The 15 Types of Lies and Their Characteristics

“Do I look tired?” Your friend asks it across a café table, eyes slightly puffy, a bag of kids’ laundry visible in the footwell of the car outside. You say, “No, you look great.” The word great leaves your mouth before you’ve consulted anything resembling your conscience. A minute later your phone buzzes: your manager asking whether the report is nearly done. “Almost there,” you type, with the document still blank. Two lies in ninety seconds, neither of which you’d call lying. You’d likely defend both as manners. They’d probably both go on the list of things you’d describe as “just being nice” and “just being busy.”

Psychologists have been counting such moments for decades, and the numbers are less sinister and more interesting than you might expect. Most of us lie rarely. A few people lie constantly. And the word “lie” covers a messy range of behavior, from a tender fib at a birthday party to a calculated con. Lumping it all together is like using one word for a papercut and a fracture, and it makes people either far too forgiving or far too suspicious. It hides the differences that matter for relationships, trust and, occasionally, safety.

So let’s sort them.

This article lays out 15 types of lies and their characteristics, drawing on research about how often people lie, how well we detect it and why it happens.

One honest caveat up front: there is no official list of fifteen. This is a practical taxonomy, built from the research, designed to be useful.

What counts as a lie, and is there an official list of lie types?

A lie is a deliberate attempt to make someone believe something the speaker knows to be false, or at least doesn’t believe to be true. There’s no official, universally accepted list of lie types, so any set of “15 types” is a working classification, not a scientific standard.

Intent is the key ingredient. If you say something false by mistake, you’re wrong, not lying. If you misremember an event honestly, that’s a memory error. If you believe your own distorted account, you’re in murkier territory that we’ll cover under self-deception. A lie requires, at minimum, an awareness that what you’re saying isn’t true, or isn’t the whole truth, and a wish for the listener to believe it.

Philosopher Sissela Bok wrote the classic modern book on the subject, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (1978). She distinguished lies from broader deception and secrecy, and went on to discuss different categories of lies, including white lies, excuses, lies in a crisis, lies to protect peers or clients, paternalistic lies told “for someone’s own good” and lies for the public good. Her argument was that even lies that seem harmless carry costs, because they erode trust and make the next lie easier. You don’t have to agree with her strictest conclusions to find the categories useful.

Researchers also classify lies along a few dimensions, which is how I built the list below:

Who benefits. Self-serving lies protect or promote the speaker; other-oriented lies aim to protect or please someone else. How it’s told. Outright falsehoods (commission) versus withholding or misleading with technically true statements. How big. From tiny social lubricants to major betrayals. How aware the speaker is. Calculated, habitual or partly self-deceived.

Take Marcela, an illustrative composite who tells her sister she loves the sweater she received for her birthday, forgets to mention that she’d borrowed a colleague’s tickets for a concert instead of buying her own, and later describes her commute as “a nightmare” when it was ordinarily annoying. Each of those is a different kind of lie, with different motives and different consequences. The sweater lie costs nothing. The ticket omission might. The commute exaggeration is just storytelling.

That variety is why a typology is useful. It lets you ask a better question than “was that a lie?” You can ask “what kind of lie was it, and what did it do?”

How common is lying, and how well can we detect it?

Lying is common but unevenly distributed, and we’re poor lie detectors. Most people tell a few lies a day or none, a small group of prolific liars tells a disproportionate share, and in controlled studies people spot lies only slightly better than chance.

The foundational study is by Bella M. DePaulo and colleagues, published in 1996. In two diary studies, 77 college students reported telling about two lies a day and 70 community members about one. Students lied in roughly one in three of their social interactions, community members in about one in five. Most lies were mundane and little planned, and participants told more self-centered lies than other-oriented ones, though women’s conversations with other women tended to include more other-oriented lies.

