May 7, 2021 • 12 mins
Is there such a thing as an acceptable lie? Is it okay to lie to spare someone's feelings? And what’s the emotional cost of our lies? Dr. Saltz digs into the topic of lying to find out whether we can, indeed, handle the truth.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:27):
hopefully with understanding, insight, and advice. This year has been
one for the books, to say the least, for many
different reasons. One of the fewer acknowledged reasons is that
ideas about what is fact versus fiction, truth versus fiction,
reality versus fake news has permeated our everyday lives in
(00:51):
ways we have not seen before. It has caused people
to feel divided, relationships to falter, and even caused confusion
in people's individual minds. Discussions of truth and accusations of
lying have been on display from our nation's leaders to
the everyday people in your town. Cheating, a form of lying,
(01:16):
is dramatically on the rise, meaning children are also tussling
with what it means to tell the truth and to
question it's importance. I got a question about lying in
your day to day life, an issue most people grapple with.
But that's what I plan to tackle today. Long before
(01:37):
our recent debates about truth, individuals struggled with when and
to whom to be completely truthful ideas about truth, telling,
the truth, and the wrongness of lying. Our concepts we
learn about in childhood. They are very much taught by
(01:57):
and shaped by our families of origin, our peers, and
other early life experiences, as are most things that have
to do with the development of our moral compass. That
internal moral compass can continue to be influenced and altered
as we grow up, but the early years definitely set
(02:20):
the original rules to live by and what is right
versus wrong. It also sets the tone for when we
feel guilty, because, whether we admit it to the outside
world or not, internally, we have committed or wrong. Most
children are taught it is wrong to lie, but they
(02:43):
are also privy to watching people in their orbit violate
that tenant, and they are subject to the other pressures,
such as their own wants and needs. Sometimes these other
pressures went out, especially if they have not been taught
both overtly that it's wrong to lie and modeled from
(03:05):
others that it's wrong to lie, not just it is
wrong to get caught lying, and therefore the message does
not get internalized. The most personally harmful and frequent form
of lying is actually when we lie to ourselves. This
is called denial. The brain, in an effort to be
(03:30):
less anxious, often pushes us to hide information or distort
information from ourselves, and too often denial causes both psychological
suffering and unwanted, even self destructive behaviors. How can you
(03:50):
personally work on trying to be more truthful with yourself?
Ask yourself questions like this, what am I afraid to know?
What am I hiding from myself? What do I almost
know but don't quite What knowledge am I avoiding? The
(04:13):
more honest you are with yourself, the more knowledge you have,
and self knowledge gives you power over your own behaviors
and ways of interacting with your world. With that, let's
go to the question from a listener and ask, how
can I help, dear doctor Saltz. Are there times when
(04:37):
you think it is okay to lie? Does it matter
if it's a big lie versus a white lie? And
what are they okay? Back to my point about when
we first learn about lying, your parents likely told you
both to never lie but then again also to tell
(04:59):
Grandma her soup was delicious even when it wasn't. When
you are young, bursting out the messages of it's not
okay to lie except when I tell you to and
get very murky, and many kids just walk away with
it's okay to lie when it suits me. Generally, this
(05:19):
doesn't go well. A white lie is a lie told
for the purpose of sparing someone else's feelings, and therefore
purportedly a good lie. It is also supposedly a small
lie of unimportant content. Most white lying happens on the spot,
(05:41):
and therefore not a lot of analysis goes into how
big versus small this lie really is, and you probably
aren't also analyzing how this lie might hurt others. Honesty
and truth telling is actually what builds intimacy by building
trust in all relationships. Telling lies is what destroys trust,
(06:08):
and therefore the intimacy the glue of the relationship. The
more honest, vulnerable, and even revealing one is in a relationship,
the closer and more deeply connected the pair off and feel,
Which is why my listener, I say to you, if
(06:29):
it is someone you feel is an important close relationship,
try to tell as much truth as you possibly can.
It's not only a matter of whether it is morally
wrong to lie to them, it is a matter of
the health of your connectedness to them and them to you.
(06:50):
By being truthful, you know they really know you, They
understand you, not some fictionalized version of you, and they
accept and care for you. This is what honesty does
for you and for your relationships. How can it be
(07:11):
other than better to tell the truth? Given all of this,
how can I help with Dr Gail Salts will be
back after this short break. You ask, but what about
(07:33):
a white lie? It is pretty easy to say that
you are telling a white lie, a lie meant to
spare their feelings, even when in reality it is not
a white lie. It's just a difficult truth to tell.
