Do Women Lie More?
The New York Post had an article in yesterday's paper entitled, "Miss-Leading, the Truth about Gals' Serial Fibbing" (Hat tip: Fred Ray):
My sense is, this study is a bit biased to start with--come on, Craigslist? Could it be that the women answering an ad asking for lying women are a bit shady to begin with? I think a random sample of women out in the world might have been a better way of conducting the research. And the lies the author mentions such as cheating are certainly more than white lies, but mixed feelings about mothering or other conflicting feelings do not seem like lies, but rather, like,well...mixed feelings that people often have about their life's decisions. If that's "lying" I imagine we are all guilty.
Deceit, thy name is woman.
Most females lie "more cleverly and successfully than men" about everything from infidelity and facelifts to barhopping and shopping binges, according to a new book.
"Women lie as a survival technique, but also to get what they want," said Susan Shapiro Barash, author of "Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie"published by St. Martin's Press this week.....
Barash interviewed 500 women nationwide who answered her Craigslist ads seeking females to confide what they fib about. Among her findings:
* 75 percent lie about how much money they spend. For instance, they sneak purchases inside their homes after shopping or hide the price tags.
* 50 percent harbor "mixed feelings about mothering." One told Barash, "I look at these children and I crave sleep and free time. They wear me out and make me jealous of working women who have no children, no husbands."
* More than 60 percent cheated on their husbands. A 32-year-old mother conducted her trysts while telling her trusting husband she was working late. Even in asking for a divorce, she withheld the truth: "I didn't say I had fallen for another man. He was better off with my lies."
My sense is, this study is a bit biased to start with--come on, Craigslist? Could it be that the women answering an ad asking for lying women are a bit shady to begin with? I think a random sample of women out in the world might have been a better way of conducting the research. And the lies the author mentions such as cheating are certainly more than white lies, but mixed feelings about mothering or other conflicting feelings do not seem like lies, but rather, like,well...mixed feelings that people often have about their life's decisions. If that's "lying" I imagine we are all guilty.
posted by Helen at 5:13 AM
30 Comments:
Clearly the study is biased, that's what it takes to get headlines in "research" of this kind. The truth is less relevant than saying something controversial, which begs the question: "who's really doing the lying?"
Do women lie more than men? I have no idea, but I do strongly suspect that they get away with it more than we do.
Black Helicopter alert!
Course if your goal is to tear down society then it makes sense to find a group like Craiglist. How does it tear down society? By giving credence to the act of lying, one of the best ways of destroying not only husband and wife relations but friend to friend relations.
Can remember being taught that lying was the worst thing I could do outside of violent acts against innocents. Father would pretty much let me get away with a stern lecture for most crimes but if I lied about it then the punishment escalated drastically.
/black helicopter alert
Course maybe the authors are just ignorant.
Since both the article and study were by women, how can we know if it's true?
Tis the Paradox of Epimenides -- All Cretans are Liars. Epimenides is a Cretan.
What a nonsensical survey. I mentioned it to my kids this morning, and the first question was: "did they interview 500 men too?" Well, no. "Then how can they say women lie more?" We had a nice discussion on statistical samples and survey techniques. Thanks, Helen, for posting this and contributing to my homeschooling efforts today.
Hmm, Rupert Murdoch owns both Fox and the New York Post, so it is no surprise that the publication would pander to a questionable demographic.
"Women lie as a survival technique,"
Wow, that is so demeaning to women! Is the author saying that men are so strong and women so weak, or that men cannot handle the truth?
So how is the shoplifter doing that to survive? And shoplifting is theft, not a lie. The woman who is committing adultery and lying about it is doing THAT to survive?
Get real. This sounds more like National Enquirer Press than St. Martins.
Trey
I don't know whether women lie more than men or not. I do know that they lie better than men though.
The reason why is not necessarily because women are better at lying, but rather because there is an ingrained tendency in this culture to believe whatever they say. Little girls, after all, are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Little boys, on the other hand, are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.
