Fascinating research reveals the most common topic people lie about – and it’s not household chores
- Researchers from the Netherlands looked at the consequences of lying to the liar
- They found that people are most likely to lie about themselves and not about others
- READ MORE: Honesty makes you happier and healthier, research shows
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Research shows that the most common lies people tell make them look better in front of others.
This might include lying about your expertise during a job interview or changing an anecdote to make yourself seem braver or funnier.
Surprisingly, lies to protect other people (such as telling someone their job is good when it isn’t) are not told that often.
Researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands conducted four experiments to evaluate the psychological effects of lying.
In one, they asked 285 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 75 to keep track of all their lies for a day.
They found that 22 percent of participants told a self-centered lie – usually to inflate their successes or achievements.
The most common thing people lie about isn’t household chores but themselves, a survey has revealed
Most of the sample said they were not lying; 70 percent.
Meanwhile, a small minority (just eight percent) said they told lies involving other people, usually to protect someone else’s feelings.
In another experiment, volunteers had to say how they would answer a series of difficult questions that people often lie about; such as their age, and whether they liked a gift a friend bought when they didn’t.
The participants had to indicate whether they had lied or told the truth.
The participants’ self-esteem, nervousness, regret, discomfort and unhappiness were then measured using questionnaires.
The results showed that 46 percent of volunteers admitted that they would lie in the above situations.
The study, published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, found that those who lied had significantly lower self-esteem and more negative feelings than those who told the truth.
In the next experiment, volunteers had to reveal situations in which they had lied or decided to tell the truth.
Researchers tracked negative and positive emotions as they talked about the event.
The results were the same: Participants who remembered scenarios in which they had lied had lower self-esteem and fewer positive emotions than those who remembered scenarios in which the truth was told.
In the final test, participants monitored their lying habits and self-esteem for five days.
About 22 percent of people reported lying every day, while 19 percent said they had not lied at all.
The results showed that when someone told a lie, their self-esteem was lower than the day before, suggesting that people who lie do not generally have low self-esteem, but that lying reduces self-esteem.