People can resort to lying, sometimes by making small excuses, and sometimes by creating facts that never actually happened. The negative impact of lying on relationships is obvious. Have you ever thought about how the lies told have an effect on the person himself?
It takes as little as 45 minutes to believe that the lies we tell are true.
A group of psychologists working in cognitive psychology are forming a group of young and old people to find out the effect that lying has on the brain. These people, whose ages are between 60-92 and 18-24, are divided into two teams as young and old. Both groups are asked to answer the questions in the questionnaire that will be given to them by giving “wrong” answers. In the survey, “Did you use a fork while eating yesterday?, Did you snooze your alarm before waking up?” There are questions about the activities that the subjects did in the previous day, such as While the participants in the experiment were answering the questions, the electrical activity in their brains was observed with a method called EEG.
About 1 hour after the entire experimental group has finished answering the survey questions, they are asked to give “correct” answers to the same questions this time. The data obtained from the electrical activities in the brains of the people under observation during both experiments reveal surprising results.
Participants in the experiment have difficulty remembering which is the correct answer.
In the study in which 42 people participated in total, it was observed that the older group believed more in the lie they told. Explaining that the human brain becomes more difficult to perceive the difference between truth and lie as it ages, psychologists said that this thesis, which was known before, was proven by the experiment. Stating that lying has a feature such as memory reprogramming, the researchers stated that this is the reason why a person remembers a story he wrote himself as if it really happened. As older people’s memories weaken over the years, when people create inaccurate stories, they are more likely to accept these newly created stories as real memories.
Cognitive psychologists reported that if the truth was always told, a super memory would not be needed to recall memories, and that it would be an easier process for the brain to pick out memories that were already true.
Studies also reveal that people sometimes do not consciously lie, but twist the facts to deceive themselves. People may apply to such situations sometimes in order to protect their self-confidence and sometimes to resist social pressure. The state of “not accepting the truth”, where each person has a valid reason for himself, takes control of people’s lives completely.
Living a lie may seem to people as an escape route from unwanted situations such as stress, anxiety and depression. In reality, it is an important health problem that takes people away from where they want to be and prevents them from taking the necessary actions.
Experts point out that most people lie about career, money, sex and marriage. These lies are scientifically called “self-deception”.
Self-deception can sometimes turn into a life that continues for a lifetime but is actually undesirable to live. Let’s examine the subject with sections from the lives of two different people who lived this way for many years and eventually managed to get rid of this situation.
David Wertime is a lawyer based in Hong Kong, working for a highly prestigious company. He is so successful in his job that his name is known to the entire legal community. In addition to having such a prestigious job, he has very good financial opportunities. Wertime, who has a respected place in the society, is a person who is praised for his achievements in his own social circle. The successful lawyer, realizing that he is inwardly unhappy, reassures himself that he is very successful in this business because he was made for it. Years of self-deception leave the lawyer with a deep sense of unhappiness and trapped. Feeling as if he is no longer living his own life, Wertime finally decides to seek psychological support.
The successful Lawyer, facing all the family and community pressure, embarks on the business of designing online news sites that have much less financial means, but what he really wants to do is what he is excited about. Wertime, who does his job with much more devotion and happiness, is now one of the founders of a site that is followed quite often.
Victoria Kristoph is another person who, by making herself believe a lie, doesn’t even realize she is happy in reality. Kristoph, who was only 20 years old when she got married, has never accepted the fact that the person she married in love has moved away from her over the years. Even when she realized that her husband was cheating on her, she somehow explained the situation to her with different explanations and accepted. For years, he did not even consider that he had such an option, as he did not want to bear the burden of being alone, divorce and the pressure of family and society after the divorce. For many years, she has somehow convinced herself that every marriage is like this, and that she is truly happy.
Victoria Kristoph managed to break up with her husband after a treatment process that was very difficult to accept the facts and face. When he looks back now, Kristoph explains that he couldn’t understand how he could deceive himself for so long. Today, he has a marriage in which he is at peace with himself and is truly happy.
All researches and observations show that the statement “Lying is actually deceiving oneself” has a greater reality than is thought. In the light of all this information, it should not be forgotten that while creating false stories, you are changing your lives and hoping for happiness from non-existent memories.
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