A professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Robert Feldman has spent most of his career studying the role deception plays in human relationships. His most recent book, The Liar in Your Life: How Lies Work and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, lays out in stark terms just how prevalent lying has become. He talked to TIME about why we all need a dose of honesty.

    What are the main findings of your research?

    Not only do we lie frequently, but we lie without even thinking about it. People lie while they are getting acquainted an average of three times in a 10-minute period. Participants in my studies actually are not aware that they are lying that much until they watch videos of their interactions.

    One of the reasons people get away with so much lying, your research suggests, is that we are all essentially dupes. Why do we believe so many lies?

    This is what I call the liar's advantage. We are not very good at detecting deception in other people. When we are trying to detect honesty, we look at the wrong kinds of nonverbal behaviors, and we misinterpret them. The problem is that there is no direct correlation between someone's nonverbal behavior and their honesty. "Shiftiness" could also be the result of being nervous, angry, distracted or sad. Even trained interrogators [aren't] able to detect deception at [high] rates. You might as well flip a coin to determine if someone is being honest.

    What's more, a lot of the time, we don't want to detect lies in other people. We are unwilling to put forward the cognitive effort to suspect the veracity of statements, and we aren't motivated to question people when they tell us things we want to hear. When we ask someone, "How are you doing?" and they say, "Fine," we really don't want to know what their aches and pains are. So we take "Fine" at face value.

    Do you feel deception is a particularly relevant topic to our society?

    We are living in a time and culture in which it's easier to lie than it has been in the past. The message that pervades society is that it's O.K. to lie - you can get away with it. One of the things I found in my research is that when you confront people with their lies, they very rarely display remorse. Lying is not seen as being morally reprehensible in any strong way.

    You can make the assumption that because it often makes social interactions go more smoothly, lying is O.K. But there is a cost to even seemingly benign lies. If people are always telling you that you look terrific and you did a great job on that presentation, there's no way to have an accurate understanding of yourself. Lies put a smudge on an interaction, and if it's easy to lie to people in minor ways, it becomes easier to lie in bigger ways.

    You say in the book that recent DNA evidence suggests that 10% of people have fathers other than the men they believe conceived them. So is lying pretty widespread in our intimate lives too?

    Research shows we lie less to people that we are close to. But when we do, they tend to be the bigger types of lies. And the fallout is greater if the deception is discovered.

    You show how lying is a social skill. Does that mean it's part of an evolutionary legacy?

    I don't think lying is genetically programmed. We learn to lie. We teach our kids to be effective liars by modeling deceitful behavior.

    In your book, you offer a way to cut back on lies. What's the "AHA!" remedy?

    AHA! stands for active honesty assessment. We need to be aware of the possibility that people are lying to us, and we need to demand honesty in other people. Otherwise we will get a canned affirmation. At the same time, we have to demand honesty of ourselves. We have to be the kind of people who don't tell white lies. We don't have to be cruel and totally blunt, but we have to convey information honestly. The paradox here is that if you are 100% honest and blunt, you will not be a popular person. Honesty is the best policy. But it's not a perfect policy.

    羅伯特·費爾德曼是馬薩諸塞大學的一位心理學教授。他學術生涯中的大部分時間都在研究"欺騙"在人與人關系中扮演的角色。費爾德曼的新書《你生活中的謊言：謊言如何欺騙了我們以及它影射出的我們自己》不客氣地闡述了如今撒謊是一種多么普遍的現象。他接受了《時代周刊》的采訪，談到為什么我們都需要那么一點兒 "誠實".

    您通過研究主要收獲了哪些結論和發現呢？

    我們不但撒謊的頻率很高，而且撒謊的時候甚至都不假思索。人們平均每十分鐘會撒謊三次。我實驗研究的參與者們直到看了他們言語行為的錄像才意識到自己竟然說了那么多謊。

    您的調查研究顯示，人們之所以能成功地撒了一個又一個謊而不被拆穿或被咎其責的一個主要原因，是我們實質上都是容易上當受騙的人。那么我們究竟為什么會相信那么多的謊言呢？

    我認為這就是撒謊者的優勢所在。我們并不是很擅長明辨別人欺騙性的言行。當我們盡力想要識別對方是否誠實時，我們經常注意的是他們"異常"的非語言行為，繼而誤讀了它們所傳達的意義。而問題在于，一個人的非言語行為表現和其誠實度之間是沒有直接關聯的。緊張、生氣、分神或者悲傷的表現都可能被誤讀為是在"耍詭計".然而，即便是受過訓練的問詢者辨別出欺騙的幾率也不是很高。你也許可以投硬幣來決定一個人是不是在坦誠待你。

    最要命的是，很多時候我們甚至不想去判別他人的謊言。我們并不愿意下多大功夫去追究那些言辭陳述的真實性，也無意在聽到恰順己意的話時質問說話人。經常我們會問別人"你怎么樣？",他們回答"嗯挺好的",其實我們并不想知道他們到底有什么悲傷和痛處。所以我們就取字面上的意思，認為對方確實"挺好的".

    您覺得"欺騙"是與我們社會尤為相關的一個話題么？

    比起過去，我們現在生活的年代和文化環境更"方便"人們撒謊。社會普遍接受的一條信念是，人們可以撒謊--因為你不會為此負責或受懲罰。我在調查研究中發現的一個現象是，當你面對撒謊的人時，他們幾乎不會表現出自責或懊悔。人們并不把撒謊當作一件應該大加譴責的事兒。

    于是你就會有這樣的假設：因為撒謊往往使得社會互動進行得更加順利，所以撒謊也是可以的。但是即使善意的謊言也是會讓我們付出代價的。如果人們總是跟你說你看上去漂亮極了，或者你剛剛的演講展示非常棒，那么，你永遠都不能對自己有一個真實準確的了解。謊言是人們言行的一個污點。如果人們撒小謊很容易的話，那么撒大謊也會變得越來越容易。

    您在書中提到，最新的DNA證據顯示，10%的人的父親并不是他們認為的自己的生父。是不是謊言也已經滲透到了我們的每日生活當中了呢？

    研究表明我們對自己比較親近的人說謊少一些。然而一旦我們真的對他們說謊，我們說的可能是更嚴重的謊。而且如果被發現我們欺騙了他們，后果也將是更嚴重的。

    您向我們表明了撒謊也算是一種社交技巧。那么這是否意味著它是人類進化發展過程中得以遺傳的一部分呢？

    我認為撒謊并不屬于一種遺傳編碼，而是我們后天學來的。我們通過自己切實的欺騙行為"以身作則"地教會了我們的孩子如何撒謊。

    您在書中提出了一個減少撒謊的方法。請問"AHA"具體是個什么樣的方法？

    "AHA"的全稱是主動誠信評估。我們得能夠意識到別人可能在對我們撒謊，并且需要要求他人的誠實。否則，我們得到的都是狹隘的不真實不全面的論斷。同時，我們也要要求自己誠實。我們得做那種連善意的謊言都不說的人。不必非常殘忍傷人或者完全直白，但傳達的信息一定得是真實可信的。然而非常有意思的是，如果你是百分百誠實坦率的人，那么你不會是特別受歡迎的。誠實是最好的法則，但沒辦法是最完美的。