January 24, 2011 • 21 mins
Lies are a surprisingly prevalent part of human society, and deception serves a certain social purpose. But does a person's gender determine how much she or he tells lies? Tune in as Molly and Cristen give you the truth about gender and lies.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house Stop works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly. Before we
(00:21):
got into the recording booth today, you said something interesting,
just one thing, just one, only one, an interesting observation
about yourself. You said that you think that the podcast,
doing this podcast has made you a more honest person.
I think so. I think that, um, you know, we've
(00:44):
talked about a lot of crazy, somewhat taboo things, Kristen.
I think that when you um talk um and get
paid for talking about uh poop menstruation, when you save
a lot, you just stopped caring. And I think that
your filter goes away. And I think that that probably
(01:05):
has made more honest in my in my real life
and also in the podcast booth and your day to
day interactions. I think so. Either that or I'm just
really good at lying up to myself and I don't
realize that I'm lying to other people. See you consider
yourself a pretty truthful person, You don't, I think so.
And like I said, I think that um talking about
so many kind of you know, crazy off the wall
topics has made me just more honest about it. What
(01:26):
about you, Kristen? Does that make sense? That makes absolute sense?
And I think that you hit the nail on the
head when you're talking about the difference between lying to
other people and lying to yourself, because what we will
learn is that when it comes to lying, people tend
to lie to themselves about how much they lie. Write
something that distinguishes humans from animals, because you know what, Molly,
(01:49):
we are just humans are just a pack of liars.
We are engaged in my guests. The topic of todays
show is lying, and in reading all this research getay
for the episode. It just follows the mind how many
lies are told in the course of one day, so
many lies as we go throughout our day to day interactions.
(02:09):
And we wanted to focus on, as we typically do
with mom stuff, whether or not men or women lie
more because when we initially started researching, there were stories
that would pop up saying new poll finds that men
lie more than women, and then of course you'd have
some study saying that women lie more than men. But
what's really the truth? That's what we're gonna get to yes,
(02:32):
the truth, the truth. Yes, let's get down to the truth.
But why would you lie in the first place? Why
are there so many lies being told? And the research
shows that most lies are are pretty good. You wouldn't
want to take them away from society because they're the
the grease that keeps society's wheels turning. Yeah, there's a
social function to lying. For instance, when you see someone
(02:55):
see see a galpal with a new haircut and it
looks awful. It's like a bad rachel from friends, and
yet it's two thousand eleven and she's somehow chosen to
get a rachel and it's so dramatic. You have to
say something, and you're not going to say, dear God,
why did you do that to your hair? You say, hey,
my god, I love your new haircut. She says, really,
(03:18):
I don't know about it. Your like, no, really, it's good,
it's good. Yeah. Or if you're invited out to dinner,
if if a pal cooks your dinner and it's overdone
or something like that, you're not going to say three
stars out of five. It can be like, thank you
so much, I love this. Highlight him. I me Gutty
Crocker in here. So those those are when people talk
about how many lives are happening, it seems like these
(03:40):
are the majority of the lives. Yeah, we're not. Yeah,
it's not like everyone's just walking around intentionally spinning tall tales. Right.
In fact, most people, when they're confronted by videotapes of
themselves in conversation with another person, are surprised by how
often they catch themselves lying. You know. It seems to
be eat just a reflex that we have, and it's
(04:00):
not something that we're deliberately planning. We're not going around
engineering plots to tell people that the sky is green
and that we saw like six elephants yesterday. That's not
really the typeline. That seems to be the majority of
the lives being told. Just little embellishments here. They're just
to gloss up the mundane for us, especially to protect
(04:23):
our own self image to ourselfs uh. You know, some
researchers have found that when our self esteem is threatened
in any way, that's when the little falsehoods start to
come into being. You know, someone will say, oh, you know,
I got an A on the test, and you will
say something like, oh, I got a pretty good grade too,
and it may not be a good grade, but you know,
you need to believe that you've got the good grade.
(04:43):
But one interesting fact what I did find in this
research is that UM students who lied about their grade
point average later went on to have higher grade point averages.
And in some ways lives can be self fulfilling, especially
when they're tied to your level of self esteem, when
you want them to come true. That sounds like the
secret remember that book. I did not read that book.
(05:03):
Basically lying to yourself into you know, willing things into existence.
