When someone lies compulsively, they no longer have an emotional response to their own lie, so in the face of a total absence of feelings about the practice of lying, the act becomes easier and a commonly used resource, so neuropsychologists have come to the conclusion that a liar’s brain works differently: they are spirits trained in this behavior.
If there is one thing that characterizes every human brain is brain plasticity, this is already determined. Therefore, it is not strange to think that lying can be something trained and learn like any other skill, and that to achieve and maintain a good level of excellence, it is enough to practice the skill on a daily basis. There are those who have a passion for mathematics, drawing or literature, disciplines that also have the ability to shape the brain in a particular way, according to our way of life and our daily practices.
“A lie may even save the present, but it condemns the future. -Bouddha-
The field of psychology and sociology has always been very interested in the world of lies and deception, however, for decades and given the great advances in diagnostic techniques, it is neuroscience that today offers the most valuable information, however, they are worrying. For what? If we are saying right now that dishonest personality is the result of ongoing training and addiction, many people may be very surprised and suspected.
Anyone who begins by telling small lies and turns this behavior into a habit induces the brain to a progressive state of desensitization. Does desensitization do anything? By custom, through many repetitions. Gradually, big lies hurt less, and become a new way of life?
Most of us are surprised by certain behaviors that occur in society and which, for many others, are normal in everyday life. Today, for example, we see many politicians fiercely defending their lies, defending their honesty and blatatingly highly reprehensible or even forbidden. acts Does this happen because of the medium?
Tali Sharot, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, tells us that there is a biological component, but there is also a process of training and desensitization behaviors, in this context, the brain structure directly related to these dishonest behaviors is undoubtedly the amygdala. The liar’s brain would go through a sophisticated training process that would completely eliminate any emotion or feeling of guilt.
The scientific journal Nature Neuroscience has published a very complete article on the subject in 2017, detailing this mechanism, to better understand it we can give an example. Imagine a young man gaining a position of power in the company for which he works, to transfer leadership and trust to his employees resorts to small lies, those dissonances between what he says and reality, those small reproachable acts, reaction caused by the amygdala of the brain. This small structure of the limbic system is linked to our memory and emotional reactions to events; it will limit the maximum degree to which we are prepared to lie and feel good.
Let’s see what happens next. This young man ends up turning this lying behavior into one of his daily tools, using it constantly. His work in this company ends up being definitively and deliberately based on deception. When this mechanism is common, the amygdala stops reacting, generates tolerance and no longer emits any kind of emotional reaction. The feeling of guilt disappears, there is no remorse or concern.
The brain of a liar then adapts to dishonesty
Those who lie need two things: memory and emotional coldness. This shows us one of the most complete books ever written about a liar’s brain: “The purest truth about dishonesty?” psychology professor Dan Ariely. In the same book, he also invites us to discover other equally interesting and surprising neurological processes.
An experiment conducted by Professor Ariely himself revealed that the brain structure of pathological liars contains 14% less gray matter; however, they had between 22% and 26% more white matter in the prefrontal cortex. What does that mean? Basically, a liar’s brain makes many more connections between his memories and ideas, this greater connectivity allows them to have consistency in their lies and faster access to these associations.
All this data gives us a clue as to how dishonesty affects our bodies, how these cognitive processes gradually become more pretensible as we act in a certain way, and our brain also does not add an emotional component to these behaviors.
Thus, Professor Airely still highlights something really frightening in these practices, the fact that the amygdala does not respond to certain facts also reveals that we lose some of the characteristics that make us human, those who can no longer see the consequences of their actions in others lose their nobility, the natural goodness that is supposed to define us all.
The brain of a liar is formed from quite dark motivations, it could be said that behind this person who decides to make lies his way of life, there are a series of very specific objectives: the desire for power, status, domination, personal interests. ideology of those who decide at some point to prioritize themselves, and only themselves, above all and above all. And nothing more disturbing.
Think.