It is well accepted that honesty is a virtue to be practised. It reflects well on the character of a person. It is also shown to promote trust and foster healthy relationships.
Let us therefore examine this virtue in some detail. First, let us understand what we mean by honesty and how it is related to integrity. Let us also see if it is always best to be honest and if there are any good reasons for not holding on to honesty.
Honesty, in a simple sense, is speaking what we wholeheartedly believe to be true.
As none of us are human embodiment of integrity, we have all lied, even if it was just to say “I’m on my way” when we have not even left our homes. A study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that people tell one or two lies every day, on the average.
The Honesty Project was a three-year exploration of the truth about honesty undertaken by Wake Forest University which concluded in October 2023. Christian B. Miller, project director and Prof. A. C. Reid anchoring this project had this to say. “Honesty is widely regarded as an important virtue. We found that out of 60 different characteristics, people ranked it as No. 1 in terms of what they liked about a person, what they respected in that person and what they wanted to know about the person.”
Higher levels of honesty are characterised by three factors. First one involves sharing truthful information, second is about not distorting facts and third is the requirement of not withholding factual information. In contrast, lower levels of honesty are characterised by lack of truthfulness through the omission of information which can be termed as lack of honesty or by outright deception or lying which can be termed as dishonesty.
Not all lies are motivated by greed. When we decide to tell a lie, we are giving more priority and importance to some other value over honesty. Thus people may also lie to help someone and sometimes just to be kind to others. These lies are termed as prosocial lies. The intention is to help someone by telling a lie.
Picture the doctor telling her depressed patient that there is a 50 percent probability that he will recover, when in truth all tests confirm the man has only six months to live. The doctor knows from years of experience that, if she told this type of patient the truth, he would probably fall deeper into depression or possibly commit suicide. If he is given the hope of recovery, he will at least have peace of mind during his remaining life time. One would support the doctor’s decision because the greater good is served by her altruistic lie. It is, therefore, not surprising that most healthcare professionals lie to patients as they feel that it is important for patients to maintain optimism and faith in their potential for recovery.
A study found that over 55% of doctors describe prognoses in a more positive manner than warranted, and over 10% of doctors explicitly lie to the patient.
In a Harvard Business Review article, it was claimed that adults lie in roughly 20% of their everyday social interactions. Researcher Bella M. DePaulo says that most of these lies are prosocial in nature which are intended to benefit the person being lied to.
Levine and Schweitzer have found that those who tell prosocial lies are often viewed as more trustworthy. Telling such lies are more morally acceptable than telling harsh truths.
Maurice Schweitzer, who studies deception and trust goes on to say “I believe that we should be teaching our kids, students and employees when and how to lie”.
Even, according to other research, prosocial lies intended to benefit others can actually build trust between people. Take the example of a friend enquiring, right before walking on to the stage for a speaking event, if her speech was ok. Even if you notice that the speech could do with some improvement, you need to evaluate whether the person has the time to react to your input and control the situation. If there is nothing your friend can do about it, then you would prefer to lie. In general, people really do not care about honest information if it will distract them from something important.
When kindness and honesty are at odds, the former often wins, because “we trust people who are kind,” says Maurice Schweitzer. We have a tendency to be more forthcoming to kinder people, particularly friends and colleagues. The truth is, we care more about good intentions of others than their honesty.
A white lie is a lie that is considered harmless or trivial. White lies can be either self-serving or prosocial. More often such lies are told to spare hurting someone’s feelings. The term dates back to the 14th century and is linked to historical colour associations that suggest that white symbolises “morally pure” and that black symbolises “sinister intent.”.
As already shown, on an average, people tell one or two lies every day. Mostly, these are little white lies. Some examples are lying to a friend that you like their new outfit when in fact you don’t, or telling a colleague that you value their contributions to a project, when you really don’t. In such situations, and myriad others, people lie because they consider the truth to be harmful, unnecessary and inconvenient. In contrast, the lie is seen as seemingly inconsequential and morally justified.
We need to recognise that there are differences between a lie and an untruth. If I tell you something that is not true, and I am fully aware that it is not true, then what I tell you is a lie. If I tell you something that is not true, and I am not aware that it is not true, then what I tell you is an untruth.
Honesty has also been linked to important health benefits. In a four-year longitudinal study of older adults, those who were higher in honesty displayed health benefits including a lower risk of depression, a lower risk of lung cancer, less difficulty with mobility and less difficulty engaging in activities of daily living.
On the other hand, acts like lying, being selfish and cheating are associated with negative health outcomes such as elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, vasoconstriction, elevated cortisol, and a significant depletion of the brain regions needed for emotional and physiological regulation.
Brain imaging studies show the dangerous body responses to lying. Symptoms of anxiety arise because lying activates the limbic system in the brain, the same area that initiates the “fight or flight” response that is triggered during other stresses. When people are being honest, this area of the brain shows minimal activity. But when telling a lie, it lights up like a fireworks display. An honest brain is relaxed, while a dishonest brain is frantic.
This is because lying requires lot of mental effort. When you tell the truth, your brain doesn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary. You think of what you want to say, and you say it. Lies are different.
Let us take an example to see what goes into a seemingly simple lie. Imagine you are late to the class and when asked by the teacher the reason for late arrival, you decide to lie. You now have to either come up with a story on the spot, or remember the story you made up as you were rushing to the class.
So you say: “I had to stop by the library to pick up a book.”
Your teacher asks: “Is it the book that I assigned last week?”