But basically lives are all about image. Yes, you want
to protect your own image, and sometimes you want to
protect others image because you're never going to tell a
lie about yourself that would make that would be less
flattering than the truth. I can't think of when you'd
tell like that. Yeah, and but let's want pity, let's
(05:24):
true true? And just how much are people lying? The
answer is a lot. There was a study published in
the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology that involved strangers
sitting down having conversations and the researchers videotaped the conversations
and afterwards had the people go back and watch it
(05:45):
and predict how many lives that they told before they
watched the video, and then actually see what they said
and see how the reality matched up to what they
how much, how much how truthfully thought that they were
and get this smolly. In only ten minutes ten minutes
of conversation, an average of two point nine two lies
(06:08):
were told. But you know how they got people to
identify these lies was to call them inaccurate things. It's
not like people thought they were lying necessarily. It's more
like fudging the truth. But yes, in a ten minute
conversation average with two point nine too inaccurate things. How
long do you think we've been talking now, Kristen, Probably
way too long. I mean, but we learned to lie
(06:31):
from a very young age. There was an article online
in Live Science that said that by the age of three,
babies figure out how to fudge in We'll think about
Christmas or another holiday when you get socks and you
have to say, oh, man, I love these socks. They're
(06:51):
exactly what I wanted. I mean, you learn your parents
teach you had a lot. Now, one other factoid that
really surprised me, Kristen and makes a little suspicious about
our relationship. People are more willing to lie to their
coworkers than to strangers. I mean, granted, you see them more.
So you don't want to be on a bad foot
(07:12):
with your coworkers. You know if you if you tell
a stranger you hate their haircut, then you might not
have to see them again. And maybe that self esteem
factor that you were talking about earlier comes into play
a little bit more in a work environment. But you know,
one researcher did point out that lying must be sort
of a very short term thing in our brains, because
the long term effect of being caught in your lie
(07:32):
is could be more damaging if it is someone you
see all the time. Right, No one wants to be
labeled as a liar, though, even though everyone's walking around
telling lies or inaccurate things. And that's the thing we
we convinced ourselves, they're just you know, they're a little inaccurates,
not a lie. The lie seems to be malicious. But
not only are we coworkers and therefore more prone to
(07:54):
lie to each other, we are also, in academic terms,
a female diet. Oh my gosh, all diets are the
worst lying ever. Get two women sitting across the table
much like you and I are, and the lies come forth.
And that really surprise researchers because gender stereotypes hold that
women have more intimate friendships than men do, and it
(08:17):
would seem counterproductive to this perceived intimacy to have the
two women lying to each other. But lo and behold.
In this study that looked at gender and lying, which
we're going to go into right now, it was women
in interactions with other women that lied the most, but
they were very specific types of lies, lies for the
(08:39):
benefit of the woman sitting across from the table. Right
This study breaks lives down into self directed lies and
other directed lies. A self directed lies something that really
pumps you up. You know, it's exaggerating how much money
you make, or you know, what a great deal you
got on your new car, something that really increases, uh,
the esteem another per sim will hold for you. And
(09:01):
other directed lie as a lie that's told to protect
or to build up the esteem of someone someone else.
It would be like telling you, oh, I like your haircut. Yeah, wait,
what do you say about my hairmman, it's just a
hypothetical Christian Yeah. With this with this landmark lying study,
because there really haven't been that many studies on deception because,
as you could imagine, it'd be kind of hold hard
(09:23):
to study and to study lying. Uh. This researcher from
the University of Virginia named Bella Depolo had a group
of students and then a group of people in the
community keep a lying diary essentially for a week, and
she then categorized the types of lies that were told,
who they told the lies to, whether they were about
(09:45):
themselves or about the other person. And an interesting gender
pattern did emerge. Right when those when that diet of
female is present that we just mentioned, we were more
two women were more likely to how uh other directed lives.
