國家地理:我們?yōu)槭裁凑f謊(3)

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The ubiquity of lying was first documented systematically by Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Two decades ago DePaulo and her colleagues asked 147 adults to jot down for a week every instance they tried to mislead someone. The researchers found that the subjects lied on average one or two times a day. Most of these untruths were innocuous, intended to hide one's inadequacies or to protect the feelings of others. Some lies were excuses -- one subject blamed the failure to take out the garbage on not knowing where it needed to go. Yet other lies -- such as a claim of being a diplomat's son -- were aimed at presenting a false image. While these were minor transgressions, a later study by DePaulo and other colleagues involving a similar sample indicated that most people have, at some point, told one or more "serious lies" -- hiding an affair from a spouse, for example, or making false claims on a college application.

來自加州大學圣巴巴拉分校的社會心理學家貝拉·德保羅，首次將謊言的普遍性系統(tǒng)地記錄在案。20年前，德保羅和她的同事們要求147名成年人做一個為期一周的實驗，在實驗中記錄下他們每一個試圖誤導他人的例子。研究人員發(fā)現，被試平均每天撒謊一次或兩次。這些謊言大部分是無害的，旨在掩蓋自己的不足或保護別人的感受。一些謊言則是借口，就像是把垃圾拿出來卻不知道要丟到哪里的借口。還有一些謊言的目的在于提出虛偽的形象，比如聲稱自己是外交官的兒子。雖然這都是一些輕微的過錯，由德保羅和其他同事提到的類似案例的隨后研究表明，大多數人在某種程度上都說過一個或多個嚴重的謊言——遮掩自己的外遇行為或者在大學的申請中提供虛假的文書信息。

That human beings should universally possess a talent for deceiving one another shouldn't surprise us. Researchers speculate that lying as a behavior arose not long after the emergence of language. The ability to manipulate others without using physical force likely conferred an advantage in the competition for resources and mates, akin to the evolution of deceptive strategies in the animal kingdom, such as camouflage. "Lying is so easy compared to other ways of gaining power," notes Sissela Bok, an ethicist at Harvard University who's one of the most prominent thinkers on the subject. "It's much easier to lie in order to get somebody's money or wealth than to hit them over the head or rob a bank."

人類應該普遍擁有欺騙彼此的天賦，我們不應該對此感到驚訝。研究人員推測，說謊行為誕生于語言出現之后不久。在不使用物理力量的情況下，操縱他人的能力可能在競爭資源和伴侶方面具有優(yōu)勢，類似于動物王國中欺騙性戰(zhàn)略的演變，如偽裝。哈佛大學的倫理學家西塞拉·博克是這一領域最突出的思想家之一，他說： “與其他獲得權力的方法相比，說謊是非常容易的。為了獲得錢或財富，說謊比打倒某人或搶劫銀行容易多了?！?/p>

As lying has come to be recognized as a deeply ingrained human trait, social science researchers and neuroscientists have sought to illuminate the nature and roots of the behavior. How and when do we learn to lie? What are the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of dishonesty? Where do most of us draw the line? Researchers are learning that we're prone to believe some lies even when they're unambiguously contradicted by clear evidence. These insights suggest that our proclivity for deceiving others, and our vulnerability to being deceived, are especially consequential in the age of social media. Our ability as a society to separate truth from lies is under unprecedented threat.

說謊已被認為是根深蒂固的人格特征，社會科學的研究人員和科學家都試圖闡明說謊行為的性質和根源。我們如何又何時學會說謊？不誠實的心理和神經生物學基礎是什么？我們多數人的底線在哪呢？研究人員發(fā)現即使在明確的證據表明矛盾的情況下，我們也容易相信一些謊言。這些見解表明，我們欺騙他人的傾向，以及我們被欺騙的脆弱性在社交媒體時代尤為明顯。作為一個社群，我們區(qū)分謊言和真相的能力也受到前所未有的威脅。