Janet CollinsTelling Lies
January 25th 2009 03:41
Experts say we all lie all the time. So when is it OK to lie and when isn't it?
Recently I watched the documentary “Forbidden Lie$” by Australian filmmaker, Anna Broinowski. It is a documentary about the rise and fall of Norma Khouri, best selling author of “Forbidden Love”, a supposed true story of the honour killing of Khouri’s best friend in Jordon.
The book made Khouri a superstar in publishing circles until a journalist in her homeland uncovered some serious errors in the book. The journalist, tired of the portrayal of Islamic women by the west, went on a mission to discover the truth.
Khouri’s story was then uncovered further by two Sydney Morning Herald journalists Malcolm Knox and Caroline Overington and the web of lies unfolded and previous scams by Khouri were exposed. Their work won them a prized Walkely Award
I was fascinated with the stories in the media uncovering the real Norma Khouri. It wasn’t the first time an author had peddled untruths in order to tell a story. The Norma Khouri one was incredibly interesting. From nowhere came a writer with a story that would award her international and personal success. She was suddently in huge demand to speak to groups and with the media, many of them on prime time shows.
How can someone be either so clever or so charming or so something for no-one to suspect they are lying? Those who believed Khouri seeminly with no questions asked were a respected New York literary agent, four international publishers, groups of writers and humanitarians internationally and journalists. Even Dick Cheney's daughter eventually aided her move to Australia to "protect" her. Khouri had voluntarily became an advocate for banning of honour killings and had embarrassed Muslims internationally.
When you really look close, there is nothing really all that sophisticated about it. Khouri had a good story. It was only months before the September 11 attacks so her timing was perfect and a story like this one would certainly be a success. In reality, the publishers could only see the dollar signs and nobody bothered to at least do a simple check on her story.
The documentary followed filmmaker, Broinowski and Khouri on a visit to Jordon after she had been exposed as a fraud. It was an effort to prove her story. Even with all evidence to the contrary, Khouri still claims her story is a true one.
From where I sat, Khouri tripped herself up within a few minutes of the documentary. The first time we see her she is telling us how her Muslim friend was killed by her father because she was seeing a Christian man. A minute later, Khouri was addressing a group and was telling them how this same friend was killed by her brother.- not her father.
What this documentary did raise for me is more questions about lying, the detection of lying and perhaps whether people really want to find out if something is a lie. After all, these publishers have plenty of resources and a simple bit of research would have exposed it pretty much in the beginning.
An article in The Guardian back in April 2007 by Richard Wiseman explored some interesting research into lying. One study concentrated on the development of deception on young children and came up with some pretty interesting results.
The study used toys as bait and asked children who were taken into a laboratory to face a wall and not look at the toys that were set up some feet behind. The experimenter then left the room and the children were filmed in his absence.
What this experiment concluded was that almost half of the three-year-old children took a peek and then lied about doing so afterwards. The five-year-old children were far more deceitful because all of them looked and all lied afterwards.
He later took his research into adults and that was far more telling. Only eight per cent of those surveyed said they hadn’t lied – although there seems be an irony to asking people if they lie. Would they tell the truth?
After Wiseman asked the participants of his research to diarise every lie over a two week period, he concluded that “most people tell about two important lies each day, that a third of conversations involve some form of deception, that four in five lies remain undetected, that more than 80 per cent of people have lied to secure a job, and that more than 60 per cent of the population have cheated on their partners at least once”.
What Wiseman was trying to ascertain was whether people were good liars. He came to the conclusion that most people thought they were good liars but that there were remarkable differences in the ability of people to lie convincingly.
If you really want to test yourself about how artful you are in deception, Wiseman has a really interesting test. He suggests you use the first finger of your dominant hand to draw the letter Q on your forehead.
By Wiseman’s calculations some people will draw the letter Q so that they can read it. Others draw the letter Q so that it can be read by someone facing them.
“High self-monitors” he says “tend to draw the letter Q in a way that could be seen by someone facing them. Low self-monitors tend to draw the letter Q so that it can only be read by themselves”.
High self-monitors, says Wiseman, “are happy being the centre of attention, can easily adapt their behaviour to suit the situation and are skilled at manipulating the way in which others see them”. In other words, in Wiseman’s theory they are good liars.
Low self-monitors, Wiseman believes, are the same people in different situations. They are guided by their inner feelings and values and are also less likely to be skilled in deceit.
Wiseman did concede that no politicians were part of the survey as all of them who were asked to participate declined.
In a Washington Post article in November in 2007, Dan Zak wrote of other studies on the subject of lying.
Psychologist Paul Ekman has done extensive studies on lying and detecting deception. Ekman believes there are seven reasons we lie - to avoid punishment, to get a reward, to protect others, to escape an awkward social situation, to enhance our egos, to control information and to fulfil our job description.
Ekman’s 1985 book “Telling Lies” is a benchmark work on the art of detecting deception. After testing the lie detection ability of more than 12,000 people, Ekman found that the average person will only correctly identify a lie 54 per cent of the time. People would detect lies more, Ekman believes, after being taught to recognise suppressed – or repressed – emotions.
Former stand-up comedian and federal law enforcement investigator turned body language guru, Janine Driver, also agrees you can be taught the art of detecting lies. However, Driver feels most people don’t really want to know the truth. Her class on lie detection is the least attended of all.
In reality it should be much harder to get away with lying today compared to say, 50 years ago. There are so many ways to be caught red-handed. Emails, the internet, texting, mobile phone videos, and YouTube videos can all bring people unstuck.
“The same phenomenon that’s making our words stick around can be used by people to lie even more,” says Feldman. “You can go into a chat room and be anyone you want and make up a whole identify for yourself.”
If we collate the beliefs in these studies we conclude that most people tell about two important lies a day, that a third of conversations involve some form of deception, that four in five lies remain undetected, that the average person will only correctly identify a lie 54 per cent of the time and that most people don’t really want to know the truth.
So when does lie become serious? It is still a serious crime to lie under oath but we seem to almost accept that our politicians and our business leaders lie to us all the time, even though we often believe what they say. What lies should be accepted and what lies should not?
So too can we also ask ourselves, if everyone then is guilty of lying, who can we really trust? Ekman, still believes that choosing to lie is a serious gamble with integrity. “Nobody knows the ability it takes to re-establish trust. You can’t work with someone, let alone live with someone, if you don’t trust them.”
The full articles on lying can be read here:
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Information sourced:
Forbidden Lies
The Guardian
The Washington Post
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Comment by Chris Champion
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Comment by Anonymous
I haven't seen that doco but I read an article about it being made. Even Carolyn Overington said she was taken in by Norma Khouri - alternating between belief and disbelief. And she also said that she really liked Khouri. As for Ekman's study - I'd like to know how he came to the '2 lies a day' bit of his theory.
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I am not quite sure how he got the "2 lies a day" but he has obviously done some extensive study on the subject.
If you are interested in the story then Forbidden Lies is worth a look. I actually think the literary agent and the publshers were just as much to blame because they didn't seem to have done even a slight check. They just saw the dollar signs.
Thank you.
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Haha!!
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What a great post!
If you have seen Zeigiest, (www.zeitgiestthemocie.com) you will find this fact, particularly suspicious; enough to make me wonder who lies more, people or governments ... and was she paid to lie, to set the mindset needed for what was to come???
In my experience?
People want lies, they don*t want the truth.
Lilla ...
Comment by Janet Collins
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I agree people don't want the truth and in this particular case I did think it was much better for the publishers to not check things out - or so they thought.
I had never really thought about her being paid to tell the lies......interesting I have not seen Zeitgeist but I certainly will now.
Thank you very much.