In other words, there is a cultural disposition to believe that women are virtuous and men are not. In such a situation, it's much easier for women to lie, because it's presumed she would never do such a thing. Whereas it's much harder for men, because it's simply presumed that he's lying even when he's telling the truth.
This is a real problem with contemporary culture, and it doesn't bode well for the future. When people express shock that women are just as corrupt and contemptible as men, it threatens the entire belief system. But then reality is a shock to most belief systems.
That said, I refer to the chapter on Choice of Spouse in the Millionaire Mind, by Thomas J. Stanley. 90% of the millionaire households in this country are headed by couples in long-term marriages (average 28 years). The divorce rate in these homes is less than 1/3 the national average. And the reason why is very simple, they chose their mates well.
"Millionaires, both men and women, tell me over and over about their mates: He/she is honest, responsible, loving, capable, and supportive." (p 247)
The key to any successful relationship is honesty. On that foundation, wealth is built. Marrying a liar, whether a man or woman, is the surest road to poverty.
Cham,
What questionable demographic would that be? People like me whose views you don't agree with? I happen to admire Murdoch, think he is an astute business man and Fox News has actually been shown to be the least biased of the news networks. Liberals hate it because it actually allows another point of view.
The problem is not the demographic of the readers of the Post or Fox News--it is taking a sample of women from Craigslist and asking them to tell the writer/researcher of the book their lies and then generalizing those lies to all women. Do ALL women lie like this? I highly doubt it, but maybe the ones who like to use Craigslist and talk to researchers about lying do.
GawainsGhost,
I agree somewhat that women are believed more than men in certain areas, such as "she said, he said" kinds of issues. Do women lie more? Perhaps they lie differently and about different things.
I'd be interested to see a study more scientifically done. Everybody lies to a degree. But my ex tells a lie when the truth would have served her better. In her case lying is a family trait. I rarely believe anything any one in her family says unless I have corroboration.
Well, Dr. Helen, I certainly agree that women lie differently and about different things, but then everything about women is different from men. The problem is that, since the feminist revolution, culture denies that obvious truth.
I suspect that the percentage of men who lie is roughly equal to the percentage of women, just as the number of wives who beat their husbands is roughly equal to the number of husbands who beat their wives. That is a statistical fact.
Everything bad that can be said about men can be said about women as well. That much is obvious to all those except the ideologically blind. But we live in a culture that pretends to believe the truth is not the truth, one which has elevated the female to a position of superiority over the male. A co-equal relationship is impossible in such a situation.
All I know is this. A deal is made when a willing buyer and a willing seller agree on a price, with full disclosure. The best deals are those in which the buyer pays a little more, the seller accepts a little less, neither gets exactly what they wanted but both are content. Nothing was settled behind closed doors or under the table. Nothing was misrepresented, and no one was lied to.
I think all successful marriages are made the same way.
I think this is amazing. Why? Because someone is writing a book and making money off of a view that I and many others have held for a long, long time.
Society, due much in part to the media's portrayal of men in it (think shows like "Home Improvement" or "Friends") has the general view that "men are pigs that only think with their d!c$" and that women innocent creatures who have to put up with it.
The simle fact is, women are every bit as bad as men, and those that won't admit it are the ones who are probably the worst; they refuse to admit their own guilt, instead focusing on the opposite sex.
And as for the people that think this was a biased survey, *all* surveys of women are biased simply because of the exact reasons mentioned in the article -- that they are very clever at misrepresenting the truth.
By no means do I say that men are better, only that we have been perceived as so much worse when it is completely without cause to do so. Humans, by and large, are selfish creatures down to their bone. This goes for men and women alike.
This is not "research"-- you interview a self-selected group and then supply anecdotes.
This is the basis for all the feminist "classics"-- Like Lenore Walker's "Battered Women ", Shere Hite , Gilligan's nonsense.
And its worse than worthless, because people prefer anecdotes to statistics ( from properly designed and executed research ) and a lot of unsupported ideas get put out as truth.
