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:
“I have not drunk too much”
“I am ok, there is nothing
wrong”
“My cell did not have signal”
“I have not spent too much”
“I am coming”
The hit of the most incurred lies from
Venus is:
“I am fine, there is nothing
wrong”
“I do not know where it is, I
have not touch it”
“I have not spent too much”
“I have not drunk too much”
“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!
