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Experts weigh in on why we lie

Though everyone lies at times, getting caught in big ones can cost you a career or a relationship.

Meredith Moss Susan Terkel, author and ethicist.

Meredith Moss Kerry Patterson, Organizational consultant and co-author of the best-selling book, "Critical Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High."

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Meredith moss Greg Ramey, pediatric psychologist and vice president of outpatient services at Dayton Children's.

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http://www.drkarengaillewis.com Karen Lewis, Cincinnati marriage and family therapist.

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By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer Updated 4:26 PM Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fifty-five years later, she still remembers that first lie. At the age of 5, Beth Adelman accidentally pressed the button on the family camera and snapped a photo.

“I thought I could make it go backwards, so I kept pushing the button,” recalls the Englewood woman, who eventually ruined the entire roll of film. When her mother asked who’d been fooling with the camera, the little girl swore she hadn’t.

“She knew it had to be me because I was the only one in the room,” says Adelman. “She punished me both for my actions and for lying. In our family, the most important rule was ‘Never lie.’ ”

Lying seems to be continually in the news, most recently in relation to New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner. After days of denials about photos he’d tweeted, Weiner eventually admitted his misconduct and apologized for lying. On Thursday, he announced his resignation from Congress and became an extreme example of the fallout that can result from dishonesty.

But the truth is we all lie at times. We’ve asked four experts to weigh in on the subject:

What’s the best way to hold on to your job if you’ve made a mistake and been caught in a lie?

“Admit to it quickly, don’t double-down,” says organizational consultant Kerry Patterson, who believes you’ll gain more trust if your boss hears it from you rather than others. He’s co-author of the best-selling book “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.”

“We shouldn’t feel so smug, our politicians are representative of the broader population,” says Patterson, who’s discovered most people will lie if they are facing adverse conditions and think a lie will get them out of it.

“We conducted an experiment with teens from upstanding families raised in communities with strong ethical backgrounds,” he explains. “We asked them to throw bean bags and record their own scores. There were prizes based on their scores. We found that if we had a decent prize and they felt like they weren’t being monitored, 80 percent of them lied.”

Patterson, who lives in Utah, advises employees who have lied to go overboard in compensating for damages and let it be known what they’re planning to do to fix the problem, using phrases like: “Please let me make it right,” “I’ll be glad to pay for it” or “Let me set it right with our customers.”

“Tell your boss that you’ve learned from your error things will be different in the future,” he concludes. “Share what you’ve learned. And ask for feedback.”

How should we handle lying with our children?

“Up until age 5 or 6, I’m not too concerned because kids at that age are developmentally just beginning to understand the difference between truth and fantasy,” explains Greg Ramey, pediatric psychologist and vice president of outpatient services at Dayton Children’s. “Beyond that, I’m concerned that children do not develop patterns of deceit as a way to either avoid punishment or get the things they want.” On some level, he says, lying is part of being human.

“I know of people who’ve told me they’ve never lied, but I think they’re lying,” he quips. “Under the right conditions, just about everybody will say things that aren’t true and sometime’s it’s OK.”

But trust, he adds, is the foundation for all human relationships.

“Trust is based upon honesty,” Ramey says. “The problem with lying is that it destroys that foundation and therefore makes human connections impossible whether it’s a spouse, child, friend.”

Ramey believes our sense of morality develops by early adolescence and doesn’t change much over a lifetime. He says you don’t wake up one day as an adult and do things like Weiner has done.

Ramey, in practice for 32 years, advises parents who discover their child lying to implement two punishments: one for what the child did, and one for lying about what was done. The appropriate punishments, he adds, depend on whether that child is 8 or 16.

Ramey is concerned that today’s parents seem reluctant to talk about morality and character with their youngsters. He urges them to teach their children that integrity and honesty are important.

Parents also should remember, he says, that kids pay more attention to what we do than what we say.

“It’s hard to preach about values if you’re cheating on your taxes or using someone else’s pass to get into King’s Island.”

How does a little white lie begin to take on greater significance?

“When I hear of a man who is in a public position who lies, I immediately think in terms of compartmentalizing,” says Cincinnati marriage and family therapist Karen Lewis, explaining it’s a matter of placing some behavior “like a little island.”

The author of “You Just Don’t Understand: A Gender Relationship Dictionary,” Lewis sees that a lot when it comes to the Internet — whether it’s looking at pornography, going in chat rooms or connecting with old flames on Facebook.

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