A Space of Lying: Between a Small Hole and a Deep Slope

Abstract

                This article aims to explore human’s knowledge, belief and attitude on lying from humanities, social sciences and science perspectives; and to study whether, in reality, our lying behaviors are consistent with those knowledge, belief and attitude. From a conceptual and related research review, it is clear that human beings have always given “negative” values to lying and had a certain set of clear penalty, both religiously and legally. At the same time, psychologists have found that lying has a negative effect on health while small lies could lead to bigger lies that might cause severe consequences. For those who lie, there are several types: occasional liar, compulsive liar, pathological liar and sociopathic liar, with different motivations. Besides, many studies have found that most people lie regularly, which could be academically explained that telling a lie is a necessity to sustain human society. The acceptable area of lying for most people is limited to no-major-damage lies, i.e., well-intended lies to help others and to build good relations in the society, which are in line with religious and legal considerations. For the author, weaving lies into large or small deceptive realms, for each one of us, no matter from what motivations, is all at risk. There would be a small,difficult-to-control hole-needed for the existence of our society-and a deep, impactful slope-that needs some strict control measures. Each lie definitely requires a good risk management.