Do the lies come from Mars or Venus?

by Susanna Casubolo

The lies are a widespread phenomenon and they have the purpose to facilitate the interpersonal relationships. The people most concerned with their impression on others lie most and they see in the lie an easy mean to build a more pleasant social identity.

The 50% of the told lies are used to obtain personal advantages, to give a good impression, to protect themselves from embarrassment or disapproval (self-oriented lies), the other 50% of the told lies is equally divided between the ones told to protect somebody else interest (other-oriented lies) and those told to favorite the interpersonal relationships (social-oriented lies).

Is there more deceit in the planet Mars or Venus?

According to a study (Burgoon, Buller, Granire, and Kalbfleish, 1998), men tend to use more lies to their own advantage (self-oriented lies), while women tend to use lies to the others advantage (other-oriented), most of all during interactions with other women, the so called “white lies”.
In the occasion of the going on air of the TV series “Lie to Me”, the 20^th Century Fox network carried out a survey on 20,000 English, from where it emerged a rather inconvenient truth for the male gender. The collected data speak out clear: men lie about six times per day, while women are limited to three times. According to the results, indeed, men say double lies compared to women, and, despite, a high percentage of women believe to be an expert in the art of unmask them, most of the times, the lie succeeds. The most common lies for man regard the cell phone (they prefer to make up excuses about the death battery instead to admit that they prefer not to answer) or personal worries (they prefer to liquidate the interlocutor with a sentence: “I do not have anything, everything is all right”, then rather share them). Women, even if they lie half, mainly they do about the shopping expenses, making up a not existing discount or hiding the consequences of the sin.

Other two studies have confirmed the tendency of the Martians to lie more often and voluntarily than the Venusian's. In the first study, an English website comparing insurances, Payingtoomuch.com, men have admitted to lie at least 3 or 4 times per week for an average of 208 times per year, against the 156 times of women; in the second study, commissioned by Bmw Financial Services, the percentage increases, the male travels on an average of three lies per day, totaling 1,092 lies in a year, the female, instead, will not go over the two daily lies, for a total of 728 per year.

Even if there are more frequent common lies between both planets, the frequency, in which they are told the same lies, is different according to the commissioned research from Bmx Financial Services.

The hit of the most incurrent lies coming from Mars is:

1. “I have not drunk too much”
2. “I am ok, there is nothing wrong”
3. “My cell did not have signal”
4. “I have not spent too much”
5. “I am coming”

The hit of the most incurred lies from Venus is:

1. “I am fine, there is nothing wrong”
2. “I do not know where it is, I have not touch it”
3. “I have not spent too much”
4. “I have not drunk too much”
5. “I have headache”

The researchers Mc Cornack and Parks (1990) have, also tried to discover if there were differences between men and women in the ability to discover a lie from the partner. On a group of five couples have been presented fragments of registrations, where the respective partners were telling the truth or the lie. The results have indicated that women have more ability to caught the partner in the lie, independently from the grade of development of the relationship and from the more familiarity with their own partner.

An explanation to this result could be that women have a social role, characterized from the most from the discrimination of the other person emotion, and so most concentrated on non-verbal communication signs, which are used just for this reason besides providing feedback and synchronization signs with the other. It is just in the non-verbal communication that it is easier to recognize index of a lie, consequently the women could appear more prone of men to recognize a lie.

Even if the inhabitants of Mars have been identified from the research as more liars than the inhabitants of Venus, when we talk about online tall tales, the lies rain from both planets bringing man and women toward an ex equo.

Ali Hortacsu, Gunther J. Hitsch and Dan Ariely (2004) have analyzed the data of about 30,000 users coming from one of the main website for couple matching in the US, between Boston and San Diego. Either men and women have said lies in their profile about height ( on average 2,5 cm higher compared to the national average), about weight (10 Kg less than national average), about beauty (stating to be “above the average” in 70% of the cases for the women and 67% of the cases for the men).

Beautifulpeople.com, a famous international website of meeting people, in which only beautiful people can register, after going through a hard selection, has commissioned a survey to the research agency Opinion Matters, which has demonstrated that men, in order to appear more charming, lie about their job, height, and more in general about their physical appearance (often described as the one of an athlete), the women, instead, hide their weight, age and shape. The male, when he is online, declares more income to make his job appear more interesting, he gives to himself more inches in height, and adjust the pounds to make himself appear more athletic kind: the athletic shape is a must, just like a prestigious job. The female online says to have less poundage, to be younger and to have a more prosperous breasts, but there are no missing lies about height and economic condition.

In conclusion, just to be able to build a desirable love curriculum, and try to find some meeting opportunity, either men and women are willing to lie, adding inches, taking off some pounds here and there, decreasing months to reduce the age, but when the “virtual reality” meet the “real reality” maybe the forgiveness is not that hard because it is known…we are all liars!