Averages can mislead, though. Kim Serota, Timothy R. Levine and Franklin Boster surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in 2010 about the lies they’d told in the past 24 hours. The average was about 1.65 lies a day, but 60 percent of respondents reported telling no lies at all, and about half of all lies were told by just 5 percent of people. Levine calls these frequent liars “prolific liars,” and the pattern, a mostly honest majority plus a few heavy lie-tellers, has held up in later studies, including one finding that high school students reported more lies than adults, on average, but with the same skew.

How well do we catch them? A meta-analysis by Charles F. Bond Jr. and Bella DePaulo in 2006 pooled results from 206 documents and 24,483 judges. When people tried to tell lies from truths in real time, with no special training or tools, they were right about 54 percent of the time, correctly identifying 47 percent of lies and 61 percent of truths. In other words, we’re better at recognizing honesty than deception, and only a little better than a coin flip overall.

Levine’s truth-default theory offers an explanation: people tend to assume that others are honest, because most communication is honest and trusting is efficient. We only shift out of that default when something triggers suspicion. That default is useful in everyday life and exploitable by liars.

Picture Dara, an illustrative composite who hears a colleague say he “didn’t get the email.” She has no reason to doubt him, so she doesn’t. Weeks later, when it turns out he’d read it and ignored it, she’s surprised, but not at herself. Taking people at their word is how functioning social life works.

A word on the numbers: all of these figures come from self-reports or lab tasks, and people may under-report their own lying or lie differently when the stakes are low. They’re estimates, not a precise census of dishonesty.

What these findings mean for the rest of this article: most lies you’ll encounter are small and sociable, a minority are consequential, and the skill worth building is not paranoia but discrimination between the two.

What are the 15 types of lies at a glance?

The 15 types in this guide are: white lies, protective lies, self-serving lies, lies of omission, lies of commission, exaggeration, minimization, half-truths, excuses, cover-up lies, bluffs, gaslighting lies, pathological lies, self-deception and bullshit. The table summarizes each.

Two notes on reading the table. First, these categories overlap. A cover-up might involve an omission, an excuse and a half-truth. A single sentence can be a white lie and a protective lie at once. Second, the “harm level” column is a rough guide, not a rule. Even a white lie can do damage if it hides something that matters, and an exaggeration can ruin a reputation.

The next sections walk through the types in groups, starting with the lies most of us tell most often.

Types 1 to 3: white lies, protective lies and self-serving lies

These are the most common everyday lies, distinguished mainly by who benefits. White lies smooth social life, protective lies shield someone else, and self-serving lies help the speaker. Researchers find that people judge them very differently.

1. White lies. A white lie is a small, usually well-meant falsehood told to avoid awkwardness or hurt: “I love it,” “No trouble at all,” “I’m fine.” They’re trivial, fast and often expected. In DePaulo’s diary studies, a large share of reported lies were of this everyday kind, and participants rarely planned them or worried about being caught. Characteristics: low stakes, automatic, socially lubricating. The risk: they can become a habit that makes honest feedback rare.

2. Protective (altruistic) lies. These shield another person from pain, danger or embarrassment: telling a frightened child the injection won’t hurt much, or telling an ill relative they look well. They’re what Bok called paternalistic lies when they override someone’s right to know. Characteristics: other-oriented, emotionally motivated, often defended as kindness. The risk: the person may later feel patronized or betrayed if they discover the truth.

An interesting study by Emma E. Levine and Maurice Schweitzer, published in 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that people often judged benevolent lies, those that help another person, as more ethical than truths that cause harm. In other words, people don’t use honesty as the only moral yardstick; they weigh kindness too. That doesn’t make protective lies safe, but it shows why they feel justified.

3. Self-serving lies. These benefit the liar: inflating a résumé, dodging a fine, taking credit for someone else’s work, hiding a mistake. DePaulo’s studies found that self-centered lies were more common than other-oriented ones overall. Characteristics: motivated by gain or avoiding consequences, more likely to be planned, more damaging if discovered. The risk: they’re the type most likely to destroy trust, because the victim paid for the lie.

