An investigation carried out by scientists from University College London (United Kingdom) has discovered that the repetition of a lie causes the brain to become insensitive to them and the negative emotions that this would entail due to the fact of not being sincere. On the contrary, a part of our brain encourages us to lie more in the future, which would explain why one lie usually leads to another . The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The process of lying in the brain
The neuroscientists scanned the brains of 80 participants between the ages of 18 and 65 as they performed tasks in which they could lie for personal gain. Thus, one of them consisted of guessing the number of coins that were inside a glass jar. After this, they had to send their calculations to the others by computer; a task that was carried out with different contexts. Getting as close to the exact figure as possible would pay off for themselves and their playmate . Going or not getting anywhere near the figure would benefit both of them, their partner, only them or only one of them without having an effect on the other.
The scans revealed that a part of the brain associated with emotions, the amygdala, was activated when the participants decided to lie for profit. The funny thing is that the response of the amygdala was decreasing as more deceptions were produced; that is, the more lies the less response of the amygdala.
“When we selfishly lie, our amygdala produces a negative feeling that limits the degree to which we are willing to lie. However, this answer fades as we continue to lie, and the more this activity is reduced, the greater the lie that we find acceptable. This leads to a slippery slope where small acts of insincerity turn into increasingly meaningful lies , ”explains Tali Sharot, co-author of the study.
Regarding the response of the amygdala, “it is in line with the idea that our amygdala registers aversion to acts that we consider bad or immoral . In this case, we have studied insincerity, but the same principle could be applied to the progression of other actions such as risky acts or violent behaviors ”, clarifies Neil Garrett, co-author of the work.
