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(fèi)爾德曼是馬薩諸塞大學(xué)的一位心理學(xué)教授。他學(xué)術(shù)生涯中的大部分時(shí)間都在研究"欺騙"在人與人關(guān)系中扮演的角色。費(fèi)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(xiàn)象。他接受了《時(shí)代周刊》的采訪，談到為什么我們都需要那么一點(diǎn)兒 "誠(chéng)實(shí)".

    您通過研究主要收獲了哪些結(jié)論和發(fā)現(xiàn)呢？

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

    您的調(diào)查研究顯示，人們之所以能成功地撒了一個(gè)又一個(gè)謊而不被拆穿或被咎其責(zé)的一個(gè)主要原因，是我們實(shí)質(zhì)上都是容易上當(dāng)受騙的人。那么我們究竟為什么會(huì)相信那么多的謊言呢？

    我認(rèn)為這就是撒謊者的優(yōu)勢(shì)所在。我們并不是很擅長(zhǎng)明辨別人欺騙性的言行。當(dāng)我們盡力想要識(shí)別對(duì)方是否誠(chéng)實(shí)時(shí)，我們經(jīng)常注意的是他們"異常"的非語(yǔ)言行為，繼而誤讀了它們所傳達(dá)的意義。而問題在于，一個(gè)人的非言語(yǔ)行為表現(xiàn)和其誠(chéng)實(shí)度之間是沒有直接關(guān)聯(lián)的。緊張、生氣、分神或者悲傷的表現(xiàn)都可能被誤讀為是在"耍詭計(jì)".然而，即便是受過訓(xùn)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(gè)人是不是在坦誠(chéng)待你。

    最要命的是，很多時(shí)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(shí)性，也無意在聽到恰順己意的話時(shí)質(zhì)問說話人。經(jīng)常我們會(huì)問別人"你怎么樣？",他們回答"嗯挺好的",其實(shí)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(rèn)為對(duì)方確實(shí)"挺好的".

    您覺得"欺騙"是與我們社會(huì)尤為相關(guān)的一個(gè)話題么？

    比起過去，我們現(xiàn)在生活的年代和文化環(huán)境更"方便"人們?nèi)鲋e。社會(huì)普遍接受的一條信念是，人們可以撒謊--因?yàn)槟悴粫?huì)為此負(fù)責(zé)或受懲罰。我在調(diào)查研究中發(fā)現(xiàn)的一個(gè)現(xiàn)象是，當(dāng)你面對(duì)撒謊的人時(shí)，他們幾乎不會(huì)表現(xiàn)出自責(zé)或懊悔。人們并不把撒謊當(dāng)作一件應(yīng)該大加譴責(zé)的事兒。

    于是你就會(huì)有這樣的假設(shè)：因?yàn)槿鲋e往往使得社會(huì)互動(dòng)進(jìn)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(huì)讓我們付出代價(jià)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(yuǎn)都不能對(duì)自己有一個(gè)真實(shí)準(zhǔn)確的了解。謊言是人們言行的一個(gè)污點(diǎn)。如果人們?nèi)鲂≈e很容易的話，那么撒大謊也會(huì)變得越來越容易。

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

    研究表明我們對(duì)自己比較親近的人說謊少一些。然而一旦我們真的對(duì)他們說謊，我們說的可能是更嚴(yán)重的謊。而且如果被發(fā)現(xiàn)我們欺騙了他們，后果也將是更嚴(yán)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(jìn)化發(fā)展過程中得以遺傳的一部分呢？

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

    您在書中提出了一個(gè)減少撒謊的方法。請(qǐng)問"AHA"具體是個(gè)什么樣的方法？

    "AHA"的全稱是主動(dòng)誠(chéng)信評(píng)估。我們得能夠意識(shí)到別人可能在對(duì)我們?nèi)鲋e，并且需要要求他人的誠(chéng)實(shí)。否則，我們得到的都是狹隘的不真實(shí)不全面的論斷。同時(shí)，我們也要要求自己誠(chéng)實(shí)。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(dá)的信息一定得是真實(shí)可信的。然而非常有意思的是，如果你是百分百誠(chéng)實(shí)坦率的人，那么你不會(huì)是特別受歡迎的。誠(chéng)實(shí)是最好的法則，但沒辦法是最完美的。