee is Developmental researcher which studied what happens to children when
they lie. You can be shocked how hard it is to say if somebody is liar or not,
even if the one who’s lying is a
child.
Questions:
1. Did
you manage to find out who’s lying? If
yes, how?
2. Do
you think you are a good liar?
3. What
do you think of the morality of the lie? Are there situations where lie is
better than the truth? Or maybe we should always tell the truth?
Comments
I don't think that I'm good liar and in fact I don't want to be. I try not to lie, because in most parts of life lying may lead to harming someone.
There are situations where lying is better choice than saying the truth. Sometimes it may save a lot of tears, but in most situations lying is a bad thing. There is one problem: who makes me suitable to lie? Am I so important to steal right of knowing true from someone? It's a risk that every person who is lying must take.
There is a show called "Lie to me" that tells a story of a guy who is master of knowing if someone is laying or not. I didn't watch a lot of that tv series, but it was quite fun for me.
Also while we are talking about lying there are tons of board games where lying is one of the most important factor to win.
There is great web hmmm let's called it game - evolution of trust, link: http://ncase.me/trust/. Check it, 100% worthy in my opinnion.
I think I'm a good liar, but I hate it - there are some situation where I lie, but I'm making it in good faith.
Morality of lie is not that simple. Lying your partner about where have you been, with whom you've been is awful. If you don't want to say it to not to make your partner angry then why you're doing it? If you do something you know that is bad or may have some consequences they lying about it won't make it better - lying is such situations is awful and I can't undestarnd why people are bahaving like that.
But there are situation where lying is justified. My grandfather was a sailor. When he was at a cruise his father died. When he called to my grandmother and asked how is he she lied, that he's fine - telling the truth wouldn't change anything, he couldn't get back to the funeral anyway so he oly would think about it for another 4 months. When he got back she told him about everything and he wasn;t angry or anything. He claimed, that she was right and he was grateful that she deciden not to tell him the truth.
Example is unusual as I think that lie is unusual justified.
It is better to tell the truth, as long as the truth will always show up.
I don’t think that I’m a good liar but If I need to lie I often do it properly that it gives me effect which I wanted. I would also like to add that in my opinion lying I bad thing and we should truly avoid it and always tell the truth but I’m sure that each of us can agree that there are situations when lie is necessary. I think that when you lie and nobody is harmed it isn’t a big thing but as I sad, we should often try to avoid lying.
everyone at least once in life lied and I am no exception. But I won't say that I'm a good a liar..
The lie always leads to problems. You should understand when to should lie and then tell the truth.
I am not saying that we should lie, but truth can hurt one or both sides.
I'm a bad lier, but agreed with the words above, that sometimes lying is better way to solve some kind of problem.
Difficult question about morality..hm..
I would say you need to lie sometimes,even if it sounds like a bad thing from me, but you need to calculate, how many problems it can cause.
I don't think I'm a good liar. I'd say the opposite but I don't lie much. Especially I don't lie to my friends and family. When there is a need to tell something "wrong" I prefer to say something broadly and then nobody knows what's the point.
In my opinion, lies are the last option when we have to solve some problems in our lives. For example we can lie when someone has a weak heart and can't stress too much. I'm still young and I don't know much about life. For now, this is how I think. We will see when the life will verifie me.
I'm not a good liar, because I don't lie. I hate it and I don't know why people do it.
In my opinion we should always tell the truth or say nothing. There is no point in lying.
I'm saying that I am good liar because of fact that I've never been caught in situation, when I forgot what I said previously (which was a lie), and say the different things after a while (a different kind of lie or even the truth that I don't want to say).
What is truth, after all? The truth is what the things are or what we believe they are? If it is the first, how can you explain the existence of various religions all around the world based on belief? If it is second, it means that there is no one truth but for each human exist at least one truth, that is different from any other ones. How can lying be judged if the truth is unknown or unwanted?
Unfortunately, I didn't choose the right child. My choice was that they both lied. Because they both look suspicious.