Of course women lie about shopping too much and buying too much... reminds me of the episode on Jimmy Kimmel's The Man Show where he was at a fair or somewhere and he had this platform with a weight scale hidden underneath. He then interviewd women on the platform and asked them-- " How Much to you think you weigh ?"... They would give their estimate and the audience would howl with laughter when their true weight was flashed on the screen. It was usually about 20 lbs more...
By the way, saw where Oprah found a homeless woman and gave her 50k... they must have had to step over a lot of homeless men to find her , since at least 80 % of the homeless are male. Gynocentrism, again.
Teenage daughter and three guys brutally murder her mother, two brothers, and severely injure her father... seems her family disapproved of the daughter dating one of the boys.... she is facing 3 capital murder charges ... Right... " I wonder what the boys did to make her do that ?"... She turns state's evidence aginst her boyfriend and co-conspirators, is told not to murder anyone anymore an let go, while the boys get life. She appears on Oprah to tell the ladies " Girl Who Helps Boyfriend Kill Her Family Syndrome" made her do it and she is seeing a counsellor to help her deal with the trauma of the murder of her Mother and brothers.
And AOL-- which is totally female-dominated-- runs a video " Angry Girlfriend Smashes laptop" where a woman flips out and destoys a man's property in public. The AOL Staff finds it 'amusing" and the women posters all applaud her actions. " He deserved it " etc... and worse. Where do women get this sense of entitlement ?
Gawainsghost:
"I suspect that the percentage of men who lie is roughly equal to the percentage of women,.."
Most studies show that men and women lie fairly equally, but about different things...here is a good article in "Psychology Today" that discusses lying and looks at the differences in men and women's lies:
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19970501-000033.html
Mr. Twisted,
I guess the one thing you can say about the Post article is that at least it didn't diss men for once. But shoddy research is shoddy research. I agree that women are human and like all human beings, we have our flaws. Lying is a human trait, one that both men and women partake in. The trouble, as you say, with our society is that women are seen as honorable and men as "pigs." This is simply not true--we are all human and like it or not, women can no more hold the moral highground than men.
All I know is, my bride of 27 years insists she's 18 (while flashing that grin I never could resist), and I'm not gonna call her on it. ;)
Helen,
Agreed on the statement of shoddy research (a problem which seems to plague this type of research). Unfortunately, this is one of those topics that would be extremely difficult to accurately do a study on.
My argument lies more along the lines of exactly what you said: women are not morally superior, nor should they be viewed as such. This, however, does not follow the general thought process for most people.
Dr. Helen,
If thewre is an objection to using Craigs List, what does that say about the enlisting of college students by Psycho professors for their studies?
Simply put, "lying" is just an attempt at manipulating the social environment. Saying that it is "a matter of survival" or just "to get something" is just another attempt at social manipulation. People lie because they think that the recipients of the lie (1) may not detect the lie and/or (2) cannot or will not retaliate with social sanctions of some sort as a result of the lie. Clearly the husband of the 18 year old women who has been married for 27 years is doing it because of (2). I wonder what would happen to the relationship if he DID call her on it, loudly and publicly.
Referencing my two favorite obsessions, I have to wonder if women's supposed superiority at lying isn't because of the genetic advantages of committing paternity fraud. Because of evolutionary factors, women may have been bred to be better at lying and men may have been bred to be extremely suspicious of female lies. In my experience, men seem more likely than women to believe that they simply will not get away with lying.
Q. Who thinks women are morally superior ? When did that get started ? What a laughable idea.
A. Womens' Moral Inferiority
Moral philosophers through the ages have commented on women's inability to make reasoned, abstract moral judgments, esp the greatest moral philosopher, Immanuel Kant (and that misanthrope Schopenhauer). Women were always considered incapable of engaging in moral reasoning because they made purely idiosyncratic judgments , based on self-interest and the emotion of the moment, also triggered by self-interest.
The last 40 years shows what happens when women enter the public arena-- total self-absorption with female self-interest that knows no bounds.
