Most people value honesty. They want to tell the truth. They also value kindness. Sometimes, though, honesty and kindness collide. That happens when telling the truth would be hurtful, but being kind involves telling a lie. How do people negotiate this clash of noble intentions?
Once upon a time, my primary professional interest was in the psychology of deceiving and detecting deceit. I wrote about that in “My previous life as a deception researcher.” Now my passion is the study (and practice!) of single life. But I continue to get questions about deception. So I have compiled here many of my blog posts about lying and detecting lies. If you are interested in my books about deception, you can find summaries and links here.
Recently, I went to a talk here at UC Santa Barbara by a communications scholar who studies deception. When he got to one of the puzzling aspects of the available research on deception, he said that thinking about it kept him up at night.
Much as I love Dexter, the charming serial killer on the TV show with the same name, I was skeptical when I was asked to read an advance copy of a book of essays by philosophers. Sure, I had edited my own book of essays about Dexter, but that was different – the contributors were psychologists.
[Bella’s introduction: I haven’t been very good at keeping up with the “Liars and Their Lies” section of this blog. I’d like to think, though, that I’m back with a bang with this guest post by Charles F. Bond, Jr., who for decades has been one of the leading researchers in the psychology of deceiving and detecting deceit. I really enjoyed this contribution and I hope you will, too.]
In my previous post here at All Things Single, I told you about my adventures in traditional book publishing. That’s the route I took with Singled Out. Now let me tell you about my experiences with nontraditional publishing. At the end, I’ll invite you to share your experiences for possible inclusion in two books that are in the works.
In the near future, I’m going to be mentioning a number of books of mine that have either just been published or are in the works. I thought some of you might be interested in knowing the context of my adventures in book publishing.
Holiday season is here so I wanted to offer you a good deal on copies of Singled Out (signed, if you’d like) and a few other books:
So far, I haven’t posted about deception on this blog nearly as often as I would like to, but I have been working on some things and collecting topics to discuss when I can get to them. Even though my real passion – personal and intellectual – is single life, I still find aspects of deception intriguing and I continue to get inquiries from others all the time.
In my role as a scholar who has studied deception for decades, I am often asked why people lie. Sometimes there is a more personal and poignant question behind that question. What others really want to know is how they can get the people they care about to be more honest with them.
