Why Do People Lie?
Normal people can lie to evade punishment for wrongdoing.
Some people would also lie to gain undue advantages. For instance, a job applicant may misreport their qualifications to win the interview panel’s favor.
Other common motivations for lying include avoiding expressing difficult emotions, protecting guilty loved ones, and manipulating a process.
Despite the motivation, taking a lie detecor test can help separate truth from falsehood.
The polygraph machine targets biological functions that are nearly impossible to manipulate, such as blood pressure and skin conductivity. Each untruthful response triggers significant physiological arousal that the equipment picks up and compares against prerecorded baselines.
What Is Pathological Lying?
Pathological lying refers to a persistent pattern of lying that’s unmotivated by external gains. The condition is also called mythomania or pseudologia fantastica.
Remember that normal individuals typically lie for valid reasons (whether good or bad). However, pathological liars will tell falsehoods even without realistic expectations.
The scale of the situation doesn’t matter either. A habitual liar can lie about horrific acts like murder or very trivial ones like stealing candy.
Many studies associate pathological lying with the arousal of the prefrontal white matter. That’s the brain region principally responsible for executing complex cognitive functions, such as decision-making and self-control.
Why Do Pathological Liars Keep Spinning Stories?
1. Gaining Power or Control
Pathological liars have a penchant for overembellishing their accomplishments. They can wax lyrical about their academic achievements, wealth, or talents, even if the listener clearly knows better. The idea is to appear more important and possibly gain control of a situation.
2. Seeking Admiration
Some pathological liars will exaggerate their achievements to seek admiration. They’ll usually spin a yarn about heroic feats that are straight out of a thriller movie. Believe them at your own peril!
If a pathological liar reckons you’re unimpressionable, they may concoct a story that portrays them as a victim to appeal to your good nature. They’re simply masters at guilt tripping.
3. Escaping Punishment
Compulsive lying hasn’t been officially diagnosed. That means pathological liars have a moral sense and can lie to evade the consequences of their actions.
Whether it’s direct punishment or accountability, a habitual liar will be happy to pass the blame onto someone else.
4. Avoiding Embarrassment
Caught a pathological liar in a compromising situation?
Well, confront them and you’ll be surprised at how fervently they defend themselves. It doesn’t matter if the individual was captured in a CCTV camera or left a trail of witnesses. They’ll always make up something to try to exonerate themselves.
5. Sheer Manipulation
This is perhaps the one motivation shared by most pathological liars.
When a compulsive liar wants something that they would ordinarily sweat for, lying becomes their default approach. For instance, a person may lie about losing their lifetime savings to obtain money from their family or friends.
Why borrow when they can get it for free – no strings attached?
Can You Polygraph Pathological Liars?
Pathological liars engage in falsehood more frequently than normal people. Long enough, this habit may lead to mental, emotional, and psychological impairment.
However, it’s important to note that compulsive liars aren’t oblivious to their antics.
A pathological liar may not be able to restrain themselves from lying. But they’re still conscious enough to know that they’re engaging in deception.
For a polygraph exam to work, the examinee must have a sense of reality. That makes compulsive liars a valid polygraph candidate.
What If They’re Polygraphed?
Now that pathological liars can take a lie detector test, the next question is whether they can beat the polygraph.
Lie detector tests are incredibly difficult to manipulate. Part of the reason is that polygraphs target changes in involuntary physiological processes. It’s even harder to beat a lie detector test conducted by a skilled polygrapher.
Sure, a pathological liar may use countermeasures in a bid to cheat the system. However, part of an examiner’s training entails detecting whether an examinee attempted to deploy these underhanded tactics.
Stopping Pathological Liars in the Tracks With Polygraph Tests
Pathological liars may get their kicks from spinning falsehoods. However, their lies cannot stand the test of a professionally administered lie detector test.
One way to effectively polygraph a compulsive liar is by following proper question design rules. That includes asking queries that require flat ‘yes’ or ‘no’ replies, thereby denying them the pleasure of waxing lyrical about their “innocence.”
An examiner may also ask a series of emotionally triggering control questions. Even if the examinee lied about the same issues before, they’re unlikely to recall all their past lies. Those nuanced responses are all a professional polygrapher requires to make credible inferences of deception.
