Most people lie every now and then, usually just to make day to day life easier to live. On the most part, and thankfully, the majority of people choose only to tell white lies statements that avoid or twist the truth in a deliberate but always well-intentioned manner. White lies can be anything from a husband telling his wife that her new evening gown looks good on her when perhaps it doesnt, to a girlfriend telling her boyfriend that he performed well in the basketball game when in reality he actually played well below par. Or, perhaps, an employee saying to his boss that he thought the speech he made earlier was really helpful and informative. The purpose of white lies is to keep relationships of any sort running smoothly, and to keep those in the relationships happy and easy to live with. And thats why most people agree that telling little white lies usually isnt a bad thing its the norm.

But telling white lies isnt the only way people bend, hide and alter the truth. Millions of lies across the world are told every day that harbour more sinister motives. Its the intention of the person telling the lie that ultimately decides how harmful or deceitful it is.

Here are the main reasons we fail to spot big lies

1. Ignorance is Bliss

A lot of the time, people who are being lied to, for whatever reason, fail to realise theyre being deceived. Subconsciously theyd prefer to remain in the comfortable position and place theyre in, as opposed to entering the unknown which is where theyd go if they mentally accepted the possibility of being lied to. In the man cheating on his wife example, the wife might be unaware of his disloyalty because she wants to believe that hes faithful and that their situation is healthy and stable. The acceptance of the possibility of him being a cheater is too harsh a reality for her to deal with, so she unknowingly blocks it out. We do this on a smaller scale ourselves, probably almost daily. For example, if our partner tells us they were late because they were bogged down in traffic, the chances are heavily in favour of us believing them simply because wed rather they were telling the truth than lying to us. Its not because we truly, unconditionally, trust what they tell us.

2. Personal Trust Thresholds

Some people are better than others at separating lies from the truth. How good you are at doing just that partly depends on your personal trust threshold how much you generally trust, or are suspicious of, the people you talk to, regardless of who they are. Two example types of people who have very different personal trust thresholds are nuns and policemen. Nuns, generally speaking, tend to be more trusting of people and suspect them less of lying than policemen. Policemen, though, have lower personal trust thresholds, and therefore suspect people of being deceitful more often after all, their job is the prevention of crime, and crime and liars often go hand in hand. Regardless of how high or low your personal trust threshold is, though, as mentioned earlier, youre only ever going to spot the liars around half the time (without my book).

3. Use of Misinformation

In the last 30 years, the general public has learnt more and more about sociology and psychology. Theyve learnt more about the way our minds work, how society functions and how we converse as people on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, people often tend to misremember or misunderstand some of the scientific knowledge theyve picked up. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to how people think they can spot a lie. Instead of using sound, effective techniques to gauge a persons truthfulness, theyll instead use snatches of things theyve remembered, and thus tend to form conclusions that cannot be trusted.

They are the 3 main reasons people fail, time and time again, to spot liars and the lies they tell.

So, here lies the problem we all face on a day to day basis: Distinguishing between truth and fiction. When we talk to our friends, family and strangers, how can we know for sure that what theyre telling us is true? And how amazing a skill would it be to, reliably and unequivocally, be able to tell when someone isnt telling us the truth?