Dan Ariely: Why We Lie?

As human beings, lying is a cognitive skill. We have it for the sole purpose of survival. Which is how it is for any social species. We lie to protect our ourselves and others from harm. Yet there are some types of lies that can cause more havoc than good. For my experiment or study, I am examining what factors incline us to lie the most. Also how they affect our society in a negative or positive way?

First of all, what is a lie anyway? A lie, according to google, is an intentionally false statement. Which in a way is correct, but I think due to certain situations we don't want to lie but we have to. According to bestselling author and behavioral scientist Dan Ariely, lying is not rational. And to do anything “intentionally,” you think of logical reasons of why you should do it. Thus a lie is an impulsive statement that is false or exaggerated. Being that civilization has lied since the beginning of time, what are those impulses?

Based on the Fudge Factor Theory, there are three reasons why we lie. They are the desire to get ahead, to think of ourselves as good people and have society
According to the author of Why We Lie , David Smith we are not aware of the lies we tell. That we as social beings are so good at deception we have fooled ourselves. In society, those who are too honest or blunt are antisocial or even pathological. People want to hear what they want to hear, it doesn’t matter if it's true or not. Which in way lying gives us social interaction benefits, but what are the cons? According to researchers Anita Kelly and LiJuan Wang of Notre Dame,lying can cause stress. Which is bad for your health . Also if we were to think what makes someone a criminal or a model citizen. Is lying to protect others versus lying to benefit yourself. So if lying did deteriorate, our society’s crime rate would too. Its correlated with cheating and