By: Chitra Ramaswamy | Horizon: A Week Without Lying – The Honesty Experiment review – a social experiment that was bound to fail | Neuroscience | The Guardian
How often do you lie? Go on, tell the truth. Only to be kind to others? Lying by omission doesn’t count? Your carefully curated Instagram feed isn’t a form of deception – it’s just that applying the Clarendon filter to photos of you holding a smoothie makes you feel good.
It is estimated that we lie up to nine times a day, which makes me wonder what on earth the rate must be for world leaders. Apparently, we start lying at the age of one, when we learn to cry for attention, although my 12-month-old does this and I call it communicating her needs (and adorable, naturally). The question is whether we could or, indeed, would want to stop doing something as integral to human nature as laughing, feeling disappointed or watching silly BBC documentaries posing as serious telly.
Related: From porkies to whoppers: over time lies may desensitise brain to dishonesty
Related: Willingness to lie manipulated with magnets | Mo Costandi | Neurophilosophy blog
