Is Personal Lying Characterological?
Up to this point, we have focused on specific processes that lead a person to lie. They find themselves in a situation that is conducive to lying. This situation might reside inside their own body (fatigue) or in the setting where they reside. Is someone who frequently lies just a victim of circumstances (suggesting a “situational” trait) or were they somehow born liars (suggesting a “characterological” trait). David Levy (2017) weighs in on this matter: “Pathological lying isn’t (generally) a clinical diagnosis” though it can sometimes be a symptom of other issues, such as a personality disorder or a manic episode. But some people get so accustomed to lying that they do so even when there is no clear purpose, and when their lies are easily disproven, leaving everyone scratching their heads over the point of their deceptions” (Levy, 2017). For Levy, it seems to be that people become accustomed to lying (situational) and it soon becomes a habit (characterological).
We might look at the opposite condition. What about people who rarely lie or are rarely vulnerable to the lying of other people. Eliot Aronson (2018) examines this counterpoint, and notes that people with higher levels of education are less susceptible to lies and misinformation. The more educated that viewers are, the more skeptical they are, and that skepticism leads them to believe that they are immune to persuasion. If only the mere fact of knowing that a communicator is biased protected us from being influenced by the message!
Aronson (2018) doesn’t stop here. Rather, he points out the ways in which this seeming “immunity” can lead to its own self-deception: “unfortunately, just because we think we are immune to persuasion does not necessarily mean we are immune. Indeed, our sense of immunity can make us more susceptible to persuasion of all kinds.”
This brings us to a critical point. Lying to other people might be situational and become a habit if repeated many times; however, the even deeper issue might concern the lying we do not to other people but to ourselves. Does a similar process operate? Do we simply become more comfortable (and skillful) in lying to ourselves? Like the arrogant highly educated people, we might become accustomed to viewing ourselves as not only supremely honest but also invulnerable to the lies being told by other people.
Ariely (2012, p. 158) puts it this way:
We persist in deceiving ourselves in part to maintain a positive self-image. We gloss over our failures, highlight our successes (even when they’re not entirely our own), and love to blame other people and outside circumstances when our failures are undeniable . . . On the negative side, to the extent that an overly optimistic view of ourselves can form the basis of our actions, we may wrongly assume that things will turn out for the gest and as a consequence not actively make the best decisions. Self-deception can also cause us to “enhance” our life stories. . . which can lead us to suffer a great deal when the truth is ultimately revealed.
While he does not refer to the concept, Ariely seems to be engaging a distinction to be made between what is called an Internal Locus of Control and an External locus of control. It is convenient when seeking to preserve our self-respect to attribute our failures to external sources, while taking credit for our successes.
