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The Causes and Effects of Telling Lies
Lying has become a common habit for many people. Liars understand that lying benefits
the deceiver at the expense of the deceived. The liars deceive themselves by thinking that their
behavior is moral; however, being untruthful is a deviant, deceptive, and unethical behavior that
is unacceptable. Therefore, the essay focuses on some the causes and effects of lying.
Human beings are easy to swindle because of their naivety. Liars take advantage of this
fact and mislead their partners into believing certain issues. Ekman argues that a liar deliberately
chooses to deceive the target (93). The victim is always unaware of the act of deceiving, and the
liar takes the opportunity to express falsehoods or exaggerations to convince the target.
Additionally, Ekman argues that concealment is another cause of lying. Concealment is the act of
hiding something. For instance, when a student refuses to deliver a slip of suspension from the
principal to the parent, such an act is a character trait of a liar. Ekman argues that it is mandatory
for the student to provide information to the parents because concealing misleads the guardian
(94).
Lying permeates all aspects of life. Lying affects personal relationships with friends,
brothers and sisters, parents, teachers, and other adults (Boone 3). Furthermore, lying results in
guilty conscious. ten Brinke, Lee, and Carney found that acts of dishonesty affect the normal
functioning of the brain and the human body. The physiological makeup of a human being is at
risk when a person engages in a dishonest act because such behavior causes skin conductance,
