FALSEHOODSWhy Do We Believe Compulsive Liars? What Makes Them Tick?

By Cynthia McCormick Hibbert

One of the fascinating aspects concerning the saga of convicted entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and recently indicted New York Congressman George Santos is how long they got away with lying to investors, patients, voters and the public.

Holmes lied about the blood-testing capacity of her health tech startup, Theranos, for years before being found guilty of fraud charges and being sent to a Texas prison 30 May.

Santos lied on his resume about his educational and professional achievements, falsely claimed to be Jewish and now faces thirteen federal charges relating to fraud, money laundering and lying to the House of Representatives—while still serving in the House.

Given the sheer number of prevarications, shouldn’t observers, even casual ones, have caught on to them sooner?

Lying is a Skill Set
It turns out it’s harder than you think to discern when a compulsive liar is making things up, says Laura Dudley, an associate clinical professor in Northeastern’s Department of Applied Psychology.

For the most part, people tend to trust other people. It’s part of the bond that holds society together.

And compulsive liars are good at what they do, Dudley says.

Children and honest adults tend to give themselves away when they tell a fib, she says. Strictly amateurs, they may elaborate more than they ordinarily would and flood their suspicious listener with reams of words they seem helpless to stop. 

The case is not so with adults who lie on a regular or compulsive basis, Dudley says.

Don’t Rely on Body Language
That individual “is someone who has honed this skill of telling a lie. They have learned what body language to use and what words to use,” she says.

People who want to protect themselves from liars sometimes want to learn “three telltale signs that someone is lying,” Dudley says.

“But there aren’t three things,” she says.

Compulsive liars who have achieved success in business or politics “are people who have probably been doing it for a while. Like anything else, we get better at it, and it gets easier,” Dudley says.

Why Do They Do It?

“Someone might lie to gain praise, to gain accolades or maybe some tangible reward,” Dudley says. “So you might lie in order to gain money or something like that.”

“We also engage in behaviors that allow us to avoid punishment of some sort,” she says. And that’s where lying can come in.