18 Questions That Everyone's Too Afraid to Ask

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts taped conversations between two strangers, both of whom said that they believed they were telling the truth. Reviewing the tape, however, the researchers discovered that 60 percent of the subjects had lied at least once during their chat. We lie to impress others or because we wish something were true. We lie to spare someone's feelings or to keep ourselves from feeling embarrassed. In other words, we exchange feeling bad about dealing with something real for feeling bad about saying something false.