In 2020, three researchers from the University of Twente (Netherlands) asked how lying affects our self-esteem to shed light on an issue full of questions. Does deliberate falsehood impact those evaluations we all make of ourselves? Does it make us feel like worse people? Does it leave us indifferent? “We found it interesting and paradoxical that, being a behavior that most of us judge as immoral, it occurs so frequently,” says Marielle Stell, co-author of a series of four studies published last December by the British Psychological Society under the name The costs of lying.
The research links dishonesty and self-perception in a variety of contexts, dissecting lies that are white and evil, serious and petty, current and past. Its participants recalled typical episodes where deception usually emerges, such as in a job interview, a friend asking our opinion regarding his new haircut. They recalled personal situations with high emotional weight in which they were confronted with the dilemma of whether or not to tell the truth. The 200 individuals in the sample also recorded in writing the lies communicated during their daily lives.
After all this amalgamation of scenarios, the data turned out to be conclusive: lying leads, on average, to significant drops in self-esteem, measured according to the famous test—still in common use—devised in the 1960s by the American sociologist Morris Rosenberg.
The discovery of The costs of lying It is in line with other similar discoveries. “There is fairly strong evidence that lying is associated with worse mental health,” says Christian Hart, co-author of big liars (Big liarsedited by the American Psychological Association, without a Spanish version) and director of the Human Deception Laboratory at Texas Woman’s University (USA).
After years of interviewing thousands of individuals, Hart and his collaborators have concluded that avoiding the truth results, above all, in increased anxiety. Especially when falsehood is exercised systematically and with selfish intentions. “Living like this forces you to make constant calculations, covering the initial lie with subsequent ones, evaluating what the other person knows or does not know. This represents an enormous cognitive load that triggers our stress levels,” explains Hart.
Lying as a lifestyle
A meta-analysis released in 2015 by researchers from Harvard and Berkeley universities (both in the United States) synthesized the effects of lying on our body. This produces clear increases in heart rate and the release of cortisol (the so-called stress hormone), according to the study. In the opposite sense, honesty tends to generate higher levels of oxytocin, a hormone linked to feelings of well-being and relaxation.
“Many people write to me in despair confessing that their lies are destroying their lives”
Christian Hart, director of the Human Deception Laboratory at Texas Woman’s University
In another 2012 study led by Anita Kelly, from the University of Notre Dame (USA), a group of people were asked not to lie for 10 weeks. The ban translated, for many, into not exaggerating daily achievements or not making false excuses for small mistakes, such as being late for an appointment. Compared to the control group, which received no instructions, the non-liars reported significantly less tension, melancholy, and other negative emotions at the end of the experiment.
For Christian Miller, director of the Honesty Project at Wake Forest University (USA) and author of works in which he addresses the psychological repercussions of lying (and other dishonest acts such as stealing or cheating), only notable damage can be detected. in people who mistreat the truth on a regular basis. “They are approximately 5% of the population,” he says. For the pathological liar, Miller explains, “his reputation, the trust that other people place in him, the fear of being caught are constantly at stake. This can trigger and perpetuate serious anxiety symptoms.” Like a skein of lies growing up which, in the long run, turns the truth into a constant threat.
It can also be the case, according to research published in 2017 in the journal Nature, the inverse phenomenon: the gradual reduction of stress associated with lying. In the study, carried out by researchers at University College London, a decrease in the activity of the amygdala – the part of the brain that sends information regarding fear to our nervous system – was observed as the number and scope of falsehoods spoken increased. by the participants. Stell warns regarding the limitations of research that, like this one, is carried out in the laboratory, under control, fictitiously recreating real situations. “People can take it as a game and react very differently than they would in their normal lives,” she emphasizes.
In any case, Hart does see a logic behind what he calls “habituation to lying.” And he draws an analogy with exposure therapies, used for patients with anxiety or phobic disorders to face their fears. “If someone is afraid of heights and is exposed to them, at first his heart races, he sweats… But, little by little, the feeling of danger decreases,” he says. Something similar happens, in his opinion, with some repeat liars: “The fear of being discovered and the reputational damage that this might cause is attenuated when the subject realizes that he is getting his way.”
Fear of abandonment
Another source of concern for the dishonest person lies in the intricate domains of guilt. “A moral condemnation of one’s own behavior is to be expected,” estimates Miller. Hart, for his part, isn’t so sure. “Many people, perhaps most, are great at justifying their lies. They twist their dishonest acts so that they appear, before themselves, as good people,” he maintains. This researcher exemplifies this dynamic with the case of an unfaithful man whom he treated a long time ago. “He had a lot of reasons to defend himself: the truth would hurt my wife, it’s not worth it, the other relationship is not important… He came to tell me that he was lying to his wife for her own good.” .
Beyond supposed white lies that appease guilt, there are individuals in the face of whom ordinary moral considerations are not valid. Those with psychopathic traits are, in some ways, immune to the emotional damage of lying. They suffer no distress or shame because of their dishonesty. Hart encourages us not to confuse the pathological liar with the psychopath who lies habitually. “The first retains the capacity for empathy and remorse, although to a different degree.” He seeks, Hart continues, “attention by inventing heroic events in which he has participated or by claiming that he is friends with someone famous.” But he can, unlike the psychopath, suffer greatly from the immense farce that he has been building around him. “Many people write to me in despair confessing that their lies are destroying their lives,” says Hart.
According to psychotherapist Ángel Rull, lies and guilt can sometimes feed off each other. Rull mentions patients of his with “emotional wounds from episodes of abandonment that, at the time, activated guilt in them.” This has made them more likely “to lie in order not to be abandoned once more.” Which reactivates, precisely, “the guilt they felt following the abandonment.” Like a vicious circle in which a theoretical self-protection mechanism only makes things worse, thus giving even more vigor to the carousel of lies and discomfort.
