Why People Lie

Everyone lies. Most of us lie several times a day. Our lies are so common that we rarely think twice about them. We are good people doing the right thing. Do we really lie without knowing it?

The answer is yes. Here are three reasons people lie:

1. The most common reason for lying is to ease social interactions. These lies may mitigate future effort or questions (like when someone asks how you are doing and you respond “Fine, thank you,” when the truth is you have a headache and feel lousy, but don’t really want to go into that) or white lies to protect other people’s feelings (like when you respond that the luncheon was lovely, when the food was really bad or that you love a gift when you don’t really know what you’ll do with it). These are usually relatively harmless lies that we barely even realize we are telling. Some people even consider them to be necessary at times.
2. Some people lie to mislead. Fraudsters use this type of lie to cover up their fraud schemes almost daily. These lies can include falsifying documents or changing transactions in the accounting system. As you can imagine, these lies are harder to detect because the fraudsters are misleading others in creative ways. Also, these can be somewhat stressful to the liar because they are creating an alternate reality; however, because the fraudster usually believes or has rationalized their behavior, these lies don’t cause as much stress as the next reason.
3. Another reason for lying is to protect. These usually come after some wrongdoing or mistake is discovered and a person lies about the events leading up to the discovery. As an example, a business owner identifies a suspicious transaction in the weekly payroll that appears to be a duplicate payment to the fraudster and asks the fraudster about it. The fraudster claims it was a mistake, that they must have accidentally processed the check twice or gives a similar lie to hide the truth. Fraudsters use these as a last-ditch effort when their scheme is uncovered.

If it is so easy for us to lie, then why do we have such a hard time believing that others—specifically, fraudsters—are lying to us? In your future interactions, think about the possible reasons a person might lie to you and be more skeptical of the answers you receive. They could be lies.

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