People lie every single day, whether it be a little white lie, exaggeration or worse, everyone does it and there are so many different ways they do it. Some people lie to make themselves look better, some people over exaggerate a story to either make it more interesting or to make themselves look better and another reason for lying is to cover up the hidden truth.
So why do people lie?
According to a website I found there are 4 main reasons; greed, fear, acceptance and habit.
Greed
People may lie in order to gain power or money. Intentionally lying to gain something for themselves is a common event.
Fear
People can get scared to tell the truth in case something is going to happen to them. Therefore by lying they may be saving themselves.
Acceptance
Sometimes people feel the need to impress others in order to fit in. A common way of impressing people is lying to them, or rather over exaggerating the truth. So for example a person could be telling a story about how they got a certain scar on their body and instead of telling the truth like, 'I scraped my arm when I fell down the stairs', they may feel the need to tell a story about fighting with sharks. This to them is impressing their friends and they then feel they are accepted.
Habit
Unfortunately some people are what is known as a compulsive liar. They are so used to telling lies to people that it comes as a kind of second nature. They may no longer realise they are lying because they do it so often.
Lies and Gender
On the issue of whether males or females lie more, I dont think one can establish between the two. Because of the wide range of types of lies and reasons for lying, it can be said that both men and women have the capability to lie, and whether they do it more or less than each other is not really an issue. As we discussed in lecture, there are not going to be many people in the world that can say they have never lied in their whole lives.
Is lying bad? Well, in my opinion it is if it means someone is going to get hurt, but little white lies such as santa to children and 'yes you look fabulous' when really you think she looks fat, are not going to ruin a person's life forever!
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