The Origins of Lying and Deception in Everyday Life

Michael Lewis Those of us living in the United States seem particularly concerned about lying and deception. Consider our myth about our founding father and general of our Continental Army, George Washington. What most of us know best about Washington as a child—in fact, the only thing we know—is that when asked by his father, “Did you chop down the cherry tree?” he is reported to have told the truth. Whether the story is accurate or not (it was likely made up by biographer Parson Weems), the fact that children are taught the first president of our nation never lied speaks to the importance of the issue for American parents. Given the diversity of the studies on this topic, it may be helpful to consider what we mean by lying and deception, both in children and in adults, and to use these definitions to create a taxonomy that can inform our ideas about the origins of lying and deception. While the topic of lying and deception in emotional life has received some attention (see, for example, the works of Paul Ekman), there has been relatively little investigation of this behavior in children. Apart from Charles Darwin’s description of his child at two years old and a single study published by philosopher Charles Hartshorne in 1928, it was not until the 1980s that research into lying and deception began in earnest, with the publication of studies by Carolyn Saarni and Pamela Cole as well as my own. Given the perennial interest in emotional development, it is somewhat surprising that this line of inquiry emerged so late. As we will see, the research demonstrates that facial expression can mask an individual’s inner emotional experience, even in children; moreover, it suggests that lying and deception, as measured by both verbal and facial expression, may have been subjected to evolutionary pressure and are positively related to other cognitive capacities associated with psychological fitness.