Reasons Why People Lie - Essay Sample

Everybody has made a lie in one way or another based on what they wanted to achieve. This is where is some people may tell a lie to protect their reputation while others may tell a lie to acquire something. People often forget that when they are telling a lie they may hurt the other person. Therefore, they lie for their own selfish gains. Depending on the purposes of the lie, psychologist have come up with the lies of omission, commission and influence as the three main types of lies.

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The lies of omission is when a person omits information of an important statement. Omitting something from the whole truth is lying because omission does not portray the truth of the matter. This type of lies are told to convince somebody that the subject matter is viable. For example, I car salesperson may fail to inform you that the car you are about to buy hard important parts in the engine changed during scheduled maintenance check. Instead, he/she will tell that the car has been taken for all its scheduled maintenance.

The lies of influence is when a person tells something completely different to the truth. In this case, a person will tend to tell another story or fact that is true but different from the real story. This for this purpose of manipulating the other person to sway away from the truth. This type of lies are also referred to as character lies because people tell them to make their character traits appear opposite from the truth. Although this lies may appear to be the truth, they are vague. An excellent example is where a child may tell his/her parents that she/he is not capable of fighting because he/she is aware of the punishment. The parents may believe this because of the child fears being punished yet the child is lying.

The lies of commission is when a person tells somebody something that is not true. It is the most common type of lie and the most obvious. This is because it does not match with the facts of the truth. In this type of lies people often twist the truth by telling a lie to favor them. For instance, a suspect may lie to the police about his/her whereabouts during the time of the crime to avoid being jailed. It is worth noting that this type of lies are the most difficult to tell because they are fictitious and hard to remember. As a result, they are the easiest to detect.

Everybody has used all the types of lie in one way or another. In all instances, people tell the lies for their personal gains without considering the feelings of other people. This is where a person may decide to omit an important part of information, tell a totally different story unrelated from the truth or simply twist the truth. Whether it is convince a person about something or to show how good you are, a lie will always remain lie. Moreover, there is no justifiable claim to tell a lie.