If you’ve ever told your partner a fib and thought you’d got away with it – you’re probably right, according to new research from the UK.
Dr Brianna Verigin from the University of Portsmouth says her latest study proves most of us aren’t as good at detecting lies as we think we are.
“At best, most of us have a 50:50 chance of getting it right when someone is pulling the wool over our eyes,” she said.
Her team wanted to focus on those who are good at lying and try to understand how they do it and to whom.
Dr Verigin quizzed 194 people, half men and half women, with an average age of 39.
They were asked a series of questions including how good they were at deceiving others, how many lies they’d told in the past 24 hours, the type of lies they’d told, who to, and whether they’d done so face-to-face or via other means – with interesting results.
Nearly half (40 per cent) of all lies were told by a very small number of people – and these people were more likely to lie to those closest to them, including family, friends, romantic partners and colleagues.
Most liars opted for the strategy of telling plausible lies that stay close to the truth and not giving away much information – but the better someone thought they were at lying, the more lies they told.
These ranged from ‘white lies’ (“yes, that looks great on you, honey”) and exaggerations to hiding information, burying lies in a torrent of truth (“I just had one drink at the pub”) and making up things.
The majority also chose to lie face-to-face, then via text message, a phone call, email, and last, via social media (presumably because if you get caught out online, the whole world knows).
Men were also twice as likely as women to consider themselves to be good at lying and at getting away with it.
Sorry gentlemen, I must disagree – any woman who has come home with a shopping bag is already a far better liar than you.
