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" Not long ago, one of my formerly favorite politicians got caught with his pants down. Making the situation worse, he didn&amp;#039;t just lie a little about it \u2014 over the course of a year or so, he&amp;#039;d lied a lot. My 15-year-old son listened to me rail for a few moments, then said coolly, &amp;quot;Oh, Mom, stop it. Everybody lies.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Well, I don&amp;#039;t,&amp;quot; I spluttered. He arched a brow, teen code for &amp;quot;Yeah. Sure.&amp;quot; Thinking about it, I had to admit to a few recent teensy untruths, a little white lie here, an exaggeration there. And while I&amp;#039;d been blissfully oblivious to them, my cynical son might as well have been taking notes. &amp;quot;No more,&amp;quot; I promised myself. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll go a week without telling a single falsehood.&amp;quot; After all, I reasoned, I&amp;#039;m an honest person. Convinced that it would be a snap, I began my seven-day truth diet. DAY 1  It&amp;#039;s 10 a.m., and I&amp;#039;m already in trouble. Today&amp;#039;s schedule includes three impossibly overlapping appointments: a phone interview, a visit to the dentist, and lunch with a new friend. To fix this latest of my frequent overambitious planning errors, I could just say I overbooked. But something in me digs in its heels \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t want to confess that I&amp;#039;m a sloppy scheduler to my friend, much less to my business contact.  I decide I will lie just once \u2014 OK, twice \u2014 before my regimen really starts. &amp;quot;Sorry,&amp;quot; I say to my work contact&amp;#039;s voice mail. &amp;quot;I just had a dental appointment change around on me. Can we reschedule?&amp;quot; Then I dial the home phone of my friend (because I know she&amp;#039;ll be out) and leave a message asking if we can push lunch back an hour. Like a would-be dieter who snarfs down half her daily calories at breakfast, I declare the day a moral do-over. DAY 2  As I&amp;#039;m wrapping up my rescheduled phone call, the man I&amp;#039;m interviewing mentions that he recently visited the just-refurbished art museum in my town. &amp;quot;Have you been yet?&amp;quot; he asks, conversationally. The lie pops out before I have time to stop it: &amp;quot;Yes \u2014 isn&amp;#039;t it lovely?&amp;quot; (Well, I do drive by it five times a week.) This is scarier than the deliberate lies I told yesterday \u2014 it&amp;#039;s completely reflexive. Later, I call a friend to thank her for the tomatoes she brought over. Another unpremeditated fib flies out of my mouth. &amp;quot;They were gorgeous,&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;and delicious.&amp;quot; The tomatoes are still sitting on my kitchen counter, unwashed, untasted, and frankly, not at all attractive. What happened to my truthful, perfectly adequate &amp;quot;Thank you&amp;quot;? I&amp;#039;d like to say this is a white lie, but I know better \u2014 my friend is a well-adjusted woman who could easily survive not having her produce admired. After less than 48 hours, I am slammed up against the realization that I&amp;#039;m a big liar. Why am I fibbing, particularly since I&amp;#039;ve promised myself I wouldn&amp;#039;t? My pants undeniably aflame, I call a pro for explanation.  &amp;quot;Most of the time, people lie because it&amp;#039;s socially expedient,&amp;quot; says Robert S. Feldman, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. &amp;quot;We lie habitually because it helps conversation flow more smoothly, while telling the truth can make it stall and stutter.&amp;quot; In fact, Feldman&amp;#039;s research suggests that I&amp;#039;m a totally normal liar: In an average 10-minute discussion (albeit, generally, one with strangers or new acquaintances), 60 percent of us lie \u2014 approximately three times.  Interestingly, Feldman says that while studies show that men and women are equally prone to prevarication, they do it differently. My museum lie is a typical man&amp;#039;s lie, designed to make me look better. &amp;quot;Men are more likely to say &amp;#039;I ran five miles this morning&amp;#039; when they really ran 3.8 miles,&amp;quot; he tells me. My tomatoes fib, however, is typically female. &amp;quot;Women are more likely to lie if they think it will make another person feel good,&amp;quot; he says. (I guess I bat for both teams.) Feldman adds that he&amp;#039;s not surprised that monitoring my mouth has freaked me out. &amp;quot;Most people are completely unaware of how dishonest they are until they make a conscious effort to stop,&amp;quot; he says. I dial another expert for a second opinion: David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind. &amp;quot;We are all natural-born liars,&amp;quot; he confirms. &amp;quot;Lies just slip out of us, as easily as breathing or sweating.