Think of three versions of the same moment. Your colleague’s presentation was dull. “It was great!” is a white lie. “I think it went fine, don’t worry” to someone fragile before a big review is protective. “I didn’t see your message about the deadline” to avoid blame is self-serving. The words are similar; the motives differ.

It helps to ask three quick questions about any lie: Who was it for? What would the truth have cost? Would they thank me or be angry if they knew? The answers usually place it on the spectrum.

A practical point: many people think of themselves as honest because they rarely tell self-serving lies, while freely telling white and protective ones. That’s a coherent view, though research on relationships suggests that a steady diet of small untruths can still wear down closeness.

Which type do you tell most often?

Types 4 to 8: omission, commission, exaggeration, minimization and half-truths

These five types differ in how the falsehood is built: by leaving something out, saying something false, inflating, shrinking or arranging true statements to mislead. Each is common, and each can be innocent or damaging depending on what’s at stake.

4. Lies of omission. A lie of omission means deliberately withholding relevant information so that the other person ends up with a false picture. Failing to mention a medical history on a form, leaving out that you’ll be late because you stopped for a drink, or not telling a partner about a large debt. Characteristics: no false statement is made, so the liar can feel innocent. The test is intent and relevance: did you leave it out so that they’d believe something untrue, and would they have wanted to know? Not every silence is a lie; privacy is legitimate. But strategic silence about something material often is.

5. Lies of commission. The classic: a direct false statement. “I was at the office,” when you weren’t. Characteristics: explicit, clear, easy to prove false. These are the lies that most people count as “real lies,” and the ones that are most likely to be treated as a betrayal if they come out.

6. Exaggeration. Inflating the truth: “I’ve been waiting forever,” “He’s the smartest person alive,” “I almost died of embarrassment.” Often playful and widely understood as figurative. It becomes a lie when the listener is meant to take it literally for advantage, such as inflating sales numbers or job experience. Characteristics: starts from a true core, aims to impress or entertain, common in storytelling.

7. Minimization. The mirror image: shrinking the truth to reduce concern or blame. “It was just a couple of drinks.” “It’s only a scratch.” “I barely spent anything.” Characteristics: common in addiction, avoidance and denial, often partly self-deceptive. It’s a lie that also helps the liar avoid facing the issue.

8. Half-truths (paltering). A half-truth uses accurate statements arranged to create a false impression. A used car salesperson says “never had an accident,” while omitting that it was in the shop for flood damage. A partner says “I had dinner with a coworker” and leaves out that it was a date. Characteristics: technically true, deliberately misleading, appealing because the speaker can say “I never lied.” Many people regard this as the most insidious everyday form, since it combines deception with deniability.

Take Joon, an illustrative composite who is asked how his startup’s quarter went. “Revenue is up 30 percent” (true, from a tiny base, which he leaves out) is a half-truth. “We’re basically profitable” (he isn’t) is minimization of a problem and exaggeration of a success at once. If he leaves out that his co-founder quit, that’s omission. Four types in one pitch.

How can you tell innocent from harmful here? Three tests help: materiality (does it matter to the decision?), intent (was it meant to mislead?) and reliance (will they act on it?). A tall tale at a party passes all three as harmless. A tall tale on a loan application fails them all.

Types 9 to 11: excuses, cover-up lies and bluffs

These three are lies with a job to do: escape responsibility, hide an earlier lie or gain a strategic edge. They tend to be more deliberate than the everyday fibs, and they follow recognizable patterns.

9. Excuses and alibis. An excuse is a false reason offered to explain why you did, or didn’t do, something. “Traffic was terrible.” “My phone died.” “I never got the invitation.” Bok treated excuses as a distinct category of lie, noting that they often shade between true and false: the traffic was heavy, but you’d also left late. Characteristics: socially accepted, hard to disprove, meant to dodge blame. A good test is whether the excuse is the whole truth or a convenient part of it. Often it’s the second, which makes it a half-truth in disguise.