There are many situations where lies are better than truth but morality of that is very vague and depend strictly on the circumstances. However, I certainly do not think that we should always tell the truth. Imagine the world where everyone but one would tell the truth, what inconceivable things that person would accomplish.
Louie C.K. to his 5-year-old daughter
1. I though both kids did.
2. Good enough.
3. Read my previous comment.
I don't think I'm good liar. I have never been able to cheat well and most of the time I'm so scared I immediately become red all over the face ;)
Well, I believe most of the time we should tell the truth but there are situations when telling lie may save someone's life or it's just not really harmful, for example I don't mind telling small lie to inquisitive people because it saves me some time and it's not something they really need to know.
thanks, it's an interesting TED speech.
I suspected the child #2 was lying only because I assumed the test was setup to mislead us (the child #1 looked down when he said "no" - a common sign of lying while the child #2 tried a bit too hard to act honest). I'm not sure I would guess it in a real life situation though.
I'm not a good liar. I don't have a poker face and my memory is really bad :) So whenever I can I opt to tell the truth.
Your question about the morality of lying reminded me about a comedy "The Invention of Lying" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhRnmyBjOLs
To be honest, I often try not to lie because I am adult and I guess what consenquesces may wait for me. Sometimes I can not to tell everything but I don't consider it to be lip gloss.
If we always tell the truth, we would not have any friend. That's the truth. Some people prefer to know a lie that to be aware of the truth. I prefer to tell the truth and than I have clear mind
However use of it in court would be mile breaking. No more perjury .
2. I think that I am not such a good liar as I used to be when I was a child. In my opinion It is naturally connected with becoming more responsible as we are growing up. Currently, I am more concerned about consequences and long term effects of telling lies and that it can cause a lot of problems for me as well as for other people.
3. I could imagine some situations when lie is better than the truth but I think it is kind of a short-term solution as it only sweeps problem under the rug. Lie can work for several years, but in most cases, truth will come out eventually and then it can be very harmful to the parties involved.
I think that I am not a good liar, because always when I lie I act not as I usually do it and my biggest problem is that I lie to much I can forget what I`ve told, what I`ve found out as the best lie at that moment and if I will have to repeat my lie I could fail. Morality of lie is very complicated and everyone should understand it. I would like to say that telling truth is sometimes hard but still very important thing to do escpecially to your relatives and friends, but even in family there can occur situations where it is better to lie than tell the truth.
Sometimes lying seems to be justified, but we should stick to the truth more.
I know that it's bad but in my opinion sometimes it's better to lie than tell the truth.
I don't like to lie and thats why I'm thinking that I'm a bad lier. It is very stressful for me. I can't to look into my opponents eyes and that is the easiest way to recognize that.
There are some situations that lie is better than true. I think that we should tell the reality but we should do it very prudently.
I was able to determine that the child # 2 lies. But I think it was an accident. Although this girl was too innocent and convincing, why? Usually, if you are telling the truth, you do not need to convince anyone, you already know for yourself that you are right. Well, I also just don't trust children, they are all very dangerous little demons.
I don't know how good I'm a liar. All the problems are that I do not have to do this often.Although, if you start telling the teacher that you were not in the class because you were sick, then he will not believe you. And it doesn't depend on how good you are in lies. It's just that everybody is lying to him, and in this case, even the truth will not help much.
I believe that lies in our lives are necessary. If it doesn't exist, then humanity will become crazy. I am very grateful to Mama that she was an enemy to me in my childhood. Yes, my hamster just ran away. Yes, the nature of the parrot has changed, because he lived for a long time with his grandmother. But in adulthood, it is also needed. What we don't know, we don't hurt.
I think I am a good liar when I feel I have to. There are some situations when I feel I have to do it for a greater good. Sometimes there are stupid lies for a surprise to work, and these I sometimes blow. In such situations I sometimes cannot stay serious and lose the poker face. Other situations, when I don't want someone to worry, or know truth would hurt someone and is very unlikely to actually come out, I have no problems with that. The thing is, you have to be able to quickly evaluate the possible positive and negative outcomes, if it is morally right, the following risks and the chances that it will not come out. Sometimes it's clear you should, 99% of the cases it is simply not worth it.
