The Prevalence of Lying in America: Three Studies of Self-Reported Lies

Abstract

This study addresses the frequency and the distribution of reported lying in the adult population. A national survey asked 1,000 U.S. adults to report the number of lies told in a 24-hour period. Sixty percent of subjects report telling no lies at all, and almost half of all lies are told by only 5% of subjects; thus, prevalence varies widely and most reported lies are told by a few prolific liars. The pattern is replicated in a reanalysis of previously published research and with a student sample. Substantial individual differences in lying behavior have implications for the generality of truth-lie base rates in deception detection experiments. Explanations concerning the nature of lying and methods for detecting lies need to account for this variation.Humans are ambivalent about deception. On one hand, virtually all human cultures have some prohibition against lying. On the other hand, the ability to deceive well may be essential for polite interaction and, at times, self-preservation. Considerable research exists on the topic of deception, yet surprisingly little is known about the base prevalence of deception. Instead, much of this research has relied on untested assumptions and anecdotal evidence or on a few studies with small and nonrepresentative samples.The dearth of deception prevalence research is a symptom of a broader systemic concern regarding research in the social sciences. Asch (1952, reprinted 1987) observed that ''before we inquire into origins and functional relations, it is necessary to know the thing we are trying to explain.'' Influenced by Asch, Rozin (2001) argued that social scientific research often emphasizes experimental studies and formal hypothesis testing to the exclusion of more basic descriptive work. In line with Rozin's critique, more than 30 years of experimental detection research has proceeded without much attention to the basic nature of the phenomena itself. We believe that inquiry into deception and related behaviors associated with deception detection requires basic descriptive research examining the extent and distribution of deceptive communication in the population. In the extensive literature on deception,

Effects of deception in social networks

“…550 per person per year), although the distribution was highly skewed (23% of all lies were told by 1% of individuals, and half of all lies were told by 5% of the respondents) [32]. A number of other studies have reported frequencies between 0.6-2.0 lies per day, with lies being less common in face-to-face interactions than in telephone interactions [33][34][35].…”

Tell me sweet little lies: An event-related potentials study on the processing of social lies

“…People lie, on average, once or twice per day (DePaulo, Kirkendol, Kashy, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; but see Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2010). Lying is generally considered an antisocial behavior, and most human cultures have some prohibition against lying.…”

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“…considerar el hecho, ya largamente documentado, donde es común que los individuos contesten de forma equivocada a los cuestionarios de surveys, o mientan sobre todo en asuntos sensibles (Jonhson & Van De Vijver, 2003, Tourangeau & Yan, 2007Serota, Levine & Boster, 2010), el Google Trends ofrece una manera segura de vencer ese obstáculo, ya que la frecuencia generada por un término o conjunto de términos representa con alta fiabilidad el interés en el mundo real (Choi &Varian, 2012;Horak, Ivan, Kukuliaã, Inspektor, & Devecka, 2013).…”