Knowingly putting out lies and misinformation to distort and manipulate is Machiavellian and these individuals are the most dangerous in the sense that they are often charismatic and are more easily able to convince people that their lies and distortions are the truth. To fully understand this destructive use of lying, we must turn to the ways in which lying resides in and becomes even more potent in a group setting and in the culture of a specific society.
The Truth About Lying II: The Group Perspective
For an individual to leverage influence over an in-group, he or she must initially establish some level of credibility to be heard and accepted as an influencer, leader or expert. Credibility is earned through what a person says and stands for, and the actions and achievements the person earns that enhance or support the in-group’s beliefs and values.
Develop personal credibility within your in-group
With this backdrop it is surprising to many that Donald Trump was able to gain the acceptance of conservative, and particularly Evangelical, constituencies given that he had never previously been a Christian Conservative. While Trump was and is a highly visible figure (given his media visibility and especially his TV game show performances), his credibility did not initially emerge from his conservative or religious roots – indeed, evidence suggests that he seldom, if ever attended church – they emerged from the next dimension of credibility, namely adopting the values and goals of an in-group. This is an example of Machiavellian manipulation and allowed him to gain credibility and eventually undermine any and all leaders and experts who challenged him on the way to the Presidency.
Behavioral economists, such as Kahneman and Ariely, point to an important economic condition that contributes in a major way to the building of credibility and loyalty within a group or society. Specifically, a distinction is drawn between what is called Social exchange and what is called Market exchange. Social exchange occurs when we offer someone else a gift or an award to honor their place in our life. Market exchange, by contrast, requires that there be a monetary exchange or some other formal agreement about the exchange of goods or services.
Social exchange concerns the building and sustaining of a relationship. Market exchange is about “doing business.” In our work with Asian colleagues, a social exchange often takes places prior to any market exchange. An elaborate banquet is hosted an evening before negotiations take place. Gifts are given to one another when two potential business partners get together. When entering a new course, students from Taiwan offer small, beautifully packaged gifts to their instructor. Instructors who are knowledgeable about Asian cultures will accept these gifts with words of appreciation–even if their American university forbids the accepting of gifts (reflecting the dominance of market exchange in Western educational systems).
Western cultures do have their ways of introducing social exchange into the work being done. One of the specific ways in which social exchange is established is through doing another person “a favor.” Relevant to the issue of lying which we are addressing is the impact of “favor” on the acceptance of another person’s version of reality (i.e. lies). Dan Ariely offers research findings indicating that “once someone (or some organization) does us a favor, we become partial to anything related to the giving party—and . . . the magnitude of this bias increases as the magnitude of the initial favor . . . increases. “ (Ariely, p. 77)
