I know why liars lie. I’m not going to lie to you. You do trust me don’t you?
Liar's brains make fibbing come naturally according to a ‘study’ in support of a ‘theory’ by University of Southern California Professor of Psychology Adrian Raine. Long story short, the Professor has long worked with the belief that criminal behavior has a strong biological component. In other words, he believes that the structure of the human brain can pre-dispose individuals to anti-social behavior. His latest work is using MRI measurements of people diagnosed as pathological liars to show their brains are different.
He found that pathological liars have on average more white matter in their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that is active during lying, and less grey matter than people who are not serial fibbers. White matter enables quick, complex thinking while grey matter mediates inhibitions. … Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), he scanned the brains of all three groups and found that liars had 26% more white matter compared with anti-social, non-liars, and 22% more than the controls. Liars also had 14% less grey matter than the controls.Keep in mind all the press excitement is based on a group of 49 individuals recruited into a Psychology Department study from Los Angles area temporary employment agencies. Doing the math, Dr. Raine finds 12 clinically definable pathological liars in a sample of 108 volunteers, or a phenomenal 11% of volunteers. Professional Psychologists must be pretty good at finding what they are looking for.
As much as a simple explanation about why there is a profound persistence of fiction in the political debate and the media coverage of the political debate would be satisfying, it needs to be based on a more rigorous proof standard than a dozen unemployed Los Angelo’s. Besides, a quick review of Neuron Anatomy makes it clear the brain’s white matter and grey matter are different ends of the same cell, so any differences aren’t from a simple difference in the number of the building blocks. The real reason people lie is because they can. Trust me.
