Lie to me and see what happens

It turns out there's some science behind the response.

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Lie to me and see what happens

We live in a time of skepticism. So, tell the truth: Have you ever fallen for lies like these?

• The business partner who swore the deal was “just days away from closing.”

• The contractor who promised the renovation would be done “by Friday, guaranteed.”

• The pitch about a “can’t-miss investment opportunity” that sounded too good to be true.

If those scenarios sound familiar, you’re not alone. According to an interesting new study, there’s a reason we are so vulnerable to these kinds of lies in particular: Because they come with the promise of something we want to believe.

Gain vs. loss

Researchers from North China University of Science and Technology just published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience that helps explain why people are so prone to believing lies when there’s a potential reward on the table.

They studied 66 people using brain imaging while they communicated with one another through computer screens. This way the researchers could control and account for the messages they shared.

Some messages led to benefits for both people, which they called a “gain,” while others led to negative outcomes, which they referred to as a “loss.”

Results: People were significantly more likely to believe false information during gain situations. Moreover, when researchers looked at brain scans, they found activity lighting up in regions that process rewards, assess risk, and try to understand other people’s intentions.

“The key reason we chose ‘gain’ and ‘loss’ contexts is that they illustrate how people adjust decision-making in response to potential rewards or punishments,” contributing researcher Rui Huang explained.

More troubling, but perhaps not surprising: People are especially vulnerable to lies from friends, according to this study (and perhaps also according to everyone’s shared life experience).

Within the study, when deceptive information came from someone considered a friend rather than a stranger, their brains showed synchronized activity, to the point that the researchers claimed to be able to predict with 86.66 percent accuracy when a person would be deceived by a friend.

In gain contexts, reward-related brain regions synced up between friends, and in loss contexts, risk-evaluation regions synchronized.

Theory: When you are close to someone, you drop our guard, and you want to believe them. When they tell you something that suggests it could benefit you both, your brains shift into reward mode instead of skepticism mode.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before

I acknowledge that this research falls into the category of science that mostly affirms what we suspect already. More than that, it’s on the same page with quite a few previous studies.

• Scientists at the University of Toronto found that our brains actually become hardwired to believe lies through repeated exposure.

• According to Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology who analyzed speeches from dictators and hate groups, once people start believing lies, they develop rigid neural pathways that make it extremely difficult to change their minds—even when confronted with contradictory evidence.

• Joshua Greene at Harvard University found something similar using fMRI scans: The more excited someone’s reward system gets at the possibility of gaining something—even in an honest context—the more likely they are to cheat or believe lies.

• And there’s the illusory truth effect, first identified back in 1977. Researchers at Villanova and Temple Universities discovered that people are more likely to believe false information simply because they’ve heard it repeatedly. The repetition makes statements easier to process, creating a false sense of familiarity that our brains mistake for truth.

Skeptical, not cynical

There’s a fine line between healthy skepticism and self-defeating cynicism, and I certainly don’t want to push anyone over it with this list of lie-related studies. But taken together, it does suggest a few practical approaches:

When presented with opportunities that sounds great—especially if they’re from a friend or colleague—maybe pause and ask yourself: Am I evaluating this rationally, or am I just excited about the potential gain?

If you hear the same claim repeatedly, even from different sources, remember that repetition doesn’t equal truth. Your brain just processes it more easily.

And when information confirms what you already believe or want to believe, that’s exactly when you should be most cautious.

That’s the truth, whether people believe it or not.

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7 other things

• I’ll start with something fun today — When Mom Takes Over Your Dating Profile: Burned-out singles are letting family members take over on apps like Bumble and Hinge. It’s a gamble. (Wouldn’t it be cool if one of our readers found the perfect person for one of the singles featured in this article?). (WSJ)

• President Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality.” Vice President Vance has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade.” Elon Musk is “an avowed ketamine” user and “an odd, odd duck,” whose actions were not always “rational” and left her “aghast.” Russell T. Vought, the budget director, is “a right-wing absolute zealot.” And Attorney General Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” in handling the Epstein files. Source: Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who gave 11 on-the-record interviews to Vanity Fair this year. (NYT)

• Flu season has arrived early this year in New York City, with cases climbing dramatically during the past month. New York City and the surrounding areas — including Long Island and North Jersey — had some of the highest levels of flu-like illness in the United States. I can attest to this firsthand; I have the flu! (NYT)

• Two Republicans in Congress are calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the United States. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida): “It is time for a Muslim travel ban, radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants, and citizenship revocations wherever possible. Mainstream Muslims have declared war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America.” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama): “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult,” Tuberville wrote on X. “Islamists aren’t here to assimilate. They’re here to conquer. … We’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America.” (The Washington Post)

• The US economy added 64,000 jobs in November as the unemployment rate crept up to 4.6%, according to Labor Department data published Tuesday. The unemployment rate is now at its highest level since September 2021. Related: Young workers hit hard as UK unemployment rate rises to 5.1%. (Yahoo Finance; BBC)

• Authorities hunting for the perpetrator of the deadly mass shooting at Brown University released a new enhanced photo today and asked the public to pay attention to body movements, posture, gait and other patterns to help identify the person of interest. (CNN)

• Coin collectors doled out millions for the final pennies circulated in the U.S. before the government ended the cent’s production back in November. The U.S. Mint sold 232 three-cent sets for a whopping sum of $16.76 million at an auction last Thursday. The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for $800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck those Lincoln cents. (AP)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. See you in the comments!