I am not certainly a good lier because I feel very bad if I have to tell not truth. Sometimes when I try to tell a lie if feel so much guilty that I have to tell the truth in a moment.
I think that sometimes a lie is better than truth. In extremal situations e.g in the car accident died somebody who was really close to you and you are seriously hurt but in the ambulance you ask if everybody are fine. I think that in such situation it is understandable that in this particular moment you would prefer to hear a lie.
Yes. How - I spent a lot of time with my grandson and as a 10 year old he is lying mostly all the time :)
2. Do you think you are a good liar?
Everyone of us has to be in different situations. In my work it is not mostly about lying but saying something the way client wants to hear. PR all the time.
3. What do you think of the morality of the lie? Are there situations where lie is better than the truth? Or maybe we should always tell the truth?
There are many situations when you can't tell the truth otherwise people will panic.
I think I am, but I guess it isn't a thing you can be proud of. I use it as a final, ultimate tool when all other options failed.
Definitely there are a lot of situations where lie is better than truth, but in general it is not worth lying, especially in situations which aren't important.
Sometimes lying can be beneficial for both parties. Those are usually small lies, or more like "avoiding the truth" rather than "telling something that is not true". I'm trying to not lie frequently, but sometimes I will make an excuse for example to simply stop talking with somebody that I'm no longer interested talking to, and I don't see anything wrong in it. Lying everywhere and about everything is bad, but trying to do reverse-psychology and spot a lier is as bad as lying itself - the question should be WHY that person is lying to us, and not whether he is or not, since that can be stated pretty easily and without any external tools in most cases.
Try to check too poker players if you want to see bluff in completely new poker face edition :).
I've managed to tell who was lying, cause people tend to overreact when telling the lie, and therefore their actions look exaggerated. I don't think that I am a good liar, but it depends on the context anyway- a lie is as good as the amount of time and effort needed to verify it.
Of course nobody is going to take actions to prove that you came to the college building by a private helicopter, because everyone knows there are no helipads in the vicinity of it, so its a cheap lie everyone knows about almost instantly. Also, people don't like ones who talk lies often, even the simple ones, as it just makes them look like "stupid BS'ers".
When it comes to morality- well.. It depends what are we about to lie. Sometimes it's good not to tell the terminally ill that they are dying, so they can be happy during their last moments. On the other hand, people tend to lie to themselves- homeopathy industry and other companies making pills from 100% of powdered sugar wouldn't be this big if those lies were that morally bad...
I think I can recognize when someone is lying. In this film, I managed to do it partially, but in reality when I see a person face to face it is much easier to detect. The ability to lie is something popular nowadays and should be considered. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the truth and we run away to say only what the other person wants to hear.
I don’t know if I’m a good liar, but I think that I’m not that bad.
I think that in some situations the lie is better than the truth. But in the most cases telling truth may be a lot “easier” in the long run.
On the topic of morality of lies, I believe there is no such thing as an "immoral deed". A lie, an assasination or serving an oversalted soup - anything can be morally justified depending on a situation.
On the other hand, girl is very serious and she looks hesitant.
I don’t know, because I’m not lying. I think I could be a good liar
You know, it’s life. Sometimes there are situations, where lies are better, but honestly I would rather know the worst truth than a good lie. I know people who lied a lot, and then they started to believe in their own lies and well… they doesn’t look happier.
I don't know if I am a good liar. Basically, I just lie when I have to. It is not often situation.
It seems to me that sometimes it is better to lie.
For example, for the good of others. Not always the truth is good. However, it seems to me that a lot depends on the morality of a liar.
I don't want to touch the subject of morality when it comes to lying. Everyone does that and it is not such a big deal. Only crazy people are always honest with everyone.
In my opinion, i'm good lier. It's not good skill but i think that my experience in the theater is helpful. I wrote that it's not good sklil because for me lying is bad. So lie is always worse way than truth. But i know a situation in my life that sometimes we have to lie. Sad but truth.