Why do some people believe lies

Ben Xu

Lie is a kind of fake and inferior propaganda to construct the life world. In the case that it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false, the deceived will be willing to use it to construct their own life world picture.

French sociologist Jacques Ellu pointed out that people who have never been given a chance to reason with others are used to believing what others say.

It is the same for people who grow up in an environment where free thinking and independent judgment are not allowed. They are very easy to accept fake propaganda. What they fear most is that they are out of step with others, with the group, with the leader and hold different opinions.

When this happens, they instinctively feel "isolated" and "insecure" and "could get into trouble." Fake propaganda plays on their feelings of anxiety and fear.

However, it is not only those who lack the habit and ability to think that are easily gullible. Colton, the 19th century English writer, said, "There are scams so cleverly arranged that not only a fool would fall into for them." It is often the big lie that is cleverly laid. People are not easy to believe the little lie, but they are easy to believe the big lie.

Goebbels was a master of exploring this weakness of human nature. He believed in Hitler's principle of "only tell a big lie, don't tell a little lie" and practiced it.

Small lies are easy to catch, but the bigger the lie, the harder it is to catch. For example, who can prove that the Jews have no such plot when the Nazis say they have a plot to take over the world?

Hitler said: "The average man, it is not that he intends to do evil, but that his heart is corrupted. They are simple-minded and are easier to believe in big lies than small ones. They themselves often lie about small things and are too embarrassed to lie about big things. They can't think of a big lie, and even when they hear a big lie, they can't imagine such a big lie."

Lie is a kind of fake and inferior material to construct the life world. In the case that it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false, the deceived will be willing to use it to construct their own life world picture. It is difficult to part with such a picture of the world of life even when you know it.

Former east German youth world magazine editor schutter says: "It’s like a coat of buttons, the first button is wrong, but to buckle to the last one, and at last he knows it is wrong. Even so, it's warmer with a coat than without one."

People who accept and rely on lies for a long time even join in maintaining lies when they are broken.

In the 1950s, Festinger, a psychology professor at Stanford University, came across a report titled "Prophecy of A Call to Our City from the Planet Clareen: Escape the Flood," about a Chicago housewife named Madine, an organizer of a local sect called the Pursuers.

She told her followers that on December 25, 1955, a flood would destroy the world and that aliens would come in flying saucers to rescue them and take them to safety.

Festinger then traveled to the area with his students, lurking among the believers and observing their behavior.

Festinger later co-authored when Prophecies Fail (1956), a detailed account of the daily behavior of the sect's members.

According to Festinger, the "suitors" prepared for the end of the world, quitting their jobs, selling their property and even cutting the copper zippers off their pants to avoid interfering with the flying saucer's electronic communications. As a result, when that day came, the world did not end.

By rights, these cheated people should wake up. But, contrary to the predictions of common psychological reasoning, these unwavering and costly believers did not change their faith, but became more determined and devout.

They believed that the world did not end as planned because god was touched by their piety in welcoming death.

The "suitors" have even changed their previously low-key, unsociable ways and become enthusiastic about their religious beliefs, redoubling their efforts everywhere to justify them to others.

Festinger and others explain this strange phenomenon by referring to "cognitive dissonance" -- the psychological discomfort people feel when their experiences contradict their beliefs so that they become more dependent on them and more trusting.

According to them, there are several conditions for people to accept a false prophecy:

First, the prophecy must conform to people's original beliefs.

Second, the predictions of the need to accept the prophet involved in related activities (the degree of personal involvement in the higher, offer | holy for this activity, the more the more convinced of the truth of prophecy);

Third, to maintain faith, there must also be the support of society, or the mutual support of members within the group to reinforce each other's unverifiable beliefs. This is called "prophetic social psychology".

To understand how lies affect ordinary people from the perspective of cognitive and psychological defects, we need to improve the level of rational thinking of citizens through humanistic education and social enlightenment in schools.

This kind of education can help people understand the crooked mechanism of deception, but also pay attention to their own psychological vulnerability to gullibility.

Ultimately, though, it's the ability to think for yourself that counts