To Manufacture Excitement

One of the most harmless reasons for lying is to add excitement. This is something that almost all of us do nearly every single day. Some people wouldn’t even consider it to be lying! Have you ever found yourself embellishing a story when you retell it? We all do this. It is a way to keep your audience engaged with your story. It helps to evoke emotions and connect with the experience you are sharing. It happens so often that most people don’t even realize that they are doing it! It’s not the type of lie that is going to require polygraph in Knoxville to uncover!

To Please or Pacify Others

Another common reason why people lie is to make other people happy. It is pretty common for people to tell lies in order to keep the peace. This is especially common among families and friends. There are usually good intentions behind this type of lie, but in some circumstances, the truth is better, even if it is going to hurt someone. This type of lying can create a rift in relationships. When one party finds out the other has been lying to smooth things over, it can destroy the trust in the relationship and could raise questions about what else they have been lying about. If you find yourself asking these sorts of questions about your partner, a polygraph in Knoxville could help to put your mind at ease.

To Secure a Reward

If you have kids, then you already know all about lying to receive an award of some sort! Toddlers will definitely fake cry to get attention or treats! It might be cute when a little kid does this, but it is a lot less innocent when it spills over into adulthood! When adults start to lie in order to get what they want, that’s when the trouble starts. It could be lying to get a job or promotion, lying to a doctor to get prescription medication, or lying to a partner to push them to consent to certain sexual activities. If you feel someone has been lying to you in order to get something they want, you might want to book a polygraph in Knoxville to help you uncover the truth.

To Avoid Being Punished

Nobody wants to be punished, but most of us can accept that we did something wrong and need to face the consequences of our actions. However, others will lie in order to avoid facing up to their indiscretions, hoping that if they deny it for long enough it will just go away and never be brought up again! That rarely happens! Sooner or later, someone is going to catch you in your dishonesty, and it will come back around to bite you in the butt! This type of lie could be a relatively harmless situation, such as a teenager lying to escape punishment for breaking something, or it could be a partner lying about infidelity or someone lying about something more serious, like committing a criminal act in order to avoid being arrested.

For Attention

One of the most common reasons for lying is to get attention. We see this a lot these days, thanks to the explosive popularity of social media. Everyone is trying to portray a perfect life which leads them to lie about their day-to-day lives in order to one-up others! It is a common type of lie in the real world, too, as people often make up stories to get attention when they feel ignored or rejected by their friends and family.

For Sympathy

Lying for sympathy is closely related to lying for attention, but it will involve a sad or traumatic story that will make others feel sorry for the liar in question. It can feel good to have people fuss over you. Still, it is a very manipulative habit to lie about this sort of thing, as many people are going through these traumas for real, and it is disrespectful to their suffering to fake it for attention! One of the most extreme cases of lying for attention is Munchausen Syndrome, where someone intentionally harms themselves or pretends to be sick in order to get attention and sympathy from those around them.