Are women bigger liars than men

Title

Language

English

Source

IV (10) October 1939

Year

1939

Subject

Gender differences (Psychology)

Self-deception

Truthfulness and falsehood

Marston, William Moulton

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

The article seeks to clarify the secular argument between the sexes about whether men and women are the most deceptive. The love cost of lying is high really and both sexes should reckon its price before they pay it.

Fulltext

ARE WOMEN BIGGER LIARS THAN MEN? THERE IS an age-old argument between the sexes as to whether men or women are the worst deceivers. Most books and articles on this subject have been written by men; so, naturally, women got the worst of it. An idea has gained popular belief that women are deceptive by nature, that they prefer to gain their ends by indirection and are incapable by fearless honesty. Some masculine cynics go so far as to say that most women earn their living by deception, pretending love they do not feel for marriageable men who will support them, and tricking men they love into unwilling generosity. Men regard themselves as relatively honest and outspoken in their relationships with the opposite sex. Women, male writers explain, are compelled by physical and economic weakness to use trickery to gain their ends. But are women worse liars than men? Lie Detector results on both sexes say no. In banks, department stores and other places of busine~s where the Lie Detector is used to 30 test all employees, many more men than women are found guilty of theft. Moreover, if a woman in business has misappropriated money or merchandise, she is miuch more likely to tell the truth about it than is a man in similar circumstances. In one bank, the Lie Detector found fourteen men guilty of stealing money and showed that ten more had guilty plans or purposes. Not a single female employee had stolen and only one had deceptive tendencies. Total test results showed that 26% of all male employees in this bank were dishonest as compared to 6% of the female workers. This is typical. In all the deception tests I have conducted with both sexes in business I have found women, on the average, four times as honest and nine times as truthful as men. Which gives a decidedly new picture of male and female honesty! There is, however, another side to the picture. Girls are more likely to tell social lies than men. For example, I tested a Junior League group with the Lie Detector and PANORAMA caught every one of those charming young women stretching the truth a bit where matters of social and family pride or relationships with men were concerned. Here you find the real weakness of the female sex. Men do not deceive nearly so much as women in social situations because the temptation, to them, is not so great. Preserving family and love ties and keeping safe their intimate emotional relationships mean so much to the captivating sex that small prevarications appear unimportant. It is a rar~ girl who realizes that ultimate disaster lurks in these trivial deceptions of hersdisaster to the purposes she holds most dear, her friendships, her home life and her love affairs. The love cost of lying is high indeed and both sexes should reckon its price before they pay it. Many girls find great difficulty in facing the truth about a man whose attentions flatter them. Della P. was a girl who tried to build love happiness in this fashion on a foundation of lies. She was a stude1it of mine at Columbia University and she came to me one day with her problem. "I have to decide," she said, OCTOBER, 1939 "whether or not to marry the boy I love." Della's wealthy father, it seemed, had investigated the chap in question and had discovered some unsavory facts about his past. Della wanted me to give Harry S. a Lie Detector test to prove that he was honest. I tested him and proved the opposite. Not only was this fellow a crook but his "love" for Della P. was only pretended. He was after her money. I reported these findings to Della and she believed themshe had absolute confidence in the Lie Detector test. Here, then, was a girl who knew the truth but refused to face it. She promised me faithfully to break off her affair with Harry. But she went on with it. A few weeks later she came to me again for advice, confessing her continued association with young S. "I know what he is," she said pathetically, "but I love him so! I believed that I can reform him and then he will really love me." Della, you see, was beginning to deceive herself. Way down deep m her under-consciousness she knew that she was in love with a false shadow, a wishful creation of 31 her own feminine desire to capture this man and hold him. I thought it was time that she learned the truth about herself. .So I asked her to take a deception test and she readily consented. Now it is a remarkable fact about the Lie Detector that the uncontrollable emotional reactions which it records will reveal a "complex" or a self-deception just as readily as they disclose a· fully conscious lie. So I asked Della some intimate questions. and discovered that she was trying to deceive both herself and me. A c t u a 11 y she did not love young Harry S., though she had falsely persuaded herself that she did. And in defiance of all common sense she h a d g o n e through a marriage ceremony with him. I confronted Della with the whole truth and the poor girl broke down. She knew now that she was in an awful mess. She begged me to get her out of it. -William Moulton Marston, condensed from Your Life. * * * 32 COCKROACHES THE steamer was laden with sugar arid the one drawback to it was the fact that it was literally heaving with those ancient aristocrats, cockroaches. Before I got into my bunk at night, I used to sweep them out and down from the panelling. I was no sooner asleep, however, than they were walking over my face and getting tangled up in my hair. One night a half glassful of sweet wine was left by mistake standing in my washing basin, and next morning the whole basin and the washing stand was a solid mass of semi-intoxicated cockroaches, while I had been left completely in peace. After that our way was clear. They had their liquor, and I had my bunk to myself.-Elinor Mordaunt, in Sinabada. PANORAMA

Media