Now you must decide quickly how to respond. If you say yes, the teacher might ask to see the book. Or she might expect you to read from it in the class. So, you have to imagine these possibilities. You might therefore say: “No. It is a different book.”
Now you have to be ready with another title in case the teacher asks which book you checked out. And you have to make sure it’s a book the school library actually has. You are only two sentences into the lie, and already your mental faculties are well tested.
a) You are scrambling to make up a story;
b) You are feverishly thinking about the various directions that the conversation might take;
c) You are figuring out what you need to say to keep this whole lie from falling apart.
Thus lying does take a lot of your mental and emotional resources.
Research has indicated that there are several inter-personal benefits to being truthful. Honesty is a characteristic that is highly desired in a relationship. Honest individuals tend to be more likeable and rewarded. Honest individuals are more socially mindful which endears them to people. Honest disclosures and truthful expressions promote trust and motivate others to reciprocate.
Even small lies, if discovered, can destroy one’s credibility. Such small lies, even when undiscovered, set up the classic “slippery slope” on which small transgressions lead to larger ones. Once the habit of lying without thinking sets in, then there is clear danger of getting hurt at some point of time.
A research study in Nature Neuroscience shows that telling small lies makes it easier for people to tell even bigger lies. This is because the amygdala, the part of the brain that would normally put the brakes on a lie by making a person feel uneasy, gradually becomes desensitised to deception. The research of 2024 is considered the first empirical evidence to show that lying actually gets easier with repetition.
In the domain of scientific research, honesty becomes very critical. The progress and application of science depends fundamentally on the truthful research. Nobel Laureate Michael Bishop explains “Each of us builds our discoveries on the work of others; if that work is false, our constructions fall like a house of cards and we must start all over again.”
Telling the truth can, at times, have costs. Take the example of whistle blowers in an organization who report unethical acts committed by the organisation or its employees. They often face backlash for their honest disclosures and are seen as threatening group harmony and loyalty. As a result, whistle blowers may suffer personal consequences such as harassment, career disruptions, and lower health and well-being.
Every time we decide to lie, even if that lie is intended as a kindness, we feed the cynical side of ourselves. Psychologists call this ‘deceiver’s distrust’. The reasoning goes like this: ‘If I am lying to others , then probably other people are lying to me too.’ Thus we start to distrust others, ironically, because we are being dishonest.
It may be difficult to believe that it is not uncommon for people to lie in order to maintain a good, honest reputation even if it means some sacrifices from their side. This is because people are very concerned about not appearing to be dishonest. This, typically, happens when one receives extraordinary outcomes that put them on a pedestal. Take the example of some homework given at school. Other class-mates have claimed to have taken between 120 minutes to 160 minutes to complete the homework. You may have actually finished it in just 100 minutes but would prefer to say that you have taken 110 to 115 minutes. This is because you will be worried that others may think that you are telling a lie if your performance is claimed to be too good.
In the paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology authors claimed “Our findings suggest that when people obtain extremely favourable outcomes, they anticipate other people’s suspicious reactions and prefer lying ”.
Research suggests that what people post on social media is not an accurate representation of their lives or who they are. In fact, many posts are blatant lies.
In a large survey of over 2,000 people in England conducted by Custard.com, forty three percent of men admitted to making up facts about themselves to be more desirable than true, while posting on the social media.
There is another interesting reason why people lie or show some dishonesty. When people experience fair as well as unfair treatment, they tend to respond by “balancing the scale”. For instance, after being denied an expected promotion, an employee may claim in the expense form, higher mileage than he or she actually incurred on a business trip.
There is a general feeling that being honest at all times is very difficult. Taya Cohen and Emma Levine checked this out by asking people to spend three days focusing on being honest in all of their social interactions. The idea was to share their thoughts, feelings and opinions with others in an open and candid way, even if it was difficult. People taking part in the study found it to be more enjoyable than they had predicted. They had even expected harmful effects on their relationships which in reality did not happen. They also found it to be more socially connecting. If we could all dare to be honest more often, we would have more accurate picture of potential costs and benefits of honesty.
People generally think that we can clearly see bodily signals when someone is lying. For instance US police thought that 17-year-old Marty Tankleff seemed too calm after finding his mother stabbed to death and his father mortally bludgeoned in the family’s sprawling Long Island home. Authorities didn’t believe his claims of innocence, and he spent 17 years in prison for the murders.
Yet in another case, detectives thought that 16-year-old Jeffrey Deskovic seemed too distraught and too eager to help detectives after his high school classmate was found strangled. He, too, was judged to be lying and served nearly 16 years for the crime.
The two men, both later exonerated, were victims of the pervasive misconception that you can spot a liar by the way they act. It is unfortunate that across cultures, people believe that behaviours such as averted gaze, fidgeting and stuttering betray deceivers.
DePaulo and psychologist Charles Bond of Texas Christian University reviewed 206 studies involving 24,483 observers judging the veracity of 6,651 communications by 4,435 individuals. Neither law enforcement experts nor student volunteers were able to pick true from false statements better than 54 percent of the time. Thus, it is clear that neither liars nor truth speakers necessarily display any specific body signals.
It is also surprising that, various psychologists have written extensively in journals on the effective ways that lies are detected by the experts. DePaulo and Charles Bond have data to show that even people whose occupations exposes them to lies were no better at judging lies. These people include law enforcement personnel, judges, psychiatrists, job interviewers and auditors.
As all of us typically fail in our efforts to detect lying by any person, it raises questions about the American legal system, in which jurors are responsible for detecting lies.