Why do we lie? - CrowdScience podcast, BBC World Service

CrowdScience listener Anthony from Cambodia asked us to find out why we lie and how conscious we are of the lies that we tell?

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CrowdScience’s Caroline Steel is in the hot seat, on a journey where she will attempt to untangle the complex story behind lying.

It’s a subject scientists and psychologists have been studying for a long time. It’s also something writers, philosophers and theologists have been interpreting for thousands of years. But we’re only now really starting to get to grips with how it works as a human behaviour.

There are lies in our folklore, lies in the media and also lies in everyday conversation. It’s something we’ve all had to learn to navigate at some point in our lives.

Our journey will take us to meet the world’s ‘second best liar’, an award she picked up at West Virginia’s Liar Contest. We’ll also meet a comedian who’s proud of the down-to-earth plain honesty of Dutch people.

An academic who has studied thousands of children’s brains will explain when we first start learning to lie. And we’ll hear about new research using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is helping to show how the more we actually lie, the less our brain reacts telling us not to.

Caroline looks at how lying changes from culture to culture. Do we really all lie? And do we lie in the same way? The surprising and intriguing answer is found in how early it develops in us as a human behaviour.

0:00 Introduction
2:40 When do we start lying?
4:50 From first lies to peak lying age around seven
5:50 Teenagers are the most honest age group
6:25 Different types of lie - white lies to red lies
8:15 How many lies do we tell a day?
10:00 The story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf
12:45 Meet Ariana, the world's second best liar
15:20 How can you get away with a lie?
16:10 What goes on in our brain when we lie?
18:30 Can we lie without realising it?
22:15 Differences in lying around the world

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