Men More Likely To Consider Themselves Good Liars Than Women: Study

According to a study, men are twice more likely than women to consider themselves as good liar and being able to get away with it. The study also revealed that people lied least to their employees and authority figures, or so they said. People good at lying told lies usually to their romantic partners, family, friends and colleagues, noted Researchers at the University of Portsmouth in the UK.

According to the 194 participants the most common types of lies they told in descending order, were ‘white lies’, exaggerations, hiding information, burying lies in a torrent of truth and making up things.

Some takeaways:

• A study, published in journal PLOS ONE, quizzed 194 people on their lying habits.
• The study revealed men are twice as likely to consider themselves good at lying than women.
• Male participants revealed that they prefer to lie face to face than over text etc.
• One of the key strategies of liars is to tell plausible lies that stays close to the truth and to not give away too much information.

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The study

Journal PLOS ONE published the study in which 194 people (half men and half women with an average age of 39) were quizzed about their lying habits.  Men and women participating in the study answered a series of questions like how good they are at deceiving other people and how many lies have they told in the past 24 hours. According to the 194 participants the most common types of lies they told in descending order, were ‘white lies’, exaggerations, hiding information, burying lies in a torrent of truth and making up things.

Men think they are better at lying

Researcher Brianna Verigin, who as per the report of Times of India works at Portsmouth and also at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands said, “We found a significant link between expertise at lying and gender. Men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it." She further added, "Time after time, studies have shown we are not as good at detecting lies as we think we are. At best, most of us have a 50 percent chance of getting it right when someone is pulling the wool over our eyes." Verigin also revealed, "Previous research has shown that most people tell one-two lies per day, but that's not accurate, most people don't lie every day but a small number of prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies reported."

"Expert liars say that the ability to weave a believable story embellished with the truth makes the lies harder to spot."

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As per the study, one of the key strategies of liars is to tell plausible lies that stays close to the truth and to not give away too much information. Also, the better someone thinks they are at lying, the more lies they will tell. Expert or poor liars, the most common strategy among them is to leave out certain information. But expert liars say that the ability to weave a believable story embellished with the truth makes the lies harder to spot. People who thought they are not good at lying resorted to being vague whenever they did lie.  The study also found that 40 percent of all lies are told by a small number of deceivers.

Most of the people lied face to face than via text messages, phone call, email or social media. Most of the expert liars lie to their family, romantic partners, friends or colleagues. People lied least to their employees and authority figures.

Image credit: SciTechDaily

Mansi is an Intern at ShethePeople.TV