Never Lie

by Freida McFadden

Everybody lies. Years ago, a psychological experiment was devised to estimate the prevalence of untruthful behavior. It involved a broken vending machine. Subjects were informed that the vending machine was malfunctioning. If they put in a dollar, the faulty machine would dispense candy, but then return their dollar. Subjects who used the vending machine found this to be absolutely true. They dispensed one, two, three, or even four pieces of free candy, and then retrieved their money from the machine. There was a sign on the vending machine. The sign read: “To report any malfunctions with this machine, please call this number.” Unbeknownst to the subjects, the number provided belonged to one researcher in the study. Take a guess how many of the subjects called this number to report the broken machine. Zero. That’s right. Not even one of the dozens of subjects was honest enough to call the number and report the broken vending machine. Each one of them took their free candy and moved on. As I said, everybody lies. There are many easily identified signs that a person is lying, especially if they are an unskilled liar. As a trained psychiatrist, I am intimately familiar with these signs. It’s almost too easy to spot them: Liars fidget. The tone of their voice or speech patterns changes. Liars offer too much information, babbling on with excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying. Machines have been built to recognize these patterns and identify t...

Basado en ese experimento se dice "Todo el mundo MIENTE". Si se me permite disentir, eso no es mentir sino omitir. No es el ejemplo adecuado para la premisa. Si le hubiesen preguntado a los participantes si les devolvió el dinero y ellos hubiesen dicho no, hubiese sido una mentira. En general las personas frente a estas situaciones, en este mundo que vivimos, la gente actúa de esa manera. La falta de "honestidad" como se percibe en este ejemplo, no es una mentira, es una omisión, y para la gran mayoría omitir no es mentir. Ahora tomando la premisa (sin ese ejemplo) SI, todo el mundo miente, en algún momento de sus vida en determinadas circunstancias. Y según he visto las dos razones fundamentales para mentir son primero el miedo (como defensa) y luego el engaño (como arma). NOTA: Esto es solo una observación personal, no pretendo ponerme en el papel de experto.