How can you tell the difference? Ask yourself the question,
(07:55):
does lying or this lie benefit me? If the answer
is yes, this is not likely a white lie. If
the answer is no, it does not, but it does
spare their feelings, then you are moving in the direction
of a white lie. Also, ask yourself, well, the person
(08:17):
I am white lying to believe I had their best
interests at heart if they find out the truth, or
would they be angry and disappointed. So, for example, telling
your friend who is already out of the house for
a blind date that you see a stain on her
outfit when there is no longer time to go back
(08:38):
and change, and it will hurt her confidence to know,
and she asks you, how do I look? Is a
case we're saying great without mention of the stain could
be an acceptable white lie. It doesn't help you, it
does preserve her confidence. She is likely to understand, and
(09:00):
you told it to her to help her in a
setting where there was nothing that she could do about it. Anyway,
lying to her while she was still at home and
could change her outfit is not a white lie because
it hurts her. And lying to her because you don't
want to be late yourself if you're leaving the house
(09:22):
and she's not getting out is not a white lie
because it just helps you. What of the lies we
tell people who are not close to us, like the
acquaintance who asks how your job interview went? The need
for truth telling to someone distant is less of an imperative.
(09:44):
But do understand that when you lie, you decrease the
chances this person will ever be someone closer to you
and you miss the opportunity to be honest and perhaps
shorten the emotional gap between you two you and turn
an acquaintance to a friend. I'm not advocating for revealing
(10:07):
lots of intimate truths to someone that you don't know,
because of course you have no idea if you can
trust them yet with your confidences. But by revealing a
little truth at a time, you can see if indeed
this is someone you not only want to build confidences with,
(10:27):
but you can actually trust. On the other hand, a
good dollop of line will grow the gap between you
wider and wider because you will try to maintain those falsehoods,
which takes effort, and now you are becoming known to
someone as an inauthentic version of yourself, or you later
(10:50):
need to tell them you lied, which makes trust hard
to achieve. I hope that was helpful. So in terms
of relationships, the closer someone is to you, the less
lying is okay. The more you hope to feel good,
truly good, not fake good about yourself. The less lying
(11:15):
is okay, the more substantial the impact on others, and
the more the purpose is to help yourself. The less
lying is okay, Knowing who your audience is is important.
Are they sensitive would you really hurt them with the truth,
or are they able to and even appreciative of the truth.
(11:39):
Telling Grandma you don't actually really notice the under eyebag
she has asked you about could be considered a white lye.
It meets the definition. But if you love Grandma and
feel close to her, saying yeah, you see them, but
they remind you of how wise and long loving a
presence to you she has been in your life. Is
(12:01):
a truth told and a trust of honesty that grew
your closeness that day. As with most issues in psychology
and human nature, there is not one black and white answer.
The shades of gray come in the variability between your
feelings and those of another, but on the whole, when
(12:22):
it comes to relationships, it's almost always better to tell
the truth. Do you have a problem I can help with?
If so, email me at how Can I Help? At
Seneca Women dot com. All senders remain anonymous and listen
every Friday to how can I help with me? Dr
(12:44):
Gale Salts
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how Can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:27):
hopefully with understanding, insight, and advice. This year has been
one for the books, to say the least, for many
different reasons. One of the fewer acknowledged reasons is that
ideas about what is fact versus fiction, truth versus fiction,
reality versus fake news has permeated our everyday lives in
(00:51):
ways we have not seen before. It has caused people
to feel divided, relationships to falter, and even caused confusion
in people's individual minds. Discussions of truth and accusations of
lying have been on display from our nation's leaders to
the everyday people in your town. Cheating, a form of lying,
(01:16):
is dramatically on the rise, meaning children are also tussling
with what it means to tell the truth and to
question it's importance. I got a question about lying in
your day to day life, an issue most people grapple with.
But that's what I plan to tackle today. Long before
(01:37):
our recent debates about truth, individuals struggled with when and
to whom to be completely truthful ideas about truth, telling,
the truth, and the wrongness of lying. Our concepts we
learn about in childhood. They are very much taught by
(01:57):
and shaped by our families of origin, our peers, and
other early life experiences, as are most things that have
to do with the development of our moral compass. That
internal moral compass can continue to be influenced and altered
as we grow up, but the early years definitely set
(02:20):
the original rules to live by and what is right
versus wrong. It also sets the tone for when we
feel guilty, because, whether we admit it to the outside
world or not, internally, we have committed or wrong. Most
children are taught it is wrong to lie, but they
(02:43):
are also privy to watching people in their orbit violate
that tenant, and they are subject to the other pressures,
such as their own wants and needs. Sometimes these other
pressures went out, especially if they have not been taught
both overtly that it's wrong to lie and modeled from
(03:05):
others that it's wrong to lie, not just it is
wrong to get caught lying, and therefore the message does
not get internalized. The most personally harmful and frequent form
of lying is actually when we lie to ourselves. This
is called denial. The brain, in an effort to be
(03:30):
less anxious, often pushes us to hide information or distort
information from ourselves, and too often denial causes both psychological
suffering and unwanted, even self destructive behaviors. How can you
(03:50):
personally work on trying to be more truthful with yourself?
Ask yourself questions like this, what am I afraid to know?