We were always trying to protect the other person, saying, oh, no,
you did the right thing breaking up with that guy,
(10:08):
even if we maybe thank oh you should have you
should have saved that one, or or whatever the lies
that we your mistruths or what however, we're gonna categorize
these little white lies. That was the kind of lie
that the women told, especially with other women, whereas men
tend to tell self directed lies such as, oh I
got this fantastic deal on my new Jaguar car. I
(10:31):
just spent seven hours in the gym working on my muscles,
and this so big because of it, I'm sure the
men out there will love our stereotypes of what male
lives are really boring lies that we're coming up with
right now because we're so honest. Christen, It's true I
would feel skeptical of all a sudden you're throwing out
really great lives. But the big question we wanted to
answer with the podcast was whether or not men or
(10:53):
women lie more because they'll see a lot of relationship
advice about how men to to lie all the time
or watch out for those deceitful, witchy women. But Depolo's
research indicates that men and women tend to lie about
the same amount. And when men and women were in
conversation and a lie occurred, uh, it was usually a
(11:15):
self a self focused lie. But it was only those
women to women interactions where it was another focused lie.
But we we are very kind with our lying. I
believe one four of the lies, according to Apollo, is
another directed lie. And uh, you know, people said that
these weren't elaborate, thought out lies. Seventy percent of them,
if they had the chance, would lie again. Tell the
(11:36):
exact same lie. Even though it made them more uncomfortable
to bend the truth a little bit, they still wouldn't
do it any differently. It would still preserve their feelings
or lie about their g p A or whatever it
is they're they're fitting about. And most people thought that
the other person couldn't tell that they were lying. They
(11:57):
never felt that they got caught. Yea, even though humans
are so good at lying and we're lying all the time.
What was it in the Apollo study. I believe it
was among the college students, one in every three social
interaction involves some kind of lying, whereas in the older
community population it was one in five interactions. So it's
just something that is almost second nature to us with
(12:19):
our social interactions. And yet we're not very good at
detecting lies. But then the questions nearly becomes are we
not so good at detecting lies? Or do we just
not want to detect the laws? I think that's a
fair question, because if one in four lies are another
directed line meant to protect us, do you really want
to know? I mean, do I really want to know? Christ?
(12:40):
And if you hate my haircut or you know, because
you know at the end of the day. What do
I care what you think of my haircut? I mean,
if I made you dinner and you said it was disgusting, Molly,
I don't really think that i'd want to know. That's
just I mean, you know, it's not polite. There's a
fine line I think between politeness and lying. But of
course then you get into you know, not None of
(13:00):
these studies really deal with, let's say, a lie in
a relationship, a romantic relationship, and I think that those
are probably the lies that you know, become the basis
of romantic comedies and sitcoms and really big heartbreak too.
Uh if it's a lie that feels like this betrayal, right.
Psychologists often say that you save the worst lies, the
(13:23):
most hurtful and monumental lies, for the ones who are
closest to you, and people in dating relationships especially lie
to each other all the time. Bella De Paulo, who
was the researcher we were talking about earlier from the
University of Virginia, said that dating couples lie to each
other in about a third of their interactions a third
(13:44):
a third. But what was weird is that married couples
lie less, but the lies will be bigger. Yeah, so
I take that with a grain up salt. I really
can't say which one I'd prefer, but Christine, I think
the question then is can you detect a I? And
according to one study, women are better at sessing out
these little untruths that we tell each other between friends
(14:07):
than men are that women are just more able to
pick up on the body language miscues. And you know,
we we did come across one article about how to
tell when someone's lying, and you know, it was kind
of frustrating. They seem like pretty generic, uh tips about
body language and watching when someone's body language was uncomfortable,
watching when someone tried to cover their hand, I mean
(14:27):
cover their mouth with their hand. Um, watch when someone's
eyes were shifty. But you know, all these studies talk
about how we are able to internalize and almost make
true our lives as soon as we tell them. It's
almost like as soon as you say, oh, I like
your haircut, you can just believe that you do like
your hair just become self fulfilling prophecies, kind of like
(14:48):
the g p A study. And that's why lie detect
your tests aren't allowed in court, usually polygraph tests because
you know if you can. Those tests measure fear and
not truth. They measure your reaction to telling the law I,
not the lie itself. And because we humans are so
good at believing our own uh lies, you know you
don't have that fearful reaction necessarily when you're recounting whether
(15:12):
you know you lied to your mother or your father something. Moms,
by the way, the most frequently lied to group. Sorry moms,
but everybody's lying to you, it's true. This was from
a survey done by the Science Museum in London, and
the poll found that men supposedly lie more than women,
(15:33):
but again, women might have just been lying about how
much they lie, because men and women define lying differently.