10. Cover-up lies. A cover-up lie is told to hide a previous lie or a mistake, and it’s the type that tends to escalate. The first lie is small, the second protects the first, the third protects the second, and soon you’re maintaining an elaborate structure. Characteristics: compounding, increasingly costly, fueled by fear of exposure. Many public scandals, and many private ones, are worse for the cover-up than for the original act. The fix is unglamorous: stop and tell the truth early, when the cost is smallest.

11. Bluffs and strategic lies. A bluff sends a false signal about strength, intentions or options to gain an advantage: “I have another offer,” “I’m prepared to walk away,” a poker face with nothing in the hand. Characteristics: situational, often governed by unwritten rules of a game or negotiation. Many people regard some bluffing in poker or negotiation as acceptable because everyone understands the game, though norms differ. Lies that cross from bluffing into material false claims, such as inventing a competing offer, can create legal or ethical problems.

Imagine Rosa, an illustrative composite who forgot to submit a form by the deadline. She tells her manager, “The portal was down” (an excuse; it was down for ten minutes, a week earlier). When asked for a screenshot, she says she “must have deleted it” (a cover-up). When pressed, she says a colleague had told her the deadline was next week (another cover-up, now involving a third person). What began as a ten-minute lapse has become a cascade, and the damage now exceeds what the original mistake ever would have caused.

The cover-up dynamic is worth understanding because it explains why decent people end up in indefensible positions. Each lie feels like a small, local fix. The cost is deferred and compounding. A useful rule: if you’re about to tell a second lie to protect the first, that’s the moment to stop.

When you suspect an excuse or cover-up, a calm, non-accusatory question is more effective than a challenge: “Can you walk me through what happened?” People caught off guard may correct themselves, and those who are truthful will usually be able to repeat the same facts consistently.

Types 12 and 13: gaslighting lies and pathological lying

These are the two types most associated with serious harm. Gaslighting uses denial and distortion to make someone doubt their own perception, while pathological lying is a pattern of frequent, often unnecessary falsehoods. Neither is a casual fib, and both deserve careful, non-stigmatizing handling.

12. Gaslighting lies. Gaslighting is a pattern of manipulation in which someone repeatedly denies, distorts or reframes reality so that the other person doubts their own memory, perception or sanity. The term comes from the 1938 play Gas Light and its film adaptations, in which a husband dims the gas lamps and insists his wife is imagining it. It isn’t a clinical diagnosis. It’s a descriptive term for a pattern of abusive or controlling behavior, and it’s often discussed in the context of coercive relationships.

Typical features: flat denial of things that clearly happened (“I never said that”), rewriting history, shifting blame to the person’s “oversensitivity” or “craziness,” and isolating them from people who might confirm their account. The aim is control, and the effect is erosion of self-trust.

Warning signs that you may be on the receiving end:

• You frequently doubt your own memory after conversations with one particular person.
• You often apologize even when you’re not sure what you did.
• You’ve stopped trusting your own judgment and defer to them.
• They call you “too sensitive” or “crazy” when you raise concerns.
• You find yourself hiding things from friends because it’s easier than explaining.

Practical steps include keeping notes of what was said and agreed, checking your perceptions with trusted friends or a therapist, and seeking support if the relationship involves control or abuse. If you’re in danger, contact your local emergency number: 911 in the US and Canada, 999 in the UK, 112 or 999 in Ireland, 000 in Australia and 111 in New Zealand.

13. Pathological lying. Pathological lying, also called pseudologia fantastica or compulsive lying in older literature, refers to a pattern of repeated, often elaborate lying that appears out of proportion to any obvious benefit. In a 2005 review in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Charles C. Dike and colleagues described pathological lying as falsification that is chronic and that may have no clear external motive, noting that its relationship to established diagnoses remains unclear and that the research base is limited. It’s not a stand-alone diagnosis in the major manuals, and it can appear alongside other conditions, such as certain personality disorders, or in the context of neurological problems.

