Since the birth of the United States, a story has been handed down from mother to child about our first president, who could not lie after pulling a childish prank and chopping down a cherry tree.
The moral has always been clear to the children, it is always better to tell the truth. In spite of the commonality of that lesson, recently numbers quoted in a report by the Josephson Institute of Ethics 2002 Report Card showed a dramatic increase in the number of students willing to lie and cheat in the decade between 1992 and 2002, with the greatest increases occurring in the first two years of the new millennium.
One surprise – Varsity athletes are much more likely to cheat on exams than their less athletically talented peers, which upsets the theory that high school athletics imbues a higher ethical standard for children. And those of you that are paying private school fees for schools with a formal religious education will find it unsettling to learn that a religious educational environment seems to stimulate lying on the part of students rather than reducing it.
So what underlies the fact that lying has become an accepted practice with our youngsters?
One clue is in the fact that one of the more popular rationalizations for lying exposed by the study was “to get a good job,” with those willing to do so jumping from 28 percent to 39 percent.
Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, is quoted in a press release as saying “The evidence is that a willingness to cheat has become the norm and that parents, teachers, coaches and even religious educators have not been able to stem the tide. The scary thing is that so many kids are entering the workforce to become corporate executives, politicians, airplane mechanics and nuclear inspectors with the dispositions and skills of cheaters and thieves.” The study included 1,200 students from across the nation.
In the eight years between 1992 and 2000, the percentage of those willing to cheat on exams went from 61 to 71 percent. The two years that followed from 2000 to 2002 showed a combined leap of another of 3 percent, showing that now three out of every four students are comfortable with cheating on exams.
Another clue that there has been a shift in the ethics of the nation is in the response to the statement “A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed.” Those that agreed jumped 9 percent from 34 to 43 percent in only two years, between 2000 and 2002, according to the Josephson Institute.
So why do people lie? Leonard Saxe of Brandeis University believes that society has conditioned us to lie. Lee Dye of ABC News says “Various studies show at least a fourth of our daily interactions with others involve lying, usually about something rather minor. Most often, we lie to avoid conflict, or to spare someone else’s feelings.”
In a study published in a 2002 Journal of Basic and Applied Social Psychology and conducted by psychologist Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Feldman was quoted as stating “People tell a considerable number of lies in everyday conversation. It was a very surprising result. We didn’t expect lying to be such a common part of daily life.
“Women were more likely to lie to make the person they were talking to feel good, while men lied most often to make themselves look better.”
In an earlier study Dr. Feldman found that expertise in lying increased popularity.
“It’s so easy to lie,” Feldman said. “We teach our children that honesty is the best policy, but we also tell them it’s polite to pretend they like a birthday gift they’ve been given. Kids get a very mixed message regarding the practical aspects of lying, and it has an impact on how they behave as adults.”
So if lying helps you get higher grades, makes you more money, gains you more popularity, and rarely carries a punishment greater than the crime, the real question becomes why don’t people lie? The answer might also lie in the Josephson study, where 79 percent of the students agreed that “It’s not worth it to lie or cheat because it hurts your character.”
Each time one of that 79 percent lies, they lose self-esteem. Each time they tell the truth in stressful circumstances, their subconscious reminds them that they are people of good character. The positive reinforcement of that self image prompts them to tell the truth the next time circumstances demand a choice. That might be the saving grace as people are tempted to put money, power and popularity ahead of honesty.
Another recent study by Dr Adrian Raine and Yaling Yang of the University of Southern California and colleagues reported in the states that pathological liars have brains that are actually hardwired to lie.
In these candidates, the amount of gray matter, where ethics and morals are stored, is 14 percent less than those that do not lie regularly. The other difference from the norm is a larger than usual amount of white matter, where the intricacies of formulating and organizing a lie take place. This minority of people seem doomed to lives of pathological lying. But they are a minority.
So keep telling your kids the story of George Washington, the man that could lead a newly born democracy, but could not tell a lie. A simple story might make all the difference in the world.