&amp;quot;  Next: A battle with the &amp;quot;little white lie&amp;quot; Sensing my disbelief, he points out that most of our lies aren&amp;#039;t even verbal. Dyeing your hair is a lie about your age; constantly sucking in your stomach is an attempt to misrepresent your weight. &amp;quot;Deception is central to human beings,&amp;quot; says Smith, who teaches philosophy at the University of New England, in Biddeford, ME.  The more I think about it, the more I suspect he&amp;#039;s right. Poll results on the women&amp;#039;s Web site Bettyconfidential.com reported that 68 percent of women surveyed admit the weight listed on their driver&amp;#039;s license is falsified. (Me, too.) But while I&amp;#039;m relieved to know I&amp;#039;m just one deceiver among millions, &amp;quot;garden-variety liar&amp;quot; still isn&amp;#039;t a line I&amp;#039;m at all eager to add to my internal r\u00E9sum\u00E9. DAY 3 I&amp;#039;m no longer thinking I should quit my job and look for work selling used cars, but I vow to do better. I get my next shot at truthfulness over breakfast. My husband tells me he has invited his brother and sister-in-law to dinner next week. Historically, this means they will either be several hours late or cancel \u2014 after the roast is in the oven.  Normally, I would greet this news with feigned cheer: &amp;quot;Great! We haven&amp;#039;t seen them in ages!&amp;quot; This time, I take a deep breath. &amp;quot;I have to be honest,&amp;quot; I say. His eyebrows lift in alarm. &amp;quot;I get frustrated by these dinners. I think it&amp;#039;s rude of them to be so late or cancel last minute.&amp;quot; He looks hurt at this \u2014 hitherto unspoken \u2014 truth. &amp;quot;It is rude,&amp;quot; he acknowledges. &amp;quot;But he&amp;#039;s my brother, and I can&amp;#039;t help the way he is.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t feel truthful; I feel mean. And I&amp;#039;m reminded that the bettyconfidential.com poll found that sometimes people would rather be lied to. I manage to make it through almost an entire workday without a lie. I pull this off by not making phone calls \u2014 it&amp;#039;s easier to be truthful if you don&amp;#039;t actually have to speak with people. I do answer a few e-mails, though: A study from Cornell University tells me that people lie in only about 14 percent of e-mails, compared with 27 percent of face-to-face interactions and 37 percent of phone calls. (Apparently the permanence of typed messages scares us into truthfulness: They can be used as evidence against us.)  DAY 4 The next evening, I accompany my husband to a work-related black-tie function. I try to limit the lying, but it&amp;#039;s hopeless. I spend the night sashaying through one social deceit after another. I ask &amp;quot;How are you?&amp;quot; when I don&amp;#039;t really care, pretend to remember people I (may have) met last year, and compliment more than a few ugly dresses. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve got to get home to a new puppy,&amp;quot; my husband and I apologize as we leave early. It&amp;#039;s half true: There is a new puppy, but she&amp;#039;s sleeping happily. DAY 5 I invoke Feldman&amp;#039;s social-smoothing theory so as not to feel too guilty for last night&amp;#039;s lies \u2014 after all, I don&amp;#039;t want to jeopardize my husband&amp;#039;s job, right? Trouble is, now I notice I&amp;#039;m lying to my family, too. One of my teenage stepdaughters arrives for a visit, and my husband sits down at the computer to find something fun to do. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re in luck,&amp;quot; he says, telling us that the local semiprofessional hockey team is at home tonight, and that there are still plenty of tickets.  I have a cold and would rather read a book. &amp;quot;Great idea,&amp;quot; I say. That&amp;#039;s true (enough). We don&amp;#039;t see his kids very often, after all. But then I blurt out, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d love to go!&amp;quot; This, I decide, is not just a knee-jerk lie. It&amp;#039;s like when Blanche, in A Streetcar Named Desire, says, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.&amp;quot; I should join in the family enthusiasm. That night, as we take our seats, I get a taste of what I can only assume is karmic retribution. Turns out this is Cub Scout Appreciation Night, and not only are we surrounded by 8-year-olds in triangular scarves, the arena has given them all cowbells, horns, and clackers. (&amp;quot;Ring your bell,&amp;quot; the kid behind me keeps telling his friends. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s fun!&amp;quot;) The ones without noisemakers amuse themselves by standing up and screaming, &amp;quot;Fight! Fight!