Men tend to define lying as sheer, misstatement of fact,
pretty cut and dried, whereas women attach an emotional angle
to it. We tend to define lying is something as
(15:55):
a mistruth that hurts us, which is so weird when
you compare that to depoll those research about how women,
especially when they're talking with other women, tend to lie
more with other directed lies. It's like, when we are
telling the lie, we know that it's meant to protect
the other person, but when we're confronted with the fact
that someone has lied to us, it's a betrayal. And
I feel that it's a really interesting split. You know,
(16:17):
we're lying all the time to protect other people's feelings,
but we don't want our own feelings protected. I think
that's kind of bizarre. But to go back to this
um science music of London, I didn't want to throw
out a few of the lies that men and women
had in common, and those lots. The number one lie
that both men and women had in common was nothing's wrong,
I'm fine, We've all said that, we've all heard that.
(16:40):
One other wise that they had in common was it
wasn't that expensive. Both men and women would say that
I'm on the way, they weren't really on the way,
and I didn't have that much to drink. And according
to that whole British men lied to their partners most
often about their drinking habits. Something to our mind. Yes,
(17:01):
indeed another podcast topic. So with all of this uh
this lying research, I think we can we can tie
it up pretty pretty easily, saying that men and women
all lie, we're all we're all a bunch of liars.
Women do it a little bit differently. We especially tend
to lie to our girlfriends. Uh, and men and women
(17:21):
see lying and define lying a little bit differently. But
it's just really a problem. You know. We we demonize
lying so much, even though clearly it's part of everyday
social interactions with people. Yeah, they've they've said that people
who can't lie do not have good social lives because
being able to lie as part of having relationships. So
(17:43):
is are there such things as good lies? You know?
Do we need to kind of give give a little
white lies more of a break and give me a
happier name. Yeah? Maybe just like uh like m like
balloon words, like nice nuggets. I like that. Yeah, here's
a nugget for you. It's completely fake, but it's something
(18:05):
to tie you over until your hair grows up from
the god awful haircut. Yeah, if you've got better, better terminology,
you will take that in a listener emails. But we
want to know what you guys think about lying. The
biggest lie you've ever told? Is it all? It means?
It really all that bad that we're walking around lying
through our teeth constantly. Let us know your thoughts. Be
(18:25):
honest to email us. We won't we won't judge you,
and it's mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
All right, I've got a listener email here from Hannah
and she writes about our charity podcast. She writes, I
just finished listening to the Donation podcast and I wanted
to share a donation activity that I do with my friends.
(18:47):
Each month, we get together for a nice dinner out.
The person who picks the restaurant also picks a charity.
At the end of the meal, we all give five
to ten dollars to that person and they make the
actual donation after explaining what the charity is. That way,
each person makes a few donations a year to a
charity of their choice. A larger donation is made than
what one of us could have made on our own.
It's a small amount of money each month, and it's
(19:08):
a fun evening out with friends. It's been a great
way for all of us to actually donate rather than
just say we want to. This is an idea we
got from other friends who do something similar, and I'm
encourage anyone who wants to give to charity but doesn't
get around to it to give this a shot. Very
cool idea. I've got an email here from Kristen in Australia,
and this is in response to our podcast on the
(19:30):
G Spot. She writes, as a Type one diabetic, I
exercise daily, and now that it's summer in Australia, that
means a daily walk in the bush. Imagine me walking
through eucalyptus shaded paths, dodging wallabies and goannas my fearsome
hound just scared off a brown snake in my path.
And I'm laughing my head off because I'm listening to
the G spot podcast. And I laughed the loudest to
(19:53):
Kristen's closing line of and I forgot that I said
this morning. Every vagina is just a little bit special
and especially are Indeed that MNE reminded me of an
acronym use in Diabetes forum Land, which is why d
m V your diabetes may vary use in lines like, hey,
here's a tip you can use, try and see if
(20:13):
it works. But then again, why d m V apply
this to the G spot and you get y v
m V. Hey here's a tip that might help you
find your G spot, but again, you're vagina may vary.
I would like to see this in common use, Kristen.
I would like to see that in common use as well.
