Research indicates pathological lying can occur because of low self-esteem and a false sense of self. People who lie pathologically may want others to view them positively, making things up to make them look better. Their desire to create a false sense of self could indicate that they are unhappy with themselves.
For many lies, the reasons are complicated. Sometimes it's to protect the liar from being punished, or to protect someone else from punishment. The lie might be to avoid being embarrassed, to hide an awkward situation, or to simply have others think better of the person telling the fib.
Lying arises from hedonistic nature of humans that to avoid pain and to increase pleasure. It can be also seen that we lies not only for personal gains but also for others gain too. That is to avoid harm affecting ourselves and to avoid hurting others.
You can find a way to experience enough safety to tell the truth. You can learn how lying was a trauma response. You can learn about trauma and the impact it has on your life. Through healing the trauma, you can have more options about your behavior, including decrease to extinguishing the lying behavior.
It's hard not to take being lied to personally, but pathological lying isn't about you. The person may be driven by an underlying personality disorder, anxiety, or low self-esteem. When talking to the person about their lies, remind them that they don't need to try to impress you.
People often ask me, “Can you help me figure out why I am always telling lies?” The answer is simple- lying is a maladaptive coping mechanism that we have learned. This coping mechanism functions for four main reasons: Habit – it's just become our nature and we are more comfortable with lies.
The main reason people lie is low self-esteem. They want to impress, please, and tell someone what they think they want to hear. For example, insecure teenagers often lie to gain social acceptance. Here, parents should emphasize to their children the consequences of lying.
Lying is one of the most common tactics an abuser uses to gain power and control over their victim. Lying confuses the victim's reality while helping the liar to shirk from their responsibility in the situation, often shifting the blame to the victim.
Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary and routine. A lot of them find it easy to avoid confrontations with the truth, hence they stick to lying. Compulsive liars may or may not experience a mental disorder.
Personality disorders and pathological lying
Pathological lying or lying compulsively can also be a symptom of antisocial personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. People with these personality disorders may lie to gain sympathy or social status, or to preserve a false sense of self.
Lying Changes the Brain
Nature Neuroscience reported a study of the amygdala, the part of the brain dealing with emotional responses. The researchers said the amygdala shows up less and less, as we lie more and more. Essentially, our guilt feelings tend to weaken and shrink.
Itching and fidgeting: Rocking the body back and forth, cocking the head to the side or shuffling the feet can also be signs of deception, says Glass, who completed a post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA focusing on Psychology and Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication.
You can't always change the behavior of a liar, but you can change how you feel and react to them. Once you learn to change your emotions about a situation you begin to see a lot more options. If you are honest with the situation you will realize that your happiness is more important than their behavior anyways.
When we engage in deceit, our respiratory and heart rates increase, we start to sweat, our mouth goes dry, and our voice can shake. Some of these physiological effects form the basis of the classic lie-detector (polygraph) test. People vary in their ability to tell a lie due, in part, to differences in the brain.
If you are involved with a narcissist, then you are quite used to being lied to. Their constant lies simply come with the territory. To a normal person, it may be very perplexing to be lied to all the time by someone who purports to care for you. Learn about what the narcissist seems to gain from telling lies all time.
The ICD-10 disorder Haltlose personality disorder is strongly tied to pathological lying. It has been shown through lie detector tests that PF (pseudologia fantastica) patients exhibit arousal, stress, and guilt from their deception. This is different from psychopaths, who experience none of those reactions.
Impact of Lying in a Relationship
But even little, infrequent lies can add up to distrust and other relationship problems, including: Decreased trust: If your partner keeps telling lies, it can have a direct impact on trust. The more lies they tell, the less you trust them or have faith in their honesty.
Lying is another common issue in children who have experienced trauma. All kids will lie on occasion. This doesn't indicate trauma on its own. However, a child who has experienced trauma may lie in excess.