Psychological Lying: Why People Lie

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Introduction and Background
The psychology of lying is an interesting one because everyone at some point engages in lying. The audiences in of this works are the students and the teaching fraternity. The purpose of this work is to explore compelling reasons that make people lie. Unlike other phenomenon, lying is a relatively old phenomenon that exists throughout the world. This lying habit has been in existence for centuries and people find a way to lie about different things based on a subjective outcome intended by the lying party. Since lying has developed over many years, it has become a functional set of the social system and many people’s lives. The main challenge with lying is that it has a way of catching up with a person. When the lying person is exposed, s/he experiences a high level of guilt and shame that can propagate into several years when it goes unaddressed.
Conversely, people that note an individual is lying or has been lying to them tend to have a flawed perception towards the lying person (Von Hippel & Trivers, 2011). The society starts to avoid this person because they are not sure when the truth or lies are being told. The impact of lies is mainly on trust because people tend to devalue and treat lying people with suspicion.
People tend to lie in many situations. For instance, people will lie for living, at workplaces, to their friends as a way to attract and retain them. Although lying is an art that is highly condemned in the social setting, the defunct nature of this social setting sets a stage for individuals to keep lying and thus an act that all humans take part in, one way or the other.
Reasons that Make People Lie
First, people lie out of fear. People experience fear in different ways and at diff...

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...ity Press.
Firestone, L. (2013). Why we lie and how to stop. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201309/why-we-lie-and-how-stop
Grøn, A. (2008). Religion and (In)humanity. Florida Philosophical Review, 8(1), 1-215.
Lickerman, A. (2010). Why we lie. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/201003/why-we-lie
McCarthy, Jenna. (2014). The truth about lying. Retrieved from http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/truth-about-lying-00000000012669/index.html
Miller, A. G. (2004). The Social Psychology of Good and Evil. New York: Guilford Press.
Tavris, C. & Aronson, E. (2007). The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington DC.: Island Press.
Von Hippel, W., & Trivers, R. (2011). The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Science, 34, 1-56.

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