Characteristics that clinicians describe: lies that are frequent and elaborate, stories in which the person is often the hero or victim, difficulty stopping even when exposed, and sometimes a degree of apparent belief in the story. It’s quite different from the occasional self-serving lie. It’s also easy to over-diagnose: a person who lies often to avoid conflict isn’t necessarily a pathological liar.

Consider Elias, an illustrative composite who tells coworkers he trained as an Olympic athlete, once met a head of state and recently survived a plane crash, none of which is true. He doesn’t seem to gain anything concrete, and he looks genuinely uncomfortable when asked for details. That pattern would be worth a professional assessment, not an angry confrontation.

If you live or work with someone who lies compulsively, a few principles help: avoid public shaming, which tends to produce more elaborate cover stories; stay factual; set boundaries about what you will and won’t rely on; and encourage professional evaluation. A psychologist or psychiatrist can assess for underlying conditions and help with treatment.

Types 14 and 15: self-deception and bullshit

The last two types are strange cases. Self-deception is lying to yourself, and bullshit is speech made without caring whether it’s true. Neither fits the textbook definition of a lie, which is exactly why they’re worth separating out.

14. Self-deception. Self-deception is believing, or acting as if you believe, something that you have good reason to doubt, usually because the truth is uncomfortable. “I’ll start saving next month.” “I’m basically fine to drive.” “My drinking isn’t a problem.” Characteristics: motivated, often unconscious, protects self-image, and can be hard to distinguish from simple optimism or error.

One influential proposal comes from William von Hippel and Robert Trivers, who argued in a 2011 paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences that self-deception may have evolved to facilitate deceiving others: if you believe your own story, you give fewer signs of lying. They suggested that people bias the information they gather, how they interpret it and what they remember in ways that favor a flattering self-image. The theory is influential and debated; critics argue that self-deception may have other functions, such as emotional regulation, and the evidence for its role in deceiving others is mixed.

The practical significance is clear. Self-deception is the lie we’re least likely to catch, because the liar is also the victim. It underlies procrastination, denial of health problems, rosy views of failing relationships and many addictions. A useful sign is a persistent gap between what you say and what your behavior shows: you say you’re saving, but the account is empty.

15. Bullshit. Harry Frankfurt, a philosopher at Princeton, gave the concept its modern definition in his 2005 book On Bullshit. His distinction: a liar knows the truth and works to hide it, so the liar’s attention is on the truth, just in opposition. A bullshitter doesn’t care whether what he’s saying is true or false; the aim is to impress or persuade. Frankfurt argued that this indifference to truth makes bullshit in some ways a greater enemy of truth than lying.

Examples: the confident-sounding explanation of something you don’t actually understand, filler jargon in a meeting, an invented statistic that “sounds right,” a motivational post that is unmoored from facts. Characteristics: fluent, confident, unconcerned with accuracy. It’s common in settings where sounding knowledgeable is rewarded and being wrong is costly.

Picture Wen, an illustrative composite at a dinner party who is asked about a political event he hasn’t followed. He offers a fluent three-sentence analysis, complete with a “statistic,” none of which he has checked. Nobody’s hurt. But he’s practiced the habit of speaking without reference to what he knows, and it’s easy to do the same in more consequential contexts.

Why does the distinction matter? Because the remedies differ. Against lying, you need verification and consequences. Against self-deception, you need honest feedback and reflection. Against bullshit, you need a norm of saying “I don’t know,” which is the most underused sentence in public life.

How can you spot a lie, and what should you do about one?

Don’t rely on gut feelings or body-language tricks; both are unreliable. Instead, look for inconsistencies, check facts when it matters, ask open questions and respond to confirmed lies in proportion to their seriousness.

