Posted on 09/30/2005 11:05:52 PM PDT by DeweyCA
The brains of pathological liars have structural abnormalities that could make fibbing come naturally.
“Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies,” says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies.”
He found that pathological liars have on average more white matter in their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that is active during lying, and less grey matter than people who are not serial fibbers. White matter enables quick, complex thinking while grey matter mediates inhibitions.
Raine says the combination of extra white matter and less grey matter could be giving people exactly the right mix of traits to make them into good liars. These are the first biological differences to be discovered between pathological liars and the general population. Systematic manipulation
Other researchers have used brain imaging to show that the prefrontal cortex is more active when ordinary people tell lies. They are looking for ways to use this as an alternative to the polygraph test.
But pathological liars are a distinct group who systematically manipulate others, lie or use aliases for financial gain or personal pleasure, such as to get sickness benefits or to skip work. “It’s almost like a livelihood,” says Raine.
Until now no one has looked at the structure of the brains of this particular group, says psychologist Maureen O’Sullivan of the University of San Francisco in California, who specialises in lying and truthfulness.
Raine interviewed 108 volunteers from five temporary employment agencies in Los Angeles and set them standard psychopathic tests. This allowed him to identify 12 as pathological liars, 16 as people with a personality disorder but who did not exhibit pathological lying and 21 as controls, who were neither anti-social, nor liars. White matter
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), he scanned the brains of all three groups and found that liars had 26% more white matter compared with anti-social, non-liars, and 22% more than the controls. Liars also had 14% less grey matter than the controls.
Responsible for information transmission, white matter is composed of nerve fibres or “axons” that connect nerve cells or neurons to each other. Raine believes that having more white matter makes people better at the complex process of lying, which involves manipulation, thinking ahead and multi-tasking.
“It’s a bit like being a mind reader. You have to think, ‘what does she know about the situation, what does she not know’,” he says. You also have to suppress anxious emotions and the automatic impulse to tell the truth. Austistic children, who find it very difficult to lie, develop white matter at a sixth the rate of ordinary children.
Grey matter mostly comprises the cell bodies of neurons, which process information. Previous studies have shown that people with less grey matter tend to break more rules and care less about moral transgressions, says Raine. Simple lies
“This is a very interesting study,” says O’Sullivan. But she warns that more data is needed. “We don’t know whether they are good liars, all we know is they lie a lot,” she explains.
Psychologist Bella DePaulo at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies deception, also found the study “intriguing” but points out that not all lies are more complex than truths, nor do they necessarily require more inhibition.
“People who know that their fabricated stories may be challenged will sometimes practise telling their false tales. After a while, the made-up story may come to mind more readily than the true one,” she says.
British Journal of Psychiatry (October 2005)
"Oh, I just, uh, leased a house out in the Hamptons, and I have got to get out there this weekend and sign the papers."
My late husband.
Forgot that one!
"George, you need to relax more, you look annoyed." "Well, I've got a LOT of work to do!"
BULL squeeze..
wow! is this eHarmony? or Free Republic? ;^)
he does! isn't that weird?.....
seems to have the moral so of Uncle Fester too
Primates lie. The higher primates lie more.
Such brains might also be good for playing games of strategy such as chess. It would be very interesting if research found that liars played chess better than honest people.
100% white brain matter.
I think they may have discovered the difference in men and women.
Women are better at lying and detecting lying than any man.
This is not a slight at women. Lying about your age or giving out the wrong phone number is not a sin.
Women can 'read' men much better and faster than the other way around.
This takes skills.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Couple thoughts that aren't addressed in the article. Do other people who aren't liars have the same extra white matter? And, if liars have this different kind of brain, it seems to this simpleton that the brain could have developed in that manner because of their habit of lying. Just like muscles develop if you use them, and atrophy if you don't.
And even if some people are born with "lying brains" - it just means they need to struggle harder to overcome that temptation, just as everyone needs to struggle with perhaps different temptations. We aren't the brain - it's just like a computer we're using for a while. It looks as though this kind of information, if accurate, could be used by those promoting "born that way and can't help it"-driven agendas.
Some ethnic groups, for instance Native Americans, are more prone to alcoholism due to something I can't remember - some physiological inability to metabolize alcohol, maybe someone else knows. But that doesn't exonerate them. No one forces someone to take that first, second, or thrid drink. We all have our own individual set of weaknesses, and the responsibility to overcome them.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
Final note: One of these days, we will each have to account for everything we've done. No excuses allowed - whether it's "the Devil made me do it" or "my brain made me do it". Nope. But the good part is that no matter how strong any tendency is, and how we weak we may be, God is stronger than every temptation, every evil, and can and will help us to the degree we beg Him to. It is said that a surrendered soul depends not even slightly on his own strength, but entirely on the strength of God.
If anyone has been around her for awhile they realize she does it and just learn to ignore her.
I used to date a girl who was basically honest but when she did lie, was so good at it that even knowing for certain she was lying, I found myself believing her.
I don't know which is worse.
Within the last several months I realized a person I had considered a friend was a pathological liar. I hadn't realized it because I didn't hang around with this person a lot until a few months ago, and I didn't really want to see the faults of this person, in order to maintain the friendship.
Pathological liars need to be avoided like a serious illness. They are destructive like poison. I learned a valuable lesson, albeit the hard way.
I guess that makes my ex and a couple of kids, higher than a Georgia pine...
UUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!
Thanks for the ping. This is an ongoing sore subject with me.
Pathological personalities don't necessarily believe in God. Lecturing them does no good. No contact is the only way to deal with them. I've often wondered if brain injury or early abuse produces these defects. Then there's the age old argument of nature vs nurture.
The person I've had the trouble with appears to believe in God (claims to) but in reality she is the most important person in her life to the point of abusing her children emotionally and verbally (not beating them, allows/encourages the step dad to over-punish them very harshly), and is cruelly selfish.
Very strange and disturbing family background as well. (freepmail follows)
The worst thing is not whatever harm she did to me (minimal - just layers of lies) but the harm done to the children is what breaks my heart.
:-(
I've been reading up on psychopathy for years. All you can do is try and run. Run fast and hard. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that they can be cured.
Thanks for posting the checklist. It's the most detailed one I've seen yet. In fact, I think I'll print it out and give it to my attorney.
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