That is a fantastic idea. So if you have fantastic
ideas to send our way. Our email is mom Stuff
(20:36):
at how stuff works dot com. You can also follow
us on Twitter and like us on Facebook and new
comments over there if you'd like to. We also have
a blog that you can read during the week. It's
stuff One Ever told You, and you can find it
at how stuff works dot com. For moral, this, and
(20:57):
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
To learn more about the podcast, cook on the podcast
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thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house Stop works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly. Before we
(00:21):
got into the recording booth today, you said something interesting,
just one thing, just one, only one, an interesting observation
about yourself. You said that you think that the podcast,
doing this podcast has made you a more honest person.
I think so. I think that, um, you know, we've
(00:44):
talked about a lot of crazy, somewhat taboo things, Kristen.
I think that when you um talk um and get
paid for talking about uh poop menstruation, when you save
a lot, you just stopped caring. And I think that
your filter goes away. And I think that that probably
(01:05):
has made more honest in my in my real life
and also in the podcast booth and your day to
day interactions. I think so. Either that or I'm just
really good at lying up to myself and I don't
realize that I'm lying to other people. See you consider
yourself a pretty truthful person, You don't, I think so.
And like I said, I think that um talking about
so many kind of you know, crazy off the wall
topics has made me just more honest about it. What
(01:26):
about you, Kristen? Does that make sense? That makes absolute sense?
And I think that you hit the nail on the
head when you're talking about the difference between lying to
other people and lying to yourself, because what we will
learn is that when it comes to lying, people tend
to lie to themselves about how much they lie. Write
something that distinguishes humans from animals, because you know what, Molly,
(01:49):
we are just humans are just a pack of liars.
We are engaged in my guests. The topic of todays
show is lying, and in reading all this research getay
for the episode. It just follows the mind how many
lies are told in the course of one day, so
many lies as we go throughout our day to day interactions.
(02:09):
And we wanted to focus on, as we typically do
with mom stuff, whether or not men or women lie
more because when we initially started researching, there were stories
that would pop up saying new poll finds that men
lie more than women, and then of course you'd have
some study saying that women lie more than men. But
what's really the truth? That's what we're gonna get to yes,
(02:32):
the truth, the truth. Yes, let's get down to the truth.
But why would you lie in the first place? Why
are there so many lies being told? And the research
shows that most lies are are pretty good. You wouldn't
want to take them away from society because they're the
the grease that keeps society's wheels turning. Yeah, there's a
social function to lying. For instance, when you see someone
(02:55):
see see a galpal with a new haircut and it
looks awful. It's like a bad rachel from friends, and
yet it's two thousand eleven and she's somehow chosen to
get a rachel and it's so dramatic. You have to
say something, and you're not going to say, dear God,
why did you do that to your hair? You say, hey,
my god, I love your new haircut. She says, really,
(03:18):
I don't know about it. Your like, no, really, it's good,
it's good. Yeah. Or if you're invited out to dinner,
if if a pal cooks your dinner and it's overdone
or something like that, you're not going to say three
stars out of five. It can be like, thank you
so much, I love this. Highlight him. I me Gutty
Crocker in here. So those those are when people talk
about how many lives are happening, it seems like these
(03:40):
are the majority of the lives. Yeah, we're not. Yeah,
it's not like everyone's just walking around intentionally spinning tall tales. Right.
In fact, most people, when they're confronted by videotapes of
themselves in conversation with another person, are surprised by how
often they catch themselves lying. You know. It seems to
be eat just a reflex that we have, and it's
(04:00):
not something that we're deliberately planning. We're not going around
engineering plots to tell people that the sky is green
and that we saw like six elephants yesterday. That's not
really the typeline. That seems to be the majority of
the lives being told. Just little embellishments here. They're just
to gloss up the mundane for us, especially to protect
(04:23):
our own self image to ourselfs uh. You know, some
researchers have found that when our self esteem is threatened
in any way, that's when the little falsehoods start to
come into being. You know, someone will say, oh, you know,
I got an A on the test, and you will
say something like, oh, I got a pretty good grade too,
and it may not be a good grade, but you know,
you need to believe that you've got the good grade.
(04:43):
But one interesting fact what I did find in this
research is that UM students who lied about their grade
point average later went on to have higher grade point averages.
And in some ways lives can be self fulfilling, especially
when they're tied to your level of self esteem, when
you want them to come true. That sounds like the
secret remember that book. I did not read that book.
(05:03):
Basically lying to yourself into you know, willing things into existence.
