Verified by 
Key points
- Lying generally lowers self-esteem and leads to negative emotions.
- Even remembering a lie has negative consequences on psychological well-being.
- People lie more about themselves than about other people.
People lie for all sorts of reasons and some even do it daily. If someone finds out that they have been lied to, they typically feel negative emotions like anger or sadness. One thing that is not well understood about lying is what the psychological consequences of lying are for the liar. Lying is considered an immoral behavior in society, so lying may lead to negative feelings in the liar, but this process is not well understood.
A new study in The British Journal of Social Psychology focused on the psychological consequences of lying for the liar (Preuter and collaborators, 2023). The study, first authored by scientist Sanne Preuter from the University of Twente in Enschede (The Netherlands) consisted of four different experiments which led to five interesting new insights on lying.
1. Lying lowers self-esteem and leads to more negative emotions.
The basic hypothesis of the study was that since lying is considered immoral, it may lead to lower self-esteem and negative emotions in the liar.
The first part of the study was an online experiment in which volunteers had to read about different self-centered (e.g., lying about expertise in a job interview) and other-centered (e.g., lying about liking a new dress that a friend bought) dilemmas. Volunteers had to answer whether they lied or told the truth the last time they were in a similar situation. Moreover, the self-esteem of the volunteers and four negative emotions (nervousness, regret, discomfort, and unhappiness) were determined with questionnaires.
The results revealed that for self-centered dilemmas, 41.6 percent of volunteers had lied. For other-centered dilemmas, 45.5 percent had told a lie. Participants who lied had significantly lower self-esteem and more negative feelings than those who told the truth for both types of dilemmas.
2. Just remembering a lie is enough to lower self-esteem and reduce positive emotions.
In experiment two, a similar design was used, but in this part of the study, no dilemmas were presented. Instead, volunteers had to come up with past dilemmas themselves. They were asked to either come up with situations in which they lied or a situation in which they decided to tell the truth. Moreover, negative and positive emotions were determined. The results were clear: Volunteers who remembered a situation in which they lied had lower self-esteem and less positive emotions than people who remembered a situation in which they told the truth.
3. People lie more about themselves than about others.
In the third experiment, the scientists aimed to replicate the findings of the first two experiments using a diary research approach. Volunteers were asked to keep track of all their lies for one day. They were also asked to write down their lies and the motives behind lying. Overall, 22.1 percent of volunteers told a self-centered lie, 8.2 percent an other-oriented lie, and 69.7 percent did not lie. People who lied had lower self-esteem and felt less positive about themselves than those who told the truth.
4. Twenty-two percent of people lie every day, and 19 percent claim to rarely tell a lie.
In the fourth and last experiment, a longitudinal approach was used. Volunteers had to track their lying behavior and self-esteem for five days. The results showed that there are a lot of differences between people regarding how much they lie. Twenty-two percent of people reported that they had lied on each of the five days and 19 percent said they did not tell a single lie on any of the five days.
5. Lying specifically lowers self-esteem on days a lie is told.
In the fourth experiment, the scientists were able to replicate the findings of the previous experiments that lying was associated with lower self-esteem on the day the lie was told. Moreover, they analyzed the association between lying and self-esteem over five days. When someone told a lie, their self-esteem was lower than on the day before. This shows that people who lie do not generally have low self-esteem but that the act of lying decreases self-esteem.
Conclusion
People are in general rather bad at detecting lies. But as the study shows, even if a lie stays undetected, it will have negative consequences for the liar. The results of the study were crystal clear: Lying makes people feel bad and lowers their self-esteem.
While it may seem like an easy solution to an awkward situation to tell a friend that their horrendous new dress looks great, it is not a good idea to lie regularly if we want to feel good about ourselves. The truth may hurt, but it is sometimes the better option for long-term psychological well-being.
Facebook image: christinarosepix/Shutterstock
LinkedIn image: fizkes/Shutterstock
References
Preuter, S., Jaeger, B., & Stel, M. (2023). The costs of lying: Consequences of telling lies on liar's self-esteem and affect. The British journal of social psychology, 10.1111/bjso.12711. Advance online publication.