What am I hiding from myself? What do I almost
know but don't quite What knowledge am I avoiding? The
(04:13):
more honest you are with yourself, the more knowledge you have,
and self knowledge gives you power over your own behaviors
and ways of interacting with your world. With that, let's
go to the question from a listener and ask, how
can I help, dear doctor Saltz. Are there times when
(04:37):
you think it is okay to lie? Does it matter
if it's a big lie versus a white lie? And
what are they okay? Back to my point about when
we first learn about lying, your parents likely told you
both to never lie but then again also to tell
(04:59):
Grandma her soup was delicious even when it wasn't. When
you are young, bursting out the messages of it's not
okay to lie except when I tell you to and
get very murky, and many kids just walk away with
it's okay to lie when it suits me. Generally, this
(05:19):
doesn't go well. A white lie is a lie told
for the purpose of sparing someone else's feelings, and therefore
purportedly a good lie. It is also supposedly a small
lie of unimportant content. Most white lying happens on the spot,
(05:41):
and therefore not a lot of analysis goes into how
big versus small this lie really is, and you probably
aren't also analyzing how this lie might hurt others. Honesty
and truth telling is actually what builds intimacy by building
trust in all relationships. Telling lies is what destroys trust,
(06:08):
and therefore the intimacy the glue of the relationship. The
more honest, vulnerable, and even revealing one is in a relationship,
the closer and more deeply connected the pair off and feel,
Which is why my listener, I say to you, if
(06:29):
it is someone you feel is an important close relationship,
try to tell as much truth as you possibly can.
It's not only a matter of whether it is morally
wrong to lie to them, it is a matter of
the health of your connectedness to them and them to you.
(06:50):
By being truthful, you know they really know you, They
understand you, not some fictionalized version of you, and they
accept and care for you. This is what honesty does
for you and for your relationships. How can it be
(07:11):
other than better to tell the truth? Given all of this,
how can I help with Dr Gail Salts will be
back after this short break. You ask, but what about
(07:33):
a white lie? It is pretty easy to say that
you are telling a white lie, a lie meant to
spare their feelings, even when in reality it is not
a white lie. It's just a difficult truth to tell.
How can you tell the difference? Ask yourself the question,
(07:55):
does lying or this lie benefit me? If the answer
is yes, this is not likely a white lie. If
the answer is no, it does not, but it does
spare their feelings, then you are moving in the direction
of a white lie. Also, ask yourself, well, the person
(08:17):
I am white lying to believe I had their best
interests at heart if they find out the truth, or
would they be angry and disappointed. So, for example, telling
your friend who is already out of the house for
a blind date that you see a stain on her
outfit when there is no longer time to go back
(08:38):
and change, and it will hurt her confidence to know,
and she asks you, how do I look? Is a
case we're saying great without mention of the stain could
be an acceptable white lie. It doesn't help you, it
does preserve her confidence. She is likely to understand, and
(09:00):
you told it to her to help her in a
setting where there was nothing that she could do about it. Anyway,
lying to her while she was still at home and
could change her outfit is not a white lie because
it hurts her. And lying to her because you don't
want to be late yourself if you're leaving the house
(09:22):
and she's not getting out is not a white lie
because it just helps you. What of the lies we
tell people who are not close to us, like the
acquaintance who asks how your job interview went? The need
for truth telling to someone distant is less of an imperative.
(09:44):
But do understand that when you lie, you decrease the
chances this person will ever be someone closer to you
and you miss the opportunity to be honest and perhaps
shorten the emotional gap between you two you and turn
an acquaintance to a friend. I'm not advocating for revealing
(10:07):
lots of intimate truths to someone that you don't know,
because of course you have no idea if you can
trust them yet with your confidences. But by revealing a
little truth at a time, you can see if indeed
this is someone you not only want to build confidences with,
(10:27):
but you can actually trust. On the other hand, a
good dollop of line will grow the gap between you
wider and wider because you will try to maintain those falsehoods,
which takes effort, and now you are becoming known to
someone as an inauthentic version of yourself, or you later
(10:50):
need to tell them you lied, which makes trust hard
to achieve. I hope that was helpful. So in terms
of relationships, the closer someone is to you, the less
lying is okay. The more you hope to feel good,
truly good, not fake good about yourself. The less lying
(11:15):
is okay, the more substantial the impact on others, and
the more the purpose is to help yourself. The less
lying is okay, Knowing who your audience is is important.
Are they sensitive would you really hurt them with the truth,
or are they able to and even appreciative of the truth.
(11:39):
Telling Grandma you don't actually really notice the under eyebag
she has asked you about could be considered a white lye.
It meets the definition. But if you love Grandma and
feel close to her, saying yeah, you see them, but
they remind you of how wise and long loving a
presence to you she has been in your life. Is
(12:01):
a truth told and a trust of honesty that grew
your closeness that day. As with most issues in psychology
and human nature, there is not one black and white answer.
The shades of gray come in the variability between your
feelings and those of another, but on the whole, when
(12:22):
it comes to relationships, it's almost always better to tell
the truth. Do you have a problem I can help with?
If so, email me at how Can I Help? At
Seneca Women dot com. All senders remain anonymous and listen
every Friday to how can I help with me? Dr
(12:44):
Gale Salts
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