But basically lives are all about image. Yes, you want
to protect your own image, and sometimes you want to
protect others image because you're never going to tell a
lie about yourself that would make that would be less
flattering than the truth. I can't think of when you'd
tell like that. Yeah, and but let's want pity, let's
(05:24):
true true? And just how much are people lying? The
answer is a lot. There was a study published in
the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology that involved strangers
sitting down having conversations and the researchers videotaped the conversations
and afterwards had the people go back and watch it
(05:45):
and predict how many lives that they told before they
watched the video, and then actually see what they said
and see how the reality matched up to what they
how much, how much how truthfully thought that they were
and get this smolly. In only ten minutes ten minutes
of conversation, an average of two point nine two lies
(06:08):
were told. But you know how they got people to
identify these lies was to call them inaccurate things. It's
not like people thought they were lying necessarily. It's more
like fudging the truth. But yes, in a ten minute
conversation average with two point nine too inaccurate things. How
long do you think we've been talking now, Kristen, Probably
way too long. I mean, but we learned to lie
(06:31):
from a very young age. There was an article online
in Live Science that said that by the age of three,
babies figure out how to fudge in We'll think about
Christmas or another holiday when you get socks and you
have to say, oh, man, I love these socks. They're
(06:51):
exactly what I wanted. I mean, you learn your parents
teach you had a lot. Now, one other factoid that
really surprised me, Kristen and makes a little suspicious about
our relationship. People are more willing to lie to their
coworkers than to strangers. I mean, granted, you see them more.
So you don't want to be on a bad foot
(07:12):
with your coworkers. You know if you if you tell
a stranger you hate their haircut, then you might not
have to see them again. And maybe that self esteem
factor that you were talking about earlier comes into play
a little bit more in a work environment. But you know,
one researcher did point out that lying must be sort
of a very short term thing in our brains, because
the long term effect of being caught in your lie
(07:32):
is could be more damaging if it is someone you
see all the time. Right, No one wants to be
labeled as a liar, though, even though everyone's walking around
telling lies or inaccurate things. And that's the thing we
we convinced ourselves, they're just you know, they're a little inaccurates,
not a lie. The lie seems to be malicious. But
not only are we coworkers and therefore more prone to
(07:54):
lie to each other, we are also, in academic terms,
a female diet. Oh my gosh, all diets are the
worst lying ever. Get two women sitting across the table
much like you and I are, and the lies come forth.
And that really surprise researchers because gender stereotypes hold that
women have more intimate friendships than men do, and it
(08:17):
would seem counterproductive to this perceived intimacy to have the
two women lying to each other. But lo and behold.
In this study that looked at gender and lying, which
we're going to go into right now, it was women
in interactions with other women that lied the most, but
they were very specific types of lies, lies for the
(08:39):
benefit of the woman sitting across from the table. Right
This study breaks lives down into self directed lies and
other directed lies. A self directed lies something that really
pumps you up. You know, it's exaggerating how much money
you make, or you know, what a great deal you
got on your new car, something that really increases, uh,
the esteem another per sim will hold for you. And
(09:01):
other directed lie as a lie that's told to protect
or to build up the esteem of someone someone else.
It would be like telling you, oh, I like your haircut. Yeah, wait,
what do you say about my hairmman, it's just a
hypothetical Christian Yeah. With this with this landmark lying study,
because there really haven't been that many studies on deception because,
as you could imagine, it'd be kind of hold hard
(09:23):
to study and to study lying. Uh. This researcher from
the University of Virginia named Bella Depolo had a group
of students and then a group of people in the
community keep a lying diary essentially for a week, and
she then categorized the types of lies that were told,
who they told the lies to, whether they were about
(09:45):
themselves or about the other person. And an interesting gender
pattern did emerge. Right when those when that diet of
female is present that we just mentioned, we were more
two women were more likely to how uh other directed lives.
We were always trying to protect the other person, saying, oh, no,
you did the right thing breaking up with that guy,
(10:08):
even if we maybe thank oh you should have you
should have saved that one, or or whatever the lies
that we your mistruths or what however, we're gonna categorize
these little white lies. That was the kind of lie
that the women told, especially with other women, whereas men
tend to tell self directed lies such as, oh I
got this fantastic deal on my new Jaguar car. I
(10:31):
just spent seven hours in the gym working on my muscles,
and this so big because of it, I'm sure the
men out there will love our stereotypes of what male
lives are really boring lies that we're coming up with
right now because we're so honest. Christen, It's true I
would feel skeptical of all a sudden you're throwing out
really great lives. But the big question we wanted to
answer with the podcast was whether or not men or
(10:53):
women lie more because they'll see a lot of relationship
advice about how men to to lie all the time
or watch out for those deceitful, witchy women. But Depolo's
research indicates that men and women tend to lie about
the same amount. And when men and women were in
conversation and a lie occurred, uh, it was usually a
(11:15):
self a self focused lie. But it was only those
women to women interactions where it was another focused lie.