Start with what the research says. As we saw, Bond and DePaulo‘s meta-analysis found that people average 54 percent accuracy in spotting lies. The same review found that people are somewhat better judging audible than visible cues, and that people appear more deceptive when they are motivated to be believed, which means nervous truth-tellers can look like liars. Popular beliefs, such as that liars avoid eye contact, are not reliable indicators.

What works somewhat better is attending to content, not mannerisms: whether details are consistent, whether the story fits known facts and whether it holds up under friendly follow-up questions. And Levine’s truth-default theory suggests that the best detection method is often not intuition but evidence: checking what can be checked.

A practical approach in six steps:

1. Ask yourself how much it matters. A white lie about a haircut doesn’t merit an investigation. A false claim about money, safety or fidelity does.
2. Look for a baseline. Compare behavior to how the person normally acts, not to a universal “tell.”
3. Ask open, neutral questions. “Can you tell me more about that?” tends to produce more information than accusations.
4. Check what can be checked. Dates, receipts, messages, other witnesses. Evidence beats intuition.
5. Respond to the lie, not the person’s character. “That doesn’t match what I saw. Help me understand” opens a conversation.
6. Decide on consequences in advance. What would you do if it were confirmed? Setting a boundary beats a vague sense of unease.

When you’ve caught a lie, proportion matters. A small, one-off lie from someone with a good track record may call for a brief, honest conversation. A pattern of self-serving lies, or lies that hide something important, may require firm boundaries, rebuilding trust slowly or ending the relationship. Gaslighting or abuse is a different category, and safety comes first.

Imagine Amara, an illustrative composite whose partner says he was working late when a friend saw him at a bar. She doesn’t scream or search his phone. She says, “A friend saw you at the bar. I’d rather hear it from you than guess.” He admits he went for a drink after a bad day and didn’t want to seem like he was avoiding work. That’s a lie of the minor, face-saving variety, and the conversation matters more than the lie. If the pattern repeats, her response would change.

When should you seek professional help? If you’re in a relationship where you constantly doubt your perceptions, if lying is damaging your own work or relationships and you can’t stop, or if someone close to you lies compulsively and it’s causing serious harm. A psychologist, psychiatrist or licensed counselor can help, and a primary care doctor (a GP in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) can point you to the right referral.

What would change in your life if the people around you could count on a straight answer, and you could count on one from yourself?

FAQs about the 15 Types of Lies

What are the most common types of lies?

White lies are the most common everyday type: small, polite falsehoods like saying you love a gift. In diary studies led by Bella DePaulo, people reported about one to two lies a day, mostly mundane and rarely planned. Exaggeration, minimization, excuses and lies of omission are also very common. More serious types, such as self-serving lies, cover-ups, gaslighting and pathological lying, are less frequent but cause more harm. Research by Kim Serota and Timothy Levine suggests that most people lie little or not at all on a given day, while a small group of prolific liars tells a large share of all lies. Because the typology is informal, it’s most useful as a way to ask what kind of lie was told and what it did.

Is a lie of omission still a lie?

It can be. A lie of omission means deliberately leaving out relevant information so that someone ends up believing something false. If you hide a large debt from a partner or omit a material fact on a contract, you’ve deceived them without saying anything untrue. But not all silence is deception: privacy is legitimate, and nobody owes the world every detail. Useful tests are intent (did you leave it out to mislead?), materiality (would it affect their decisions?) and reliance (will they act on the wrong impression?). If the answer to those is yes, most ethicists would call it a lie. Intent, relevance and reliance are the practical tests.

What is the difference between a white lie and a regular lie?

A white lie is small, low-stakes and usually told to be polite or spare feelings, like saying you enjoyed a meal you didn’t. A regular lie is told for more significant reasons, often to gain something or avoid consequences, and its stakes are higher. The line is blurry, since a white lie can still hide something important and some people object to them on principle. Research by Emma Levine and Maurice Schweitzer found that people often judge benevolent lies as more ethical than harmful truths, which helps explain why white lies feel acceptable to many people. That is why many people regard white lies as acceptable while still being wary of lies that serve only the speaker.

