Dan Ariely,
a behavioral economist, who has spent years studying dishonesty, used puzzles
to explore his tendency in more than 40,000 people. His findings? When people had a
chance to cheat and then lie about it, more than 70% took the chance and lied.
In a recent interview, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said,
"I have never lied. And I don't intend (to)" and went on to emphasize
the importance of integrity.
Spicer's most
consequential nonsense recently was repeating as true the claim of a talking
head on Fox News that British intelligence spied on Donald Trump at the behest
of former President Barack Obama. On Monday, FBI Director James Comey refuted
the claim at a House Intelligence Committee hearing.
That same day, Spicer
said in a press briefing that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort
played a "limited role (in the campaign) for a very limited amount of
time," a demonstrably false claim.
But Spicer has
repeatedly promulgated flat-out nonsense for the President -- repeatedly told
Americans things that are untrue.
Parroting Trump, he
blatantly, wildly inflated the crowd size at the inauguration. He presented a
Pew study as evidence of Trump's claim that millions of people voted illegally
(there is no such study).
He said the executive
order the President signed that banned people from some predominantly Muslim
nations from entering the United States was not a ban – Trump himself has call
it one.
There are,
unfortunately, many more examples, both from the press secretary and other
members of the administration.
I suspect Ariely would
not be surprised about any of this. According to him, dishonesty is almost
always caused by one thing -- a conflict of interest.
Spicer is working for a
volatile, irrational, and vindictive President. To keep his job, he has to say
things that Trump wants him to say, even if they are lies.
So how do you stop a
liar?
There's only one way:
You call out the lie and remind the liar of his or her own moral fiber. In
fact, Ariely found that merely showing people a copy of an honor code or the
Ten Commandments all but eliminates lies.
When you help people
remember their moral code, it touches something innate inside them. So, we
should deal with Spicer in the same way you deal with a 12-year-old. We need to
point out the lies and remind him of his desire to act with integrity.
The infection is
spreading throughout this administration. How many of us have come to expect
Spicer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Kellyanne Conway to lie to us. They'll
look you in the face and tell you they aren't lying. They'll brush you aside
with "alternate facts," assert you are "fake news" and
suggest something ridiculous.
I'm here to tell you
that no, you're not going crazy. You're dealing with liars:
1. Their interests
conflict with yours.
2. They've repeated
these lies (and omissions) so many times they now believe they are true.
3. They justify the
lying because they are doing it to protect someone else: Trump.
That is the truth about
lying. And that's not going to change until you, as citizens, blow the whistle
early and often and demand it change.
By: Mel Robbins
