Lying and Deception in Our Personal Relationships
The Dark Side of Relationships There is no single person in this world who has never told a lie. No matter how big or small, direct or indirect, verbal or non-verbal; we all have told a lie. The problem with lying is most of the time your lies comes to light. Knapp and Vangelisiti state, “If acts of omission, exaggeration, vagueness, evasiveness, and substitution are all part of the act of lying, than everybody lies” (2006, p. 248). Whether you wore your sister’s dress, after she said no, only to have her come home with the dress in the dirty clothes and you tell her you did not wear it. Or you went out to eat with an ex-lover and told your partner you went with a friend, only for your partner to see that same friend at the gas station. It is all lying and deceiving. We live in a society where lying and “sugar-coating”, which is not fully telling the truth, has become more and more acceptable. In our personal relationships lying can have a detrimental effect; whether we accept it or not lying and deception affects our communication in our personal relationships as well.
“Deception violates both relational and conversational rules is often considered to be a negative violation of expectancies” (Guerrero, Anderson, Afifi, 2007, p.292). In our personal relationships, deception usually leads to feelings of distrust and betrayal. Deception leads to uncomfortableness whether you are being deceived or you’re the deceiver.
I have lied in many of my personal relationships. Many times the lies were intentionally. Most of the time the lies were either to hide something, trying to make myself look better, or just simply because I was ashamed of the truth. My personal experiences with lying have been nothing but horror movies. Some people who are professional liars or deceptors might say I just do not know how to lie correctly. However, whether it’s lying correctly or incorrectly it is still a lie. A lot of the times lying is actually more work than telling the truth because
“Deception violates both relational and conversational rules is often considered to be a negative violation of expectancies” (Guerrero, Anderson, Afifi, 2007, p.292). In our personal relationships, deception usually leads to feelings of distrust and betrayal. Deception leads to uncomfortableness whether you are being deceived or you’re the deceiver.
I have lied in many of my personal relationships. Many times the lies were intentionally. Most of the time the lies were either to hide something, trying to make myself look better, or just simply because I was ashamed of the truth. My personal experiences with lying have been nothing but horror movies. Some people who are professional liars or deceptors might say I just do not know how to lie correctly. However, whether it’s lying correctly or incorrectly it is still a lie. A lot of the times lying is actually more work than telling the truth because
References: Guerrero L., Anderson P.A., & Afifi W. (2007). Close encounters: Communication in Relationships (2nd ed.). Los Angeles; CA Sage Publications. Knapp, M.L & Vangelisti, A.L (2006). In Galvin, K. M., & Cooper, P. J. (Eds.) (2006). Making connections: Readings in relational communication (pp. 247-252) (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. Wood, J. T. (2000). Relational communication: Continuity and change in personal relationships (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.