&amp;quot; every time a hockey player throws a punch. Head throbbing, I smile stoically. Next: Four fibs we can&amp;#039;t live without DAY 6 In the midst of the morning rush, I tap out an e-mail saying I have dropped an important package in FedEx. It&amp;#039;s really still on the kitchen counter. I stop myself before hitting send. This is the most harmless of lies \u2014 a simple housekeeping matter that will be true soon. But for once, honesty prevails. When I push the send button a few hours later, after the FedEx drop, I feel a distinctly virtuous glow.  DAY 7 Still patting myself on the back for yesterday&amp;#039;s honesty, I head out to pick up my son and his friend from school. They&amp;#039;re arguing about school elections, and when the friend dismisses them with, &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re bogus \u2014 kids say they&amp;#039;re voting their own mind, but everyone just votes the way their parents do,&amp;quot; I chime right in. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s true,&amp;quot; I say. &amp;quot;About 75 to 80 percent of people do vote the same as their parents.&amp;quot; I feel the color rush into my cheeks. Is that true? I think so. Or did I just make that up? The kids seem to believe me \u2014 after all, I&amp;#039;ve been spouting accurate statistics at them forever, from per capita consumption of jelly beans to the cancer\u2013hot dog correlation. But I don&amp;#039;t even know whether I&amp;#039;ve lied or not. I tell myself that what I&amp;#039;ve said might be true and spend hours that night frantically Googling voting research but finding nothing. I consider fessing up to the kids, admitting that I seem to have pulled that statistic out of thin air. The idea makes me squirm, and I decide to say nothing \u2014 probably, Smith explains, &amp;quot;because owning up to a lie makes people feel ashamed.&amp;quot; Or maybe it&amp;#039;s because I&amp;#039;m pretty confident I won&amp;#039;t be caught \u2014 another common reason for not confessing, says Smith. Like most people, I&amp;#039;m not just a constant liar, I&amp;#039;m a skillful one, sticking to falsehoods that are hard to disprove. So hard, apparently, that even I can&amp;#039;t confirm or deny them \u2014 and that realization disturbs me. The next day, as I slice my friend&amp;#039;s ugly tomatoes into a soup pot, I ponder the moral of this story. Initially, I thought I would simply strive to be more truthful. A week later, I see it&amp;#039;s not simple at all and that lying isn&amp;#039;t always wrong: A lot depends on your motives. We regard untruths told to protect others as defensible and give a hostage negotiator, for instance, some leeway. Certain kinds of lies that bolster social relationships are considered by many societies to be simply good manners, according to a recent study conducted jointly at several universities. But most of us feel ridicule is warranted when public figures cheat on their spouses and then try to conceal it through pretense and prevarication.  So forget 100 percent honesty. My new goal is to eliminate the surplus lies. Pretending to enjoy a hockey game for the sake of a family evening isn&amp;#039;t just harmless, it&amp;#039;s helpful. But I&amp;#039;ll think of better ways to break the ice in social situations than &amp;quot;I love your dress.&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;Isn&amp;#039;t it fun to see everyone all dressed up?&amp;quot; serves the same conversational purpose, and it&amp;#039;s 100 percent true.) And fabricated statistics are beneath me and beneath the people I&amp;#039;m trying to impress with them; I don&amp;#039;t need to show off that way. I&amp;#039;m glad to find that in my new resolve, I&amp;#039;m still in good company: 91 percent of the women in the bettyconfidential.com survey say that as they get older and more comfortable with who they are, they lie less often. After years of trying too hard, I think I, too, will look \u2014 and sound \u2014 better with less embroidery.  4 Lies We Love Think every untruth is created equal? Hardly. Here are some fibs we couldn&amp;#039;t live without: 1. The harms-no-one-and-makes-me-look-good lie: &amp;quot;I worked all weekend on that gingerbread house for the bake sale.&amp;quot; 2. The artful dodge: Properly done, a quick subject change can pull the wool over anyone&amp;#039;s eyes. If your boss asks, &amp;quot;Where&amp;#039;s that proposal?&amp;quot; you reply, &amp;quot;I need to talk to you about a staffing issue.&amp;quot; 3. State-of-mind safeties: Lies about feelings \u2014 &amp;quot;Really! I adore plaid!&amp;quot; \u2014 are usually meant to spare another&amp;#039;s feelings and are all but undetectable. Who&amp;#039;s to prove you wrong? 4. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m fine&amp;quot;: Unless you&amp;#039;re talking to your therapist or your mom, this is definitely preferable to &amp;quot;Got an hour?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/advice/a17568/reasons-people-lie/>