Can you tell when someone is lying?

Not reliably. A 2006 meta-analysis by Charles Bond and Bella DePaulo, covering 206 documents and more than 24,000 judges, found that people correctly identify lies and truths about 54 percent of the time, only a little better than chance. People are better at recognizing truths than lies, and common beliefs, like liars avoiding eye contact, aren’t dependable. Nervous truth-tellers can look suspicious. Checking facts, noticing inconsistencies and asking open questions work better than trusting a gut feeling. Timothy Levine’s truth-default theory adds that we assume honesty by default and only shift when something triggers suspicion. Practical tests such as checking facts and asking open questions beat gut feeling.

What is a pathological liar?

A pathological liar is a person who lies persistently and often elaborately, in ways that seem out of proportion to any obvious benefit. Clinical literature, such as a 2005 review by Charles Dike and colleagues, describes it as chronic falsification with unclear boundaries and links to other conditions, noting that research is limited. It isn’t a stand-alone diagnosis in major manuals. The term is often used loosely in everyday talk, so it should be reserved for long-standing, clinically significant patterns, not for someone who has lied once or twice. A psychologist or psychiatrist can assess whether another condition is involved. Because the term is used so loosely in everyday talk, it helps to reserve it for persistent patterns.

What is gaslighting, and is it a type of lying?

Gaslighting is a pattern of manipulation in which someone repeatedly denies or distorts reality so that another person doubts their own memory or perception. It does involve lying, such as flatly denying something that happened, but it’s more than isolated falsehoods; it’s a sustained pattern aimed at control. The term comes from a 1938 play and its film adaptations. It isn’t a clinical diagnosis. Signs include constantly doubting your memory around one person and being called oversensitive. Keeping notes, talking to trusted people and seeking support from a therapist can help. If you’re in danger, contact emergency services.

Why do people lie?

People lie to avoid punishment or conflict, to protect other people’s feelings, to gain something such as money, status or a partner, and to manage how they come across. Some lies are about control, as in gaslighting, and some are habitual or compulsive. Most everyday lies are about avoiding discomfort and managing impressions, and they tend to be cheap in the short term and costly in the long term. Lying is more likely under high pressure, in environments where honesty is punished and when the chance of being caught is small. People tell the truth more readily where the truth is survivable, which is why calm reactions to mistakes tend to reduce lying at home and at work.

Is lying to yourself the same as lying to others?

Not exactly, though it’s related. Self-deception means holding a belief you have good reason to doubt, usually because the truth is uncomfortable. Unlike interpersonal lying, the speaker may not be fully aware of it. William von Hippel and Robert Trivers argued in 2011 that self-deception may have evolved partly to help people deceive others more convincingly, though this is debated. Everyday examples include denying a health problem or overestimating how much you’ll save. A good sign of self-deception is a persistent gap between what you say and what you do. Honest feedback from people you trust can help close the gap between what you intend and what you do.

Bibliography

• Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. Pantheon Books.
• Bond, C. F., Jr., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 214-234.
• DePaulo, B. M., Kashy, D. A., Kirkendol, S. E., Wyer, M. M., & Epstein, J. A. (1996). Lying in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 979-995.
• Dike, C. C., Baranoski, M., & Griffith, E. E. H. (2005). Pathological lying revisited. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 33(3), 342-349.
• Frankfurt, H. G. (2005). On bullshit. Princeton University Press.
• Levine, E. E., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2014). Are liars ethical? On the tension between benevolence and honesty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 107-117.
• Levine, T. R. (2014). Truth-default theory (TDT): A theory of human deception and deception detection. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 33(4), 378-392.
• Serota, K. B., Levine, T. R., & Boster, F. J. (2010). The prevalence of lying in America: Three studies of self-reported lies. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 2-25.
• von Hippel, W., & Trivers, R. (2011). The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(1), 1-16.