Psychologist Robert Feldman cites self-esteem as one of the biggest culprits in our lying ways: "We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels." Feldman believes many lies are simply for the purpose of maintaining social contacts by avoiding insults or discord. Small lies that avoid conflict are probably the most common sort of lie...and avoiding conflict is a top motivator for deception.
For example: someone lying about traffic holding them up, rather than sleeping in... or a "no, you look great in those pants" -- both sorts of lies achieve the effect of avoiding social conflict. They are "make life easier" kinds of lies.
Back to the self-esteem angle:
The farther one's true self is from their ideal self, the more likely they are to lie to boost themselves up, in others' eyes or their eyesor perhaps how they perceive others to perceive them. that is a hard train of thought to follow, but lying is a complex phenomenon.
How often do people lie?
One study, published in the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology, found that 60 percent of people had lied at least once during a 10 conversation between two strangers. On average, the subjects lied almost 3 times in a 10 minute conversation.
Another study of 2000 Britons claims men tell six lies a day with women averaging 3 lies a day. The same research found the most common lie (told by both sexes) being "Nothing's wrong, I'm fine."In the United States, one study had 77 college students plus 70 community members keep a diary detailing their deceptions. In other studies, found that, The students admitted to lying an average of twice a day, while the community members lied about once per day. And that, sometimes liar is the pathological in person/some body.
After that all about lies from someone. Now, we will see why someone lies to people, which is:
1. Eye-witness Testimony
Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory. Eyewitness testimony is asubfield within legal psychology, however it is a field with very broad implications. Human reports are normally based on visual perception, which is generally held to be very reliable (if not irrefutable). In the UK it is relatively rare for psychologists to testify (as expert witnesses) in criminal trials on factors that may influence the reliability of witness testimony.
Jurys tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information. However, research into this area has found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological factors:
The accuracy of eyewitness identification depends on numerous variables. Principal among the factors personal to the witness are the following;
a. Perception. The capacity of the human sensory organs to perceive is limited in scope. Our perception is sometimes known "mind set" or "set." This means simply that we perceive what we expect to perceive and what we think is expected of us. The fact-finding process in a criminal investigation and trial is based on the premises that sworn witnesses can reconstruct the truth based on perception, memory, and recollection. Witnesses want to live up to the expectations of the system, as well as their expectations of themselves. Witnesses without motives to falsify typically want to be accurate and to appear able and consistent. Observers are also influenced in their perceptions by biases, prejudices, interests, and motives. Psychologists have learned that perception is a decision-making process, one that is influenced by attitudes, background, abilities, environment, and the way that the witness' perception is tested.
b. Memory. Psychologists and behavioral science researchers have found that memory is also subject to influence by the observer's conditioning. A major contributor to the hazards of eyewitness identification of strangers is the degree of suggestion present in the pretrial identification process. Suggestion can be created intentionally or unintentionally in many subtle ways. Psychologists have described the influence of passage of time on one's memory in terms of sharpening and leveling effects that memory has on the original perception.
c. Communication. Communication in the verbal sense could be described as the ability of an eyewitness to describe an event or person he has seen in a manner that converts his memory's image into language that is converted into an image in the receptor's mind. There can be an honest distortion at this stage of the eyewitness identification process, depending on the ability of the eyewitness to articulate descriptive facts. This may provide a fertile area for cross-examination.
d. Candor. Eyewitness identification depends on witness candor. Most faulty identification evidence is the result of honest mistake, rather than deliberate misidentification. The danger in such good faith mistaken identification evidence is that it is sincere.
These is the aspect of witnesses , which is:
- Some research have found, a little effect on performance (e.g. whether the witness was female or male, a member of the public or a police officer, confident or not, intelligent).
- A topic that only recently has begun to receive the attention of criminal psychologists is that of elderly witnesses. Research has found that people over the age of sixty-five years make more mistakes than younger adults when trying to pick out from a set of photographs the person they saw previously committing a (mock) crime.
- Another aspect of witnesses that some research has found to be important is whether they are familiar with the nature of the appearance of the perpetrator.
- Another important aspect of humans that psychology has studied is their expectations about the type of person who would commit crime.
The main impluse for criminal psychologists to address the issue of witness testimony has come from concerns about false convictions. However, it must be noted that the frailties of the human mind also mean that the real perpetrators of crime may not be apprehended unless the police improve their procedures in accord with the findings of relevant psychological research.
Reference
- R. Bull, dkk. (2006).Criminal Psychology. England : Oneworld Publications
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