Why do we lie?

After I read this article on Live Science , I have asked myself if the conclusions of the article did corespond to my opinion on why and how people lie at work. The article says of course that everybody lies, in different manners however. "It's tied in with self-esteem," says a university professor asserting that "as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels."

Reasearchers conducted research specific for the workplace. This research showed that employees lie more to their colleagues than they do to outsiders and that it's always tied with our self-estime and always being able to look good in front of everybodyLying is thus a question of image and self-protection, showing oneself and letting the others know that one does things well and even better than the others. The article concludes by saying: "Honesty is the best Policy!".

I personnally also think that people lie, the degrees of which can vary stringly depending on the situation, the position and the person itself. people can lie about the length of a meeting, about the quality of work, about results achieved in selling a product when talking to other colleagues from sales, lie when discussing why the technology they are using should be better that the one currently used in other products because they didn't know about the othertechnology, about the real price their car cost them or about their ability to repair their sink or their bike by tehmselves :D

Anyway I really advise you to read this article on Live Science, well written, kept quite short and presenting Research results.

Marwane El Kharbili.