Look at feminism-- a hate movement. An ideology so irrational, such utter empirical nonsense, such unbelievable levels of lying and so immoral that it defies belief. This is what women come up with-- bigotry so intense it exceeds Nazism in its virulence. Hell, women cheer on Lorena Bobbitt and the latest murderer of a man like old white Southerners posing for pictures, laughing, with a black man hanging from a tree in the background. And this is a morally superior organism ?
B. Kohlberg's moral stage "research" "revealed" that women rarely attain the highest level of abstract reasoning about moral principles like Fairness, Justice, Responsibilty ,The Good, The Right. So Miss Gilligan rushed in to rescue women with her nonsense about women and an "Ethic of Care" which actually proves the point of ethical philosophers.
C. The spectacle of women cheering on the murder and mutiliation of sleeping men, irrational jury verdicts from female- dominated juries exonerating women who are obviously guilty , the rationalization and even exaltatation of virtually all female on male violence, male-bashing ad nausem. And using the law not as an instrument of Justice but to explicitly empower women by harming men -- divorce law, custody , sexual harrassment, domestic violence, sexual assault-- law based on absurd feminist-fomented lies. Morally superior ?
D Male Crime ?
Perhaps one points to the much higher incidence of crime among males... But only a tiny percentage of men commit serious crimes. The point is virtually all males condemn and punish male perpetrators, whoever is the victim, often esp if it is a woman/girl. Not women--any crime by women against men-- women justify , excuse, celebrate, laugh about, making the female perpetrator either the 'real victim" or somehow justified because she is female. To say women are morally superior in the face of such behavior is crazy.
E. A Political Act to Kill A Man-- Indeed women see female maimers and murderers of men as heroes because they see such acts as political statements.
For most women, its a political statement for a woman to kill /maim a man, as Ann Jones implied in her book "Women Who Kill" in 1980-- thus the utterly bizarre Bobbitt trial coverage was solely because women approved of the act as a political statement . It was a political trial-- with all men put on trial by women, who enjoyed this brutal act and the idea of threatening men with physical injury. Morally superior ?
{{ Only Dan Rather at CBS told the female supporters of Ms Bobbitt at CBS to go to hell-- we aint covering that crap , he said. He probably had no idea that women were so venial that they enjoyed this most brutal act against a man, and wished to wallow ectastically in daily coverage. " You Go Girl ".. Yucch.}
Court TV and the media cover these incidents/trials of female violence against men-- because women love to read about them and watch them, identify with, feel "empowered" by and cheer the female perpetrator on..
F. Women as Terrorists
Its like terrorism. The USA expressed moral outrage at the murder of the inhabitants of the Twin Towers by "terrorists" who flew a plane into it. But many Muslims cheered. They saw the act not as a murder of innocents but as an attack on the evil USA. It was a political statement to them, "striking back" at the oppressor, the US, who "deserved it ". The US did something bad " that made the terrorists do that "-- sound familiar ?
The innocents who died were irrelevant to them-- they made their point. Just so women-- their Bobbitts and Winklers and Harrises , the infinte number of killer and maimers women support and rally behind in a bizarre cult of hate. Morally superior ?
Women currently act as supporters of female terrorists. Hence they applaud these violent attacks on men by women as justified in their struggle against the EVIL MALE. "He deserved it"-- everything is allowed against men, according to most women, their irrationality, entitlement and hatred is so intense.
G. The Vote ? Jury Duty ?
It is unimaginable to claim that women are morally superior to men, when the experience and wisdom of the ages evidences that men must control women, precisely because they lack moral judgment and will visit their selfishness and cruelty on society.
Hence giving the vote to women was considered absurd-- and , indeed, as Ann Coulter has noted and research has borne out, women are the ultimate self-centered interest group. They vote themselves money out of the treasury for specifically female needs and wants. Hence government always ballons when women get the vote-- women appoint the government to serve their self-interest as women. See feminism-- its ONLY CRITERION for evaluating any law or public policy is -- " Is it good for women."
H. Chivalry
One reason for the existence of chivalry -- in part-- was that women were thought so inferior intellectually and morally that their irrational emotional attacks on men should be borne in silence.
