We know that social media platforms have an incentive to promote whatever gets the most attention, regardless of its authenticity. We’re more reluctant to admit that the same is true of people.
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller makes a statement on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, May 29, 2019.
REUTERS/Jim Bourg
What’s the role of someone who, like
Robert Mueller, speaks only facts in a tornado of partisan bombast? Is it a breath of fresh air or an abdication of responsibility to protect America’s interests?
They said it, but is it true?
EQRoy/shutterstock.com
Psychological phenomena like confirmation bias and the Dunning-Kruger effect make it easy for people to fall for deliberate or inadvertent lies in the news.
A sign behind Republican members of the committee during Michael Cohen’s testimony before a House Committee Wednesday.
REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Michael Cohen wants you to know that throwing your kid a ball doesn’t make you a Red Sox pitcher. So he told lies, he says, but that doesn’t make him a liar. A rhetoric scholar dissects his argument.
You should see the one that got away.
FedBul/Shutterstock.com
Online lies can often be easy to detect, by searching for images and phone numbers and exploring social media profiles. Some people lie anyway – and countless others take the bait.
While Donald Trump’s election may seem to US voters to present unprecedented questions of legitimacy, such questions were first asked more than a century ago, in an election that turned on bicycles.
“No, I didn’t eat any cake.”
from www.shutterstock.com
Children lying is rarely cause for concern and actually means your child is developmentally normal.
Nov. 24, 2015: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in S.C. The bloc of Trump voters was significantly weighted with white born-again Christians.
(AP Photo/Willis Glassgow)
How did Trump came to be a symbol of national pride for evangelical Protestants who value strict morality and good manners? It has to do with their shared master narrative of white power and domination.
Perception of truth and lies changes between languages for bilingual speakers.
Developmental psychology suggests that fantastical beliefs in children are associated with positive developmental outcomes. And parents need not worry, children will bust the Santa myth themselves, when the time is right.
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There’s no need for parents to bust the Santa myth. Children figure out the truth themselves, at a developmentally appropriate time. In the process, they build their reasoning skills.
Joanne Froggatt and Ioan Gruffudd star in the ITV drama about an alleged rape.
ITVpictures
Alternate realities don’t just exist in politics – and not all falsehoods are lies. Distortions of the truth can range from a normal part of human nature to pathological.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Psychiatric Times., Tufts University