The Hidden Age - Research

All people lie, as the main character of one popular TV series used to say. But teenagers lie the most. And young people from 18 to 29 years old lie more skillfully than others. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from the NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam.

The almanac Acta Psychologica reports the results of an experiment conducted with the participation of 1,005 people from 6 to 77 years old. In order to test the tendency to lie, Evelyne Debey and her colleagues asked the participants the simplest questions (such as "Can pigs fly?") signal.

The graph of the persuasiveness of a lie is an inverted parabola: in childhood (6–8 years old) people lie quite unpretentiously, then their skill increases, and after 60 years, inventiveness decreases again. In order to skillfully lie, you must be able to suppress the truth, as well as restrain yourself (you need to have self-control so as not to "lie"). These qualities are best expressed precisely at the age of 18-29 years. Children and teenagers often do not cope with the task of stopping lying at all, so they lie on average 2.8 times more often.

digest.bps.org.uk