Study: Men think they are better liars than women

Study: Men think they are better liars than women

Men are twice as likely as women to consider themselves to be good at lying and at getting away with it, according to a study which also found that they prefer to lie face-to-face, rather than via texts. The researchers from the University of Portsmouth in the UK noted that people who excel at lying are good talkers and tell more lies than others, usually to family, friends, romantic partners and colleagues.

Expert liars also prefer to lie face-to-face, rather than via text messages, and social media was the least likely place where they would tell a lie, they said. "We found a significant link between expertise at lying and gender. Men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it," said Brianna Verigin, who works at Portsmouth, and the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

"Previous research has shown that most people tell one-two lies per day, but that's not accurate, most people don't lie everyday but a small number of prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies reported," Verigin said. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that nearly half (40 per cent) of all lies are told by a very small number of deceivers, and these people will lie with impunity to those closest to them.

Verigin quizzed 194 people, half men and half women, with an average age of 39. They were asked a series of questions including how good they were at deceiving others, and how many lies they had told in the past 24 hours.

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