Lying Often Spreads

"If a man is sufficiently unimaginative to produce evidence in support of a lie, he might just as well speak the truth at once." -- Oscar Wilde

Once a lie is told, it must be repeated.

In fact, research shows that people repeat the same lies so often that they eventually convince themselves that they are telling the truth (see Lippard; Hample).

And as the quote above implies, once a lie is told, many more lies must be told to support the original lie (see Bok).

Have you ever embellished a story?

And have found yourself adding a few more fabrications each time the story gets retold?

If you tell the story often enough, and it can become your truth.

For example, people’s stories about how their past relationships ended are often filled with half-truths. And over time, breakup stories tend to drift further away from the truth. Ironically, as these stories become less accurate, they also become more real to the people telling them.

Deception, once started, is very hard to contain.