But we we are very kind with our lying. I
believe one four of the lies, according to Apollo, is
another directed lie. And uh, you know, people said that
these weren't elaborate, thought out lies. Seventy percent of them,
if they had the chance, would lie again. Tell the
(11:36):
exact same lie. Even though it made them more uncomfortable
to bend the truth a little bit, they still wouldn't
do it any differently. It would still preserve their feelings
or lie about their g p A or whatever it
is they're they're fitting about. And most people thought that
the other person couldn't tell that they were lying. They
(11:57):
never felt that they got caught. Yea, even though humans
are so good at lying and we're lying all the time.
What was it in the Apollo study. I believe it
was among the college students, one in every three social
interaction involves some kind of lying, whereas in the older
community population it was one in five interactions. So it's
just something that is almost second nature to us with
(12:19):
our social interactions. And yet we're not very good at
detecting lies. But then the questions nearly becomes are we
not so good at detecting lies? Or do we just
not want to detect the laws? I think that's a
fair question, because if one in four lies are another
directed line meant to protect us, do you really want
to know? I mean, do I really want to know? Christ?
(12:40):
And if you hate my haircut or you know, because
you know at the end of the day. What do
I care what you think of my haircut? I mean,
if I made you dinner and you said it was disgusting, Molly,
I don't really think that i'd want to know. That's
just I mean, you know, it's not polite. There's a
fine line I think between politeness and lying. But of
course then you get into you know, not None of
(13:00):
these studies really deal with, let's say, a lie in
a relationship, a romantic relationship, and I think that those
are probably the lies that you know, become the basis
of romantic comedies and sitcoms and really big heartbreak too.
Uh if it's a lie that feels like this betrayal, right.
Psychologists often say that you save the worst lies, the
(13:23):
most hurtful and monumental lies, for the ones who are
closest to you, and people in dating relationships especially lie
to each other all the time. Bella De Paulo, who
was the researcher we were talking about earlier from the
University of Virginia, said that dating couples lie to each
other in about a third of their interactions a third
(13:44):
a third. But what was weird is that married couples
lie less, but the lies will be bigger. Yeah, so
I take that with a grain up salt. I really
can't say which one I'd prefer, but Christine, I think
the question then is can you detect a I? And
according to one study, women are better at sessing out
these little untruths that we tell each other between friends
(14:07):
than men are that women are just more able to
pick up on the body language miscues. And you know,
we we did come across one article about how to
tell when someone's lying, and you know, it was kind
of frustrating. They seem like pretty generic, uh tips about
body language and watching when someone's body language was uncomfortable,
watching when someone tried to cover their hand, I mean
(14:27):
cover their mouth with their hand. Um, watch when someone's
eyes were shifty. But you know, all these studies talk
about how we are able to internalize and almost make
true our lives as soon as we tell them. It's
almost like as soon as you say, oh, I like
your haircut, you can just believe that you do like
your hair just become self fulfilling prophecies, kind of like
(14:48):
the g p A study. And that's why lie detect
your tests aren't allowed in court, usually polygraph tests because
you know if you can. Those tests measure fear and
not truth. They measure your reaction to telling the law I,
not the lie itself. And because we humans are so
good at believing our own uh lies, you know you
don't have that fearful reaction necessarily when you're recounting whether
(15:12):
you know you lied to your mother or your father something. Moms,
by the way, the most frequently lied to group. Sorry moms,
but everybody's lying to you, it's true. This was from
a survey done by the Science Museum in London, and
the poll found that men supposedly lie more than women,
(15:33):
but again, women might have just been lying about how
much they lie, because men and women define lying differently.