Alas- Chivalry is like the buffalo circling in defensive formation . It worked fine against ancient predators like wolves , but not against modern guns... and they were decimated where they stood.
So now chivalry leads to male silence in the face of female predation/ abuse .. and the destruction of our culture by the irrational outbursts and selfishness of women.
Then women had no political power and the abuse was merely interpersonal-- now women have institutionalized their abusiveness/selfishness in the law, media, academia, government-- so that it serves them and harms men.
Morally superior ? No- women are typically so morally inferior that they have to be restrained. They have been let loose and and our very culture is being threatened now.
Isaac Bickerstaff
Are their lips moving?
~Mister-M
Yes, it was intended as a joke.
As was mine.
This is but one of many of my bride's and my "inside jokes," built up in the course of a lifetime of learning to work with and trust each other. She's being playful, of course, which is why it's both harmless and amusing to indulge it. Would I "loudly and publicly call her on it?" What on earth for?
Gawainsghost beat me to the punch in citing Stanley in the Millionaire Mind. Stanley identifies what I'd referred to in other threads as the Five Pillars of a successful long-term relationship: that each party to a successful relationship should be honest, responsible, loving, capable, and supportive. (Notice that "blonde, buxom, wealthy, hot, ripped, etc." are not among the Five Pillars.)
Reading threads like this make me realize how incredibly lucky I am to have found the woman I did.
See Proverbs 31, vv10-31. They're out there. They really are. It just takes a bit of work to find them, and it's important not to confuse gold with iron pyrite ("fool's gold"). And the good ones don't have much use for Oprah.
And the "keeper" women aren't the sort of women you'll find answering queries like this on Craigslist, either.
Just thought I'd mention that. ;)
2nd lt. Murphy, we disagree sir. I have not found any connection between moral or cognitive development and gender.
Trey
having looked for such in the Church: they aren't there either.
Wasn't there some body of research relating to Jury Selection that found different levels of empathy and identification with criminals relating to gender? I seem to recall thinking of that.
What strikes me is that many professional police organizations use female interrogators who they believe have better ability to tell lies and suspicious evasions from the truth.
It is worth noting that both Ahmed Ressam the Millenium bomber and Ramzi Yusef's accomplice in Manila (the Bojinka Plot) were spotted and detained by female police officers who knew at once the men were suspicious, evasive, and "wrong."
It might be that women are generally hard-wired to be better at detecting evasions. There is certainly an evolutionary advantage in such sexual selection given the intense selection pressures. I.E. women better able to detect evasions in potential mates choose better and have more offspring.
2nd Lt. Murphy:
You raise an issue I've been thinking about for a while now. I'm an adult who now has 30 years of experience with women, and whose belief in their moral and emotional superiority has been eroding for the last 20 years.
If you were to scale moral development from 1 to 10, I think that women, at any given age, matched against men of similar demographic characteristics (IQ, education level, SES, etc.) are 2 to 3 morality points behind.
I know that this flies in the face of conventional wisdom about women maturing faster, being more empathetic and so on. And I admit there are more really bad men than there are really bad women (because of the much greater male variability on most characteristics), just like there are a lot more male than female geniuses.
Nonetheless, in the middle where most of us live most of the time, women really are relatively primitive in their moral development and reasoning compared to men. I'm not sure why this is, or if there's an overriding factor that explains most of it.
My guess is that women have less experience than men in morally ambigous and challenging environments. Men pursue careers more tenaciously, compete against each other in a wide variety of games, and in general engage more directly with the world. In general, men have a longer time horizon too (illustrated in the wave of recent investment company commercials aimed at women).
Marbel - Good lesson and smart kids!
NJartist - When I was in college, there were was an economic professor who would take students in for studies.
Serket, thanks for the compliment. I don't know that my kids are particularly smart. We just talk about stuff like this all the time at our house. Logical fallacies, resisting advertising and marketing, stupid behavior on the part of teenage boys and girls (grown men adn women)... that's our dinnertime conversation.
I've seen other studies that men and women lie about the same, they just lie about different things, and I tend to concur with that.
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