TRUTH BE TOLD

What is lying's role in relationships? How important is it to tell others the truth and have them tell you the truth? Do our relationships last because we tell the truth? Or, is it feasible, that they last because we don’t? And if we don’t tell one another the whole truth, does that mean, in truth, that we are lying to each other?

But do we even know when we’re lying? According to research studies, many of us tell at least a couple of lies every 10 minutes. That’s a potential 18 lies per hour. Is it even remotely possible that we do this without realizing it? For one thing, there are different kinds of lies: we have lies of commission (we tell outright lies) and lies of omission (We don’t reveal the complete truth).

We also have different motivations for lying. Sometimes a lie is self-protective—we lie because we don’t want to get into trouble, embarrass, or expose ourselves. Other times, we lie to protect another person’s feelings or because we don’t want to reveal what we are really thinking or feeling about him or her. Is there such a thing as being “too honest”—that is, telling another person too much truth? Maybe there are untruths about ourselves that we need to believe are true for us to continue to function and be happy. 

Thus, we may perceive some lies as acceptable because they help shield us from truths we don’t want to or are not strong enough to face. That also means that we may perceive those lies that protect the liar but not the person being lied to as bad. However, it may be that both good and bad lies exist only in the eye of the beholder.  If so, are the lies you tell yourself more or less harmful than the lies you tell another person? And once you have told that lie, does “coming clean” ever really wipe the lie-slate clean between you? Or if discovered by the person being lied to or revealed by the liar, is the lie an irrevocable destroyer of personal credibility and therefore trust? Where do you stand on this question?

RACE AND YOUR BRAIN

Though many speak of our society as post-racial, others contend that because of how our brains are wired, racial divisions persist. It appears that whether we are young, middle-aged, or senior citizens, we have a natural propensity to categorize faces by race. And we do this within one-fifth of a second of seeing another person’s face.

When does this bias start? It begins very early in life. Infants as young as 3 months old, whether they are white or black, prefer to look at faces of people drawn from their own race. Apparently, once we learn to distinguish “in-group” members from “out-group” members—it is a challenging lesson for us to unlearn. In fact, when shown faces of people whose race is ambiguous, if the face is smiling, we judge it to be the same race as we are, but if it is frowning, we judge it to be of another race.

With one exception, virtually every ethnic group is biased in favor of its own. The exception is African-Americans who do not appear to have an in-group bias, but remain essentially neutral. The question is: What can the rest of us do to prevent ourselves from displaying a predisposition in favor of in-group members? Cross-race friendships can help as can being exposed to images of and hearing stories about heroic people from other races.

(See Nicholas Kristof, “Our Biased Brains,” The New York Times, May 7, 2015, p. A29)