Half-Truths and Brazen Lies: An Honest Look at Lying

Half-Truths and Brazen Lies: An Honest Look at Lying — page 1
2 Contents Introduction 2 Chapter 1 4 What’s in a Lie How we decide if a lie is really a lie or something else in disguise Chapter 2 14 The Whys of Lies There are loads of reasons people tell fibs and untruths Chapter 3 24 Lies All around Us From the news on TV to the food we eat lies touch our lives in surprising ways Chapter 4 36 Spot the Liar Can you tell if someone is lying to you Do you even want to Conclusion 44 Index 46 Sources and Acknowledgments 47 INTRODUCTION Do you believe in telling the truth Sure you do Then you might as well admit it You LIE Relax Given the right conditions we all lie Everybody Friends teachers athletes movie stars doctors scientists gasp even your parents Lying is as much a part of us as our curiosity It’s central to human nature In other words we tell fibs corkers fictions falsehoods and tall tales because we just can’t help ourselves Here’s something else We lie a lot One study found that six out of every ten people lied at least once during a ten-minute conversation Most of them didn’t even realize they were doing it