Very interesting article. Thank you. Quite timely for me today, since I have been talking with my neighbor this afternoon while my children played with her 4 year-old son, who scored slightly within the parameters of Autism. Actually, this article reminds me what is usually said about the "genius" syndrome...that a person who is a "genius" --"the Uber-expert"-- is a person with abysmal social skills and common sense...certainly not rude nor stupid, but certainly child-like and awkward in their social dealings. People with autism or Asperger's syndrome are different in that they have common sense, but they can't "read" others. This article is timely also because this is the 2nd time in a week that I hear about the Asperger's syndrome (I had not heard of it for a few years). The first time was during a conversation with my dissertation chair about my study of gestures in avatar-based communication media (part of a social presence study in virtual worlds). We were discussing how people with disabilities could or could not use such environment. After discussing the obvious physical disabilities (paralysis, deaf, etc.), we ended up wondering how a virtual world like Second Life could be understood and navigated by a person with Asperger syndrome. ok, these were my immediate thoughts to Javier's posting.

To answer Clint's posting:
The first part of the article made me a little bit uncomfortable because it defines politeness and civility as shades of dishonest behavior. I think that there would be less problem in relationships if honesty were carried with politeness and civility. I think that it is less a problem of "love" than "ego." I believe that people are dishonest because they want to save face and ego from humiliation; Older children are dishonest because they do not want to miss out on privileges (TV, games, phone, parties, allowances...); Younger tikes are "dishonest" if they are physically afraid.

Although I don't completely disagree with Dr. Baer's Freudian-flavored explanation, I am resistant to giving full excuses to adults' behaviors based on their childhood. Childhood certainly influences ones understanding of the world, but an adult is in possession of a higher critical thinking power with a better (hopefully) understanding of right and wrong, and better self-control (which technically includes ego-control) and empathy [yes, I am aware of all the depressing examples of humanity that testify to the opposite]. And so, in a potentially conflicting situation with a partner, someone might in fact lie to avoid putting ones ego on the line for a beating : "you should know better, didn't I tell you, etc"....are judgment calls on character/intellect/etc, hence ego-sensitive.

I do not think that we can compare adult-adult relationships with children-adult relationships. Younger children might in fact ask for love reassurance in a conflict situation: "[mom to children] what happened with the vase? [children] I love you. [mom] I love you too, honey. Now tell me, what happened to the vase?"...The "I love you" to the mom is basically the cue for the mom to both drop the tension in her voice (upset because of the broken vase, worried because of a potential harm from the broken pieces, etc) and remind the child that yes, no matter what, "I still love you." Now, whether that this example is universal,.....I can't speak for the rest of humanity's trials and tribulations to parenthood...but certainly, in an adult-adult situation, such event above is usually considered a control/power event (hence an ego-sensitive event), not a genuine love reassurance, and so it would have to be avoided (hence the lies).

But I really can't agree with the dating example: yes, during dating people usually do not provide honest pictures of themselves....but again, "honest" here is used really loosely because I do not believe that when someone's relationship is in its "dating period", that that person willingly depicts a dishonest picture. Rather, this person is so full of serotonin and other happy thought-making neurochemicals (you know, the "bliss molecules") that s/he has no time thinking about whatever bad habit s/he might have. The "dating period" is a period of discovering the "other" not discovering oneself (or at least by comparison and affinity), while mainly pleasing the other and having a good time oneself. For example, would it be during the dating period that you could tell if your partner is as good planning at work as s/he is a family? or picking up the napkin from the restaurant's floor or picking up her/his socks from the bedroom floor? Most likely not. So you could not even decide for yourself if those details really do not bother you at all (or the opposite). In short, I disagree with the dating example. But I agree that people's relationships (adults relationships) are based on the type of exchange rate you settle on.
I think that there would be less problem in relationships if people would agree on an exchange that values respect (politeness and civility) and honesty....Isn't it a little bit sad that we have to remind ourselves that relationships would greatly benefit from such basic social values? And in a more intimate relationship (since the author mentions dating), that "love" should mean "trust" (i.e., respect of each other's character), in which case the "Ego" should not have to worry too much in any potentially conflictive situations.

Thanks for sharing those links. I read both articles and found them quite interesting.

In the second article, I couldn't help but think about a book I read recently that dealt with lying and honesty. In it, the author (Dr. Greg Baer) shared an experience when he was 4 and his brother was 6. They were playing ball in the front room of their house and his brother broke something. They knew that was a bad thing, so they quickly went to their bedroom and started reading books (I guess that is the first sign of being able to deceive). Then when the mom found out she came storming into the room, very angry. The author said that when you are 4 years old, your mom is like King Kong, and an angry one at that. She Said, "Who broke the lamp?"
He looked at his brother, and was surprised when calm as anything he looked up from his book and said, "We don't know."
Their mom then mumbled under her breath that someone must have done it and left the room.

The author illustrated the point that one of the things we like the least as humans is disapproval - especially of someone that we want to care about us. He argues that when people are irritated or angry at us at all, we don't hear what they are talking about - what we really hear is that they are saying, "I don't love you right now." To avoid that painful statement we learn to lie, mostly in order to win people's approval.
In this case, the author said that without knowing it the mom actually taught the kids to lie, because they realized that lying helped them avoid a negative consequence. And he says if it works as kids, we keep doing it when we become adults.
But in learning to lie to win approval, he argues that we don't ever get what we really want. At least subconsciously we realize that we are not really getting approval for who we actually are, but only for who we are pretending to be - which causes some tension.

I'm curious if other people in our group agree with this analysis?
Do you think that we learn to lie, mostly to avoid negative consequences, especially disapproval of others?

He says the result of growing up like this is that we seek acceptance often through forms of imitation love (e.g. pleasure, praise, control, and safety) - not that these things are necessarily bad, but in the absence of feeling acceptance even with flaws, they become substitutes for love and more like addictions. He says they are addictions in that the more we get (for example of praise), the more we need to be happy, and the less satisfied we are with it over time. This author says that even that most of the problems in human relationships come because of this. For example, when dating a person, most people do not do a very good job of sharing an honest picture of themselves, but instead emphasize the positive only - and in a way, the author argues that when you find someone who will make a good exchange of imitation love, then you want to lock in that exchange rate with them, not knowing that the effect of it will wear off over time.

The author argued for a different approach to discipline with kids and relationships with adults that makes it easier for people to be honest, even about bad stuff that they do and negative things about themselves, while still feeling acceptance. He feels that when people can be honest and still feel accepted, then most of the bad behaviors naturally go away - because your greatest need to be accepted is filled. Whereas with lying you spend more of your energy proving their is no problem, instead of being honest about it, still feeling loved, and naturally wanting to be better.

This author has spent most of his life in America, where the message seems to resonate with a lot of people, but I wonder how people from places other than the US will respond?
Why do you think people are dishonest?
Where do they learn it?
What are the effects of it?

Are the answers to these questions similar in all societies or not, and why?