Liar, Liar:  Chronic Fibbers Are Rare, Study Reveals

By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Nov. 1, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Very few individuals are power liars, in response to a research that will draw eyerolls from Americans swamped by “faux information” and misinformation.

Prior analysis has discovered that folks inform a median of 1 or two lies a day. But these new findings recommend that does not mirror the conduct of most individuals, and that the majority fibs are advised by only some prolific liars, the research authors mentioned.

“There are these few prolific liars on the market,” mentioned lead writer Timothy Levine, who research deception and heads communication research on the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “And I feel this research confirmed that they’re an actual factor. There is that type of prime 1% who’re telling greater than 15 lies per day, day in, time out.”

Most earlier research on mendacity centered on one time limit, whereas this one tracked individuals’s lies each day over three months. The 630 contributors saved each day deception journals, which yielded 116,336 lies.

Three-quarters of contributors have been persistently sincere, telling between zero and two lies per day, the findings confirmed.

But about 6% of them averaged greater than six lies a day and accounted for a big share of all of the lies within the research, which was not too long ago printed on-line within the journal Communication Monographs.

The findings recommend that on a regular basis communication might be safer than you could assume, in response to Levine.

The research additionally discovered that folks have good and unhealthy days, the place they inform fewer or extra lies than standard, and that most individuals do not lie except they’ve a motive.

“People are largely sincere, and other people largely consider different individuals — and deception is extra of a type of distinctive factor somewhat than a power fear,” Levine mentioned in a college information launch.

More data

Recovery.org provides recommendation to cease ordinary mendacity.

SOURCE: University of Alabama at Birmingham, information launch, Oct. 27, 2021