Men tend to define lying as sheer, misstatement of fact,
pretty cut and dried, whereas women attach an emotional angle
to it. We tend to define lying is something as
(15:55):
a mistruth that hurts us, which is so weird when
you compare that to depoll those research about how women,
especially when they're talking with other women, tend to lie
more with other directed lies. It's like, when we are
telling the lie, we know that it's meant to protect
the other person, but when we're confronted with the fact
that someone has lied to us, it's a betrayal. And
I feel that it's a really interesting split. You know,
(16:17):
we're lying all the time to protect other people's feelings,
but we don't want our own feelings protected. I think
that's kind of bizarre. But to go back to this
um science music of London, I didn't want to throw
out a few of the lies that men and women
had in common, and those lots. The number one lie
that both men and women had in common was nothing's wrong,
I'm fine, We've all said that, we've all heard that.
(16:40):
One other wise that they had in common was it
wasn't that expensive. Both men and women would say that
I'm on the way, they weren't really on the way,
and I didn't have that much to drink. And according
to that whole British men lied to their partners most
often about their drinking habits. Something to our mind. Yes,
(17:01):
indeed another podcast topic. So with all of this uh
this lying research, I think we can we can tie
it up pretty pretty easily, saying that men and women
all lie, we're all we're all a bunch of liars.
Women do it a little bit differently. We especially tend
to lie to our girlfriends. Uh, and men and women
(17:21):
see lying and define lying a little bit differently. But
it's just really a problem. You know. We we demonize
lying so much, even though clearly it's part of everyday
social interactions with people. Yeah, they've they've said that people
who can't lie do not have good social lives because
being able to lie as part of having relationships. So
(17:43):
is are there such things as good lies? You know?
Do we need to kind of give give a little
white lies more of a break and give me a
happier name. Yeah? Maybe just like uh like m like
balloon words, like nice nuggets. I like that. Yeah, here's
a nugget for you. It's completely fake, but it's something
(18:05):
to tie you over until your hair grows up from
the god awful haircut. Yeah, if you've got better, better terminology,
you will take that in a listener emails. But we
want to know what you guys think about lying. The
biggest lie you've ever told? Is it all? It means?
It really all that bad that we're walking around lying
through our teeth constantly. Let us know your thoughts. Be
(18:25):
honest to email us. We won't we won't judge you,
and it's mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
All right, I've got a listener email here from Hannah
and she writes about our charity podcast. She writes, I
just finished listening to the Donation podcast and I wanted
to share a donation activity that I do with my friends.
(18:47):
Each month, we get together for a nice dinner out.
The person who picks the restaurant also picks a charity.
At the end of the meal, we all give five
to ten dollars to that person and they make the
actual donation after explaining what the charity is. That way,
each person makes a few donations a year to a
charity of their choice. A larger donation is made than
what one of us could have made on our own.
It's a small amount of money each month, and it's
(19:08):
a fun evening out with friends. It's been a great
way for all of us to actually donate rather than
just say we want to. This is an idea we
got from other friends who do something similar, and I'm
encourage anyone who wants to give to charity but doesn't
get around to it to give this a shot. Very
cool idea. I've got an email here from Kristen in Australia,
and this is in response to our podcast on the
(19:30):
G Spot. She writes, as a Type one diabetic, I
exercise daily, and now that it's summer in Australia, that
means a daily walk in the bush. Imagine me walking
through eucalyptus shaded paths, dodging wallabies and goannas my fearsome
hound just scared off a brown snake in my path.
And I'm laughing my head off because I'm listening to
the G spot podcast. And I laughed the loudest to
(19:53):
Kristen's closing line of and I forgot that I said
this morning. Every vagina is just a little bit special
and especially are Indeed that MNE reminded me of an
acronym use in Diabetes forum Land, which is why d
m V your diabetes may vary use in lines like, hey,
here's a tip you can use, try and see if
(20:13):
it works. But then again, why d m V apply
this to the G spot and you get y v
m V. Hey here's a tip that might help you
find your G spot, but again, you're vagina may vary.
I would like to see this in common use, Kristen.
I would like to see that in common use as well.
That is a fantastic idea. So if you have fantastic
ideas to send our way. Our email is mom Stuff
(20:36):
at how stuff works dot com. You can also follow
us on Twitter and like us on Facebook and new
comments over there if you'd like to. We also have
a blog that you can read during the week. It's
stuff One Ever told You, and you can find it
at how stuff works dot com. For moral, this, and
(20:57):
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
To learn more about the podcast, cook on the podcast
icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
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