I am totally fascinated in reading a thread about lying where people are openly saying "I don't lie." Quite a bit of juicy irony there, don't ya think?
Somewhere in a notebook I have a bunch of statistics concerning lies from a police training session where they tell how many lies an average person tells a day, and it varies from face-to-face conversation, phone conversation, or e-mail.
I very firmly believe that every species on this planet is deceptive is some way - it's a basic part of survival. Therefore, lying is a basic part of our fundamental nature as a successful species. And since we seem to be much better at being deceptive than recognizing the deception of others, human society continues to develop laws that help to "even up" the score and try to force people to restrict their deception.
Now, having said all that, check out this story in today's UK Telegraph which suggests that humans begin lying as early as six months old. It's instinctive and genetic folks. It's who we are as a successful species. Deal with it.
Quote:
Babies not as innocent as they pretend
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/07/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...scibaby101.xml
Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.
Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.
Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.
Following studies of more than 50 children and interviews with parents, Dr Vasudevi Reddy, of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, says she has identified seven categories of deception used between six months and three-years-old.
Infants quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or trying to distract parents' attention.
By the age of two, toddlers could use far more devious techniques, such as bluffing when threatened with a punishment.
Dr Reddy said: "Fake crying is one of the earliest forms of deception to emerge, and infants use it to get attention even though nothing is wrong. You can tell, as they will then pause while they wait to hear if their mother is responding, before crying again.
"It demonstrates they're clearly able to distinguish that what they are doing will have an effect. This is essentially all adults do when they tell lies, except in adults it becomes more morally loaded."
She added: "Later it becomes more sophisticated by saying, 'I don't care' when threatened with a punishment - when they clearly do."
Dr Reddy thinks children use early fibs to discover what kinds of lie work in certain situations, and also learn the negative consequences of lying too much.
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