The Psychology of “Lying”: Why do people make up stories online?
Nowadays, we often see “lies” all over the online world. However, before the story was exposed and revealed as a lie, those stories used to be topics that attracted the attention of netizens with other feelings. Such as feeling pitiful, sympathetic, admirable, or even strange. To the point that almost 100 percent of the comments on the posts were in the same direction.
But whenever someone starts to suspect and digs up the background of the person who posted the story. They start to see that those stories are just fabrications. Readers start to brake hard on those stories and start turning the bus back to the poster as a world-class liar. And if anyone still has some time left. They might start to dig up the identity of the poster, who they are, what kind of behavior they have had.
Lying is a behavior that comes from intention.
Lying is when a speaker intentionally tells someone false information, knowing that it is not the whole truth. However, the intention of lying can vary, and it can range from simply to successfully deceive someone to successfully persuade them. Many psychologists have found that people have many motivations to lie. Including to save face, to avoid punishment, to avoid confrontation, to influence others, to impress others, to seek favor and support, and to even hurt others. The Psychology of
Lying
Information from the Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, citing Lindgkold and Walters (1983), has classified 6 types of lying, ranked from most to least acceptable:
- Save others shame – Lying to save others from minor pain, embarrassment, or shame.
- Protect from punishment – To lie to protect oneself or another person from punishment or displeasure for a minor failure or a serious mistake caused by carelessness that has hurt someone.
- Influence officials – Lying in order to influence someone in a position. Such as in a way that benefits oneself but does not harm others.
- Enhancing appearance and protecting gain – lying to make oneself look better than one actually is or to protect some advantage.
- Exploitative persuasion – Lying for something that will lead to personal gain if successful.
- Direct harm, Self-gain – Lying to harm others but gaining benefits for yourself.
In research in Thailand, Rattanaporn Patala (2014) classified lies into 4 types according to their motivational targets as follows:
- Altruistic – Lying to help or protect another person.
- Conflict avoidance – Lying to avoid a potentially conflicting situation with another person.
- Social acceptance – Lying to fit in or make others seem like they have the same opinions as you.
- Self-gain – Lying to gain personal gain, especially material gain.
The online world is a free space to create things.
Nowadays, what we can consume online is not just facts such as news. Information that we are interested in researching and reading, or opinions on various matters. It is also full of life stories of people from all walks of life that are shared on channels that are believed to be their own space that can be seen publicly. Many of these stories will flow through the social media pages of many people, both known and unknown. Often, we will see that a certain content is raised as an issue for netizens to share and express their opinions. However, there are many stories that are later exposed as “lies”, stories that the author intentionally made up for a certain purpose.
This is why it is interesting to see why people “make up stories” and make up stories like this. Many people even tell big lies, distorting the truth in ways that are so exaggerated that they are hard to believe. And of course, it is not difficult to prove that it is false. Because it is almost impossible to do so based on the truth. Apart from the fun and pleasure of telling lies, what other motivations are there behind telling big lies online?
1. Seeking acceptance and attention
Social media is a free space that opens up to unlimited stories, and there is no need to show who you really are or where you come from. We can sit and read a life story that someone has written without knowing if it is true or a lie, and may not even know who the person typing behind the เล่นบาคาร่า UFABET เว็บตรง ค่าคอมสูง keyboard is. People tend to express what they want others to see or think of themselves.
Therefore, creating stories that seem amazing, exaggerated, or attract (tour) attention from others often, such as luxurious lifestyles, success, stories, or anything that seems unusual and special that happens in someone’s life is a way to help them feel interested and accepted by others through likes, comments, or shares.
2. Building an online presence
Since social media is a place that allows people to create a “persona” that may be completely different from their real lives, making up strange stories or exaggerating stories allows them to adjust their online image to match what they want to be or what they want others to believe. Such as posting stories about their success that exaggerate to create an image of greatness.
When in fact it is not like that. As long as it is not a big deal that many people in society pay attention to or still receive positive attention. It is likely that the truth will not be easily exposed, and no one will try to dig it up or expose it. However, if a mistake is made, someone may be suspicious and try to catch it.
3. Social comparison
Social media is a place where people often compare themselves to others all the time. Since we are able to know too much about other people’s stories. It is natural for people to share only good things that happen to them, not share negative stories with anyone. Therefore, the images of everyone on social media are beautiful and enviable. When seeing other people succeed or have interesting lives from the external images that they share with society, combined with the desire to have. To be like others but cannot be in reality, or perhaps because of dissatisfaction with their own identity, some people may feel pressured and want to create their own stories to compete or not feel like they “lost” in the eyes of others.
4. The need to escape from reality
Because in real life, people always have undesirable things. Such as limitations, dissatisfaction, unfulfilled desires, uninteresting normality, and define it as unsuccessful, making them feel inferior. But making up stories makes them receive things they never received.
Therefore, making up stories on social media may be a way to escape from the reality of someone’s life that may not be satisfactory or their ordinary daily life to receive something that does not seem extraordinary. The online world has become a place where people can create the world they want without having to worry about the limitations in real life and without estimating that it may escalate into a big deal.
5. Pressure from social media culture
With the lives that people express on social media, often emphasizing success, perfection, excitement, or simply put, an “enviable” life, many people feel the need to present their stories in a way that makes them look better than they really are, even if it’s not true. If some people don’t accept the truth about their lives.
They will try to embellish and add things to their lives little by little in order to meet the standards set by online society that this kind of life is interesting, and they may gain many other benefits from having a life that looks different from the truth. Such as getting a lot of attention, being in the spotlight, starting to be admired, and gaining some credibility according to what they try to fabricate into the story.
6. Behavior resulting from mental disorders
In some cases, making up stories on social media that become a big deal that half the country pays attention to may be related to the liar’s personal inferiority complex. It may be a feeling of low self-worth, or even a fear of losing relationships, trust, or social status. So they make up stories to protect themselves, shifting the blame away so that they won’t be punished. Or it may be a way to help fulfill those feelings. The starting point may be that they didn’t realize it would become a big deal, causing trouble, or some people tend to lie frequently without any clear reason. Which may be related to mental illnesses, such as antisocial personality disorder. Where lying is seen as normal and they don’t feel guilty.
7. Seeking personal gain
Social media is not just a place to gather success, perfection, and enviable good life. But also a center for a large group of people who have feelings and kind hearts. Therefore, sometimes, the reason for making up big lies on social media is only because they want to deceive and seek personal benefits. Some people are normal people but they make up stories that they are seriously ill.
Some claim that their parents, siblings, children, or even pets are sick with expensive diseases in order to receive donations. Or they make up stories to make their lives look pitiful, difficult, and terrible, which is the opposite of the standards of social media that boasts of perfection. By the time these stories are exposed, dug up, or exposed, the perpetrators have already made a lot of money.