Sweet Little Lies: ‘The Liar in Your Life’ Examines Everyday Deceit

Psychology professor Robert Feldman uncovers why we lie, from the bedroom to the boardroom and beyond.

We admit it. We lie. Who doesn’t tell the occasional white lie, to avoid social awkwardness or hurting someone’s feelings? “That outfit looks great!” Or, “I’d love to, but I have plans.” But Robert Feldman, author of The Liar in Your Life: The Way to Truthful Relationships (Twelve, 2010), maintains that the listener is often as much an active participant as the liar, in that being deceived is often much more comfortable than the alternative. Two people getting acquainted, for example, tell an average of three lies in the first 10 minutes.

Feldman, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts, has written a new afterward to his book that examines various aspects of deceit, in light of the past year’s cheating scandals by public figures such as Tiger Woods, Jesse James and Mark Sanford.

Feldman debunks many of the popular notions about lying. Contrary to shows like Lie to Me, there aren’t cues that necessarily give away a liar, such as averted gaze or sweaty palms. Even detectives and psychologists can spot a liar only about 47 percent of the time.

Also surprising is that, in many cases, we want to believe a lie — whether it’s that we do indeed look great despite only a few hours of sleep or that the house being shown to us by a real estate agent really is “perfect.” This, coupled with our natural bias that people are usually telling the truth, makes it easy for deception to occur — a Liar’s Advantage and a Willing Accomplice Principle, says Feldman. “If a liar can hit upon deception that we’d like to believe, too, we’re both — liar and target of the lie — hoping on some level that the lie won’t be revealed for what it is,” he says. This also comes into play in bigger lies, such as the subprime real-estate market collapse. However, Feldman says, “While it gives liars a leg up on deceiving us, it does not mean we are bound to be always fooled — assuming, of course, that we don’t want to be fooled.”

In terms of self-deception, we all tend to lie to ourselves more often than we’d like to admit. (Interestingly, clinically depressed people have surprisingly accurate views of themselves, so maybe self-deception isn’t always bad.) This fascinating book also looks at how and when we learn to lie, career lies, media-manufactured lies, deceit in the age of the Internet and lies of intent (the big, Bernie Madoff-sized lies we tend to associate with lying). There’s also a chapter on broken trust — the deeply personal lies of betrayal that make for tabloid fodder in the public eye — and advice on how to trust again. In his conclusion about living with unavoidable lies, Feldman reminds us, “Honesty may not be a perfect, universally applicable policy — but it is still the best policy.”

After reading this, we’re going to be more aware of what we’re told — as well as the “little white lies” that we might tell. Do you agree with Feldman that honesty is always the best policy?