People talk about lying as if it could be defined in simple black and white terms. It seldom can. Over the last twenty years, my colleagues and I have studied lying among adolescents on five continents. We’ve identified are three basic types of lies:
- Lying by avoidance
- Lying by omission
- Lying to commission
We began our studies with focus groups, asking middle-schoolers about sharing information. We asked about strategies teens used to keep parents from gaining information that they wanted to know: where their children were going, who they were with, how they were doing in school. That definition is important: sharing incorrect information that you think is true is not lying. Neither is not telling someone something you don’t know that they want to know.
What makes lying lying is intention. You are purposely trying to manipulate the other’s beliefs so they think something that you know to be untrue.
Almost all teens reported lying. We have studied well over 10,000 youth. In my studies of 10-24 year olds in the U.S., Chile, the Philippines, Italy, Uganda, and Sweden, more than 95% reported lying about at least one of the issues we asked about. (Interestingly, the things children lie about are also fairly universal: school, doing chores, who they are with, where they went, drinking and substance use.)
Lying by avoidance. This strategy involves carefully keeping topics away from the areas you don’t want to be asked about. Remember, our prompt is specifically asking about things that the teens know their parents want to know about. In this strategy they specifically move conversations away from touchy areas to distract parents from asking questions they don’t want to answer. What makes this lying is its intent. Teens often report being very conscious of steering the conversation. Did poorly on a test you know your parent is worried about? Come home cheerfully talking about something funny that happened in another class, mention visiting Grandma next week, grab a glass of milk and head for your room.
Lying by omission is the most common and most effective strategy. Lying by omission involves sharing some information, but leaving out key things the parent would want to know. The best example I have ever seen of this comes from James Herriot, the Scottish veterinarian who wrote All Creatures Great and Small. His boss’s younger brother, Tristan, had come home from school. The older brother, who had raised Tristan, asked Tristan about how he had done on the critical end of year exams. Tristan said he did ‘pretty well’ on one, but had failed the other two. His older brother hit the roof, throwing him out of the house. When talking to Herriot, Tristan laughed it off. He knew his brother would forget throwing him out (he did). But he was most amused because he HAD done ‘pretty well’ on that one exam. But he’d failed that as well. He never said he had passed it. So what he said was technically true, but completely misleading. That is the crux of lying by omission.
Lying by omission is the most common form of deception used by adolescents.
“Who will be at the party?”
“John, Omar, Sarah, and some other kids. We’re going to playing cards.”
An innocent statement. Except that ‘some other kids’ includes friends the parent has specifically said they don’t like. Knowing they were there might make the parents hesitate giving permission. And they will be playing cards, but while drinking.
“Will John’s parents be there?”
“Yes.”
Of course, the parents are planning to go out around 9:00 and won’t be home until the next day. Didn't I mention that?
When done skillfully, lying by omission is the most effective form of deception. Partial disclosure actually brings the partner closer, increasing their trust and feeling of warmth. Because the deception is not overt—nothing said is actually untrue—its discovery also has fewer negative repercussions on the relationship. The most effective liars draw you in with partial disclosure, effectively manipulating your trust with lies of omission.
Lying by commission is what everyone agrees is lying. It is making statements that are factually untrue and presenting them as true: “I finished my (untouched) homework.” This type of lying is least frequent, but has the most devastating effects on relationships, undermining trust and leading to negative cycles of parent-adolescent interactions.
Part II: Who Lies and Why
Related Posts:
References
Cumsille, P., N. Darling, Martínez, M.L. (2010). Shading the truth: The patterning of adolescents' decisions to avoid issues, disclose, or lie to parents. Journal of Adolescence 33(2): 285-296.
Darling, N., & Dowdy, B. (2010). Trust, but verify: Knowledge, disclosure and trust in parent-adolescent relationships. In K. J. Rotenberg (Ed.), Trust and trustworthiness during childhood and adolescence (pp. 203-222). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Darling, N., Cumsille, P., Pena-Alampay, L., & Coatsworth, J. D. (2009). Individual and Issue-Specific Differences in Parental Knowledge and Adolescent Disclosure in Chile, the Philippines, and the United States. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 19(4), 715-740.
