What people lie most often about — and how it ruins mental health

In fraud we trust.

People tend to lie to make themselves feel better or to spare themselves shame or rejection — instead of to protect someone else’s feelings, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands ran four experiments to determine if liars experience psychological consequences such as lower self-esteem and negative feelings (nervousness, regret, discomfort or unhappiness).

In one test, participants were tasked with keeping track of their lying behavior for one day. A full 22% told a self-centered lie, 8% told a lie to protect someone else, and 69% reported not lying that day.

The study findings were published last month in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

In another experiment, volunteers were presented with one of eight dilemmas — four were self-centered and four were labeled “other-oriented.”

Here’s an example of a self-centered situation: “You are at a job interview. You are being asked if you have experience in a relevant aspect of the job, which you haven’t.”

An “other-oriented” situation: “Your friend is very happy about her new dress. You don’t like it.”

Nearly 42% of the participants lied in the self-centered situation whereas about 46% told a lie when faced with an “other-oriented” dilemma.

Both sets of liars reported lower self-esteem and more negative feelings compared to the truth-tellers.

In another test, volunteers were asked to share a dilemma they had experienced.

“Participants who were asked to recall a situation in which they lied … reported to have experienced lower self-esteem after the situation compared with participants who were asked to recall a situation in which they did not lie,” the researchers wrote.

In the final test, volunteers recorded their lying behavior over five days.

Participants told a lie 45% of the time, with 22% reporting that they had lied each day and 19% claiming they had not lied on any day.

Those who lied experienced a decrease in self-esteem, researchers found.