The Psychology and Impact of Lying and Self-Deception

"The essence of lying is in deception, not in words; a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eyes, attaching a peculiar significance to a word, and in countless other ways." —St. Augustine

This is a two-part series, and in the first, I will deal with the complexity of lying and self-deception.

The psychology of lying is a complex and contradictory field, and the process is significant for our survival. Important emotional and social costs of deception have been revealed recently in studies, on nature and the fabric of our societal interactions (Preuter et al., 2023). In psychotherapy and psychological treatment, the therapeutic effect of expectations has been repeatedly studied, and it turns out that expectation is a significant factor influencing the outcome of psychological treatments (Sirigatti, Stefanile, & Nardone, 2008), and the effectiveness of therapy is built on the expectation by the patient that it will work (Wampold, 2001). Researchers are even looking into ways to evoke and encourage this kind of helpful self-deception (Gibson, 2021, 2022; Nardone, 2015; Nardone & Watzlawick, 1990).

Many types of ‘lying’ also involve self-deception – whether it's justifying our choices or shaping our reality to fit our desires – and play an important role in how we perceive and interact with the world around us. In evolution, the art of deception, more commonly known as lying, is described in Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Grapes". The fox, known for being clever, is used to show a common specific form of self-deception. The story goes that the fox essentially tries to reach some grapes but can't, and in the end, the fox gives up and walks away, saying the grapes weren't that good anyway, an experience we can all probably relate to. This mental trick of downplaying something we can't have is a common form of helpful self-deception. It helps to eliminate the frustration of not getting what we want. The fact that the clever fox is the main character demonstrates how self-deception can be useful for avoiding the discomfort of unmet desires. Logically, it's about deciding to believe a comforting lie instead of a painful truth.

This process is also essential for survival and social interaction. After all, who wants to tell their partner or best friend (who is thrilled with themselves having spent hours cooking a meal for you) that the meal was not to your taste and barely edible? Do we all tell a good lie, rather than accept a painful truth at times? In prehistoric eras, where physical survival was the primary objective, the ability to deceive a predator or a rival could mean the difference between life and death. This aspect of lying as a survival tool is widely recognized in evolutionary biology and is essential in the process of finding a mate and competition for resources, even to this day (Nardone; 2015, Smith & Johnson, 2020).

The clothes and makeup we wear, the way we speak, and the things we pay attention to in our conversations with ourselves and others, are all subtle forms of 'massaging' reality to our liking and our advantage, whether we like to believe it or not (Elster, 1979). This can be observed in certain professions, and even in forms of psychological treatment. In some therapies, whether the patient gets better or not, either outcome can be justified by the therapist as having an explanation based on their model of therapy and in that case, either way, their theory or model wins. This is a form of non-falsifiable reality (Popper, 1959) in which the reality proves itself and there preferred reality remains intact.

Social Change

As humans moved to more complex social structures, the role of lying became more intricate as it began to serve as a tool for resource acquisition. An individual proficient in the art of deception might secure a larger share of resources, enhancing their chances of survival, promotion and reproduction. This perspective is well observed in evolutionary psychology, which suggests that deceptive behaviours could be favoured in certain competitive contexts (Brown & Green, 2021) and even promoted in capitalist societies. Social scientists and evolutionary psychologists argue that this aspect of lying even plays a significant role in the development of social cognition and could be a driving force behind the evolution of human intelligence (Lee & Wilson, 2019).

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

The self-fulfilling prophecy, a term first coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton (1957), is a prediction that causes a prophecy itself to become true due to the positive feedback between belief and behaviour. In other words, a fictitious, belief about a situation evokes a new behaviour, which makes the originally false belief come true.

Merton's concept has been widely influential and is a key concept in the sociology of knowledge, showing how beliefs and perceptions, whether true or false, can shape social reality. It's particularly relevant in understanding social dynamics where people's expectations (self-deceptions) about others can lead to those expectations being realized. We also see this in contexts like the placebo effect in medicine, where believing in a fake or sugar pill can make you feel better. This is even used practically by pharmaceutical companies to market male and female pills in different colours, altering their effectiveness based on gendered colour expectation (Kirsch, 2010).

Lies in Educational Settings

A study known as "Pygmalion in the Classroom" is a seminal text in educational psychology, (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968). Rosenthal and Jacobson told teachers that some of their students were expected to be "intellectual bloomers" based on a fictitious test. Despite the test being non-predictive, the students who were labelled as "bloomers" showed significant academic improvement over time, attributed to the change in the teachers' expectations and behaviours towards these students. This work has had a profound impact on education and it highlights the importance of teacher expectations in student performance and there are numerous more that have shown this (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Rist, 1970; Rubie-Davies, 2006; Weinstein, Marshall, Sharp, & Botkin, 1987; Babad, Inbar, & Rosenthal, 1982).

Deception Essential Reads

How Lies Get Under Your Skin

Deception: Here's How We Fool Others—and Ourselves

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Self-Deception

Self-deception isn't only about positive beliefs; it can be negative too, like in a paranoid state, believing that nobody cares about you. Our past experiences have a big impact on our self-deception. For instance, someone with lots of insecurities might see every situation as proof that they're not worthy. Recent psychological studies have cast new light on this age-old behaviour, revealing the hidden emotional and social costs of deception. A pivotal study in the British Journal of Social Psychology (2024) found that manipulatively lying to others, regardless of its purpose, leads to a decrease in self-esteem and an increase in negative emotions for the person telling the lie (PsyPost, 2024).

Social Connections and Deception

Complementing these emotional aspects, another study focused on lying's impact on social relationships. Researchers analysed a large dataset of naturalistic conversations, part of the CANDOR corpus, to understand how deception affects interpersonal connections. CANDOR corpus, "Causal Analysis Using Natural Language and Domain Ontologies for Requirements," is a specialized dataset designed for use in natural language processing, particularly in the field of requirements engineering. This corpus is designed to aid in the extraction and analysis of causal relationships from natural language texts, specifically focusing on requirements engineering documents The findings were clear: engaging in certain kinds of deception was linked to reduced feelings of closeness and trustworthiness with conversation partners underscoring the importance of honesty in nurturing and maintaining meaningful social bonds (Nature, 2024).

Lying, however, emerges from all of these studies not as a straightforward matter of moral right or wrong, but as a complex spectrum of behaviours with varied implications and necessities. It's a nuanced dance between truth and deception, where the reality we perceive and create is shaped by more than just our spoken words but also through the unseen emotional and psychological processes of the lies and deceptions we bring to bear on influencing it.

These are artefacts of human psychology, biology and existence. Whether we like to admit it or not, they exist, and we therefore must learn to use them effectively to survive and thrive as individuals and as social groups. Studies on lying challenge us to rethink our relationship with honesty, deception, and the nature of our social reality. Understanding the emotional costs of lying manipulatively in a way that discriminates unjustly or that increases net suffering should lead us to a more conscious communication. Honesty is not just a moral choice but a path to better mental health and stronger social connections, just as learning to use self-deception about ourselves and the world around us can propel us beyond ourselves.

Think for one minute about the Olympic athlete who must tell themselves and convince themselves, without any concrete evidence, that they will win gold at the next Olympics, all done to make climbing up on a bike and cycling 95km on a cold wet winter's day and sticking to a punishing schedule for the subsequent four years doable.