The value of lying | Mark Duslak | TEDxLSSC

I attended Catholic school from kindergarten until eighth grade I was an altar boy for several years I hit rock bottom when my first-grade teacher called a conference with my parents to encourage me to get into more trouble in my entire academic career I've had one detention and it was for telling on my middle school classmates who were smoking cigarettes so it might seem surprising to you that this innocent Catholic school boy is speaking to you today about the value of lying it's a tough case to make studies show that people regard honesty to be the most important virtue honesty builds trust while dishonesty destroys careers and relationships we have if I may borrow my son's language pan loads of examples lying didn't help Nixon Clinton Enron or the housing market lies are dangerous and we protect ourselves by teaching children about the destruction lies cause most of us probably have honesty is the best policy soldered in our minds alas despite all these warnings we lie frequently most of us 1 to 5 times a day lying starts when we're toddlers and then Peaks when we're teenagers I doubt that comes as a shock to any of you from there the frequency drops but still 44 percent of those aged 60 to 77 fly daily overall we live more than we brush our teeth and this holds true across cultures something we know because of the research of dr. Timothy Levine now Levine's research group lies into four broad categories lies to protect ourselves lies to promote ourselves lies to impact and lies for which the motives are unclear the vast majority of these lives lead to devastatingly destructive outcomes to be more precise about 93% of them do the remaining 7% though are remarkable and do practically the opposite now white lies are a portion of the lies that benefit others but they're uninteresting weenie lies we all know you should tell your friend that the dress doesn't make her look fat even though it does or that that horrendous sweater that your grandma got you is really just your favorite sorry grin or that your child's drawing even though you can't quite tell if it's a alligator or a bear is artistic genius we generally accept this kind of lying in these lies because they're socially polite but I want to focus on high-stakes lies that benefit others so cutting-edge research allows us to understand the complex and complicated nature of a special type of lie a lie so extraordinary that it builds trust builds relationships and can benefit society even better than honesty sometimes so allow me to introduce the pro-social lot the exact definition of a pro-social lie is evolving as the research continues so for today I'm going to be defining it as a lie that has the goal of deceiving the target of the lie but also has the goal of benefiting the target of the lie so what does a pro-social lie look like imagine you're a parent and you dislike your child's spouse you might opt to pretend that you like their spouse so that you can spare your child the suffering and distress that occurs when parents and laws and spouses don't get along that's pro-social lying compassion is the unique quality that gives a pro-social lie its power prosocial lying is compassionate because it shares the goal of relieving the suffering and distress of someone else studies show that compassionate people pro-social Eli more than less compassionate people to put this another way compassionate people lie because they care and the most interesting part is this doesn't even seem to harm trust studies showed that benevolence in the form of pro-social lying does more to foster honesty than earth more to foster trust excuse me than honesty or selflessness the key is intention when we lie to benefit someone else that builds trust now the broader societal implications of pro-social lying are promising but it's tricky to study pro-social lying in communities we can't make people 100% honest and we can't inject dishonest people into an existing community besides being impossible nobody in their right mind is going to approve of that study but thanks to a mash-up of physics and computer modeling we're able to recreate these settings virtually think the Sims but with more liars and pant loads of math so a recent team of researchers used computer modeling to create a completely honest society a completely dishonest society and one with pro-social liars not surprisingly the completely dishonest society sucked however the society with pro-social liars had groups that were more diverse interconnected and cohesive than the completely honest group another way to view this is that the completely honest people made fewer connections to individuals outside of their communities niche if the computers are right we need pro-social Liars to serve as social connectors who build healthier communities so given the benefits of pro-social lying we need to rethink how we teach lying our current standard of teaching about lying comes from an honesty focused Vantage the top three stories were told about lying are Pinocchio the boy who cried wolf and George Washington and the cherry tree the first two stories teach us that bad things happen when we lie we either grow monstrous noses or reading the Cherry Tree story at least does a better job by rewarding honesty but still none of these stories are doing anything to showcase the value of lying we're missing an opportunity to teach about lying that can benefit individuals and society children learn about lying through happenstance and only if they discover the lie for example spoiler alert your parents may have told you about a magical fairy who exchanges teeth for money in the night your parents told you this story to relieve you of the suffering and distress that occurred while your teeth were falling out as children another example might be a teacher who ops to boost up a student's great because they know that that child is struggling with something at home or you might have a coach that exaggerated s' their players ability so that they can give them confidence before they face a foe that is clearly superior all of this is half in the background nobody is holding our hand and walking us through how and when we should be pro socially lying I'll admit it teaching children to lie just has a bad ring to it but it's exactly what we need to be doing so by now we know that pro-social lies build trust and benefit individuals and society however misused pro-social lies can be damaging when we lie even pro-social we are taking away someone's freedom the freedom to know objective reality and so we need to make a consideration that honors the gravity of the decision to lie benevolence is great but when we mistakenly assume that we know best for someone else that can come across as judgement arrogance or condescension and so we need to take into account the benefit to the individual beyond our egotistical drives I had to make this choice my father was dying of cancer and I flew back to Chicago because I knew he did not have long to live when I saw him the invincible hero that was my father was replaced by a broken shell of a human body his first words to me were it doesn't look great mark the doctors say I have a 1 to 2 percent chance of living I decided to tell him that he couldn't make it and that doctors have to be pessimistic I spoke confidently about his recovery even though I knew it was impossible it didn't feel great to lie to my father and I lied to relieve him of the suffering and that didn't feel great to lie but that didn't matter he mattered and I lied because I cared about him I don't regret lying and I'll never know if he believed the lie but I'd like to think that he did and if he did I like to think that it helped him and that is why pro-social lying is so important used properly it is the moral ethical and compassionate thing to do sometimes that means we have to short-circuit our programming and change the way we think and be deceptive and that is why it is so important that we continue to learn about pro-social lying so that we can confidently use it appropriately like most things lying is multifaceted and so we need to transform the way that we teach and think about this concept used properly pro-social lying can relieve an immense amount of suffering and distress that is inevitable in our lives and so I think we ought to give lying a shot and that is my idea worth sharing thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 9,833

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Science, Communication, Community, Compassion, Relationships, Research

Id: 0b7tn1eB10o

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019