“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.”- Dorothy Allison

Have you ever lied? Most of us do, at one time or another often in the form of white lies to spare someone else’s feelings. But what about those people who seem to make a career out of lying?

Motive matters to the liar. A person who believes they have a moral justification for their lie, will find it easier to deceive a truth seeker. A person who stands to lose much if their lie is exposed, has a greater incentive to successfully lie, but will experience greater pressure at the same time which may `leak' out in their verbal or nonverbal communication.¹

When trying to detect whether someone is lying, what type of liar you are dealing with becomes important. Generally, the more experienced the liar, the harder their lies are to detect. Here is a basic guideline:

The Occasional Liar – These people seldom lie. But when they do they are blown away by their actions and feel guilty for what they have done. These types of people are the ones who are quick to seek forgiveness from the person they lied to. The occasional liar is not perfect, but is usually respected for his/her strong attempt at being a truthful person, and humble enough to admit their mistakes.

The Frequent Liar – The frequent liar goes about his/her life lying every which way. This person is not concerned about covering his tracks, or making sure his lie makes sense. Everybody knows this person is lying because he is sloppy with his lies. This person has very few friends, because people get sick of his obviously twisted stories.

The Smooth Liar – The smooth liar is just what their description sounds like—this person has become very smooth and skilled at telling lies. There are those that say they can pick out a liar every time, but that’s not necessarily so when it comes to the smooth liar. This liar is so good with words and body language people tend to believe him even when they know he has a reputation of being a liar. Yet, all the time, the smooth liar knows he’s lying. These people are fun to be around, and very entertaining, but after being found out, the smooth liar tends to move on to others to whom he can apply his dark talents.

The Compulsive Liar – This person lies when they don’t have to, even if telling the truth makes more sense than the lies they tell. These people have an addiction to lying, and they simply cannot stop. They are out of control. They spend hours studying situations trying to come up with more lies that will allow them to maintain all their previous lies. These people are totally untrustworthy and end up unable to keep friends. A compulsive liar ends up a lonely, sad person who tragically lies the most to their own self.²

The Sociopathic Liar - Sociopathic liars are defined as someone who lies continuously in an attempt to get their own way, without showing care or concern for others. These individuals are goal-oriented.

Even though it might seem hard to believe, lying is focused – they are focused on getting their own way. Sociopaths don’t have a lot of respect or regard for the feelings and rights of others. They tend to be charismatic and charming, but they will use their exceptional social skills in a self-centered and manipulative manner.³

Lying itself is also difficult. Knowing what types of lies to look out for can also be helpful in detecting lies:

• Error—a lie by mistake. The person believes they are being truthful, but what they are saying is not true.
• Omission – leaving out relevant information. Easier and least risky. It doesn’t involve inventing any stories. It is passive deception and less guilt is involved.
• Restructuring—distorting the context. Saying something in sarcasm, changing the characters, or the altering the scene.
• Denial—refusing to acknowledge a truth. The extent of denial can be quite large—they may be lying only to you just this one time or they may be lying to themselves.
• Minimization—reducing the effects of a mistake, a fault, or a judgment call.
• Exaggeration—representing as greater, better, more experienced, more successful.
• Fabrication—deliberately inventing a false story.⁴

What personality types are most likely to lie?

Manipulative people tend to care about themselves, so you might also think that liars are generally people who do not care about other people. But that's not totally true. Frequent liars can also be people who care too much about other people. What they care about, in particular, is what other people think of them. This personality type describes people who are always worrying about the impression they're making on others: What will she think if I say that? Will he think I'm a total loser if I do this? This is the impression-management personality type, and these people tell lots of lies, too. Interestingly, though, these people know that they lie more than others do.

Guess who else lies more? Extroverts. Here's where it mattered that we kept track of people's social interactions and not just their lies. If we only counted lies, then extroverts would have many more opportunities to lie than introverts, because they spend more time around other people. So instead, we looked at rates of lying—the number of lies people told relative to the number of opportunities they had, and extroverts lied at a higher rate than introverts, although the difference was not substantial.

Why do extroverts tell more lies than introverts? I think it is because the little lies of everyday life can make social interactions run smoothly. Extroverts are versed in social niceties, and practice them so often that they probably do not even realize how often they are lying. In fact, we found some evidence for that among the college students. At the end of the week, when the extroverts saw the total number of lies they had told, they said that they were surprised at how often they had lied.⁵

¹ http://www.customerexpressions.com/cex/cexweb.nsf/%28GetPages2%29/Types-of-Liars

²   http://www.thehopeline.com/different-types-of-lies-and-liars/

³  http://www.compulsivelyingdisorder.com/5-different-types-of-liars/

⁴  http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2012/03/19/know-when-someone-is-lying-7-types-of-lies/

⁵  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201109/who-lies