Oh those little white lies

While browsing Google scolar this evening I found a few gems. One is a paper from 1992 by Jennifer Epstein, Bella DePaulo, Susan Kirkendol, Deborah Kashy and Melissa Wyer, whimsically titled “Lying in Everyday Life”

They found some interesting results of the daily lying of college students, generally they produce about 2 little lies a day.
Here is a brief review of some of the interesting results:

1. Participants told more lies about themselves than other people; except when you got a group of women together than they told as many lies about others as themselves.

2. Participants told more lies about themselves to men and lies about others to women.

3. Little lies are common but do not seem to relieve distress in social situations.

4. The most common lie is the removal of facts or absence of truth.

5. Lying serves the function of “impression management, emotional regulation and social support”. For impression management people fashion new and untrue selves.

6. Lying may have long-term emotional effects but ‘many people may prefer not to hear that their muffins are grainy or that they look like a blimp.”



the funny final statement