Lying and Politics: How to Rethink Arendt’s Reflections about Lying in the Political Realm

The truth about lying.

The standard view in social science and philosophy is that lying does not require the liar's assertion to be false, only that the liar believes it to be false. We conducted three experiments to test whether lying requires falsity. Overall, the results suggest that it does. We discuss some implications for social scientists working on social judgments, research on lie detection, and public moral...

Lying and Deception Lying and Self-deception

Questions about truthfulness occur in many contexts—when parents ask their children if they are using recreational drugs, when an employer ask applicants about the reasons they left their last job, when international leaders consider each others’ threats or promises, when voters evaluate candidates’ promises, when physicians consider a patient’s complaint, when at the start of a romantic encoun...

Lying to the Future

I lied to the future last night. I told it that soon it would be big and strong and profitable. I then tucked it into its crib, turned off the lights, and hoped the day would never come when the future would curse this lie. I not only assured the future it would someday be strong and profitable, I also told it how it would strong and profitable. My lie was a little more prosaic than my words su...

Lying about the Valence of Affective Pictures: An fMRI Study

The neural correlates of lying about affective information were studied using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methodology. Specifically, 13 healthy right-handed Chinese men were instructed to lie about the valence, positive or negative, of pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) while their brain activity was scanned by a 3T Philip Achieva scanner...

Pathological Lying