Liars Lie More in the Afternoon

If you're lying, it must be afternoon.  No, I'm not implying that you're a liar.  But if you are, you most likely do it in the afternoon, according to a new study.

Researchers conducted tests on college students where they would earn money if they answered questions a certain way.  Initially the students didn't know that they would receive anything .But once they found out, they, of course, answered that way even when the answer they chose they knew was wrong.

What was learned? Students who participated in the morning session - between 8 am and noon - cheated less, compared with the group who participated between noon and 6 pm. The researchers called this occurrence the "morning morality effect.," medicalnewstoday.com reports.

In another experiment, the researchers presented morning and afternoon participants with word fragments, including "_ _ R A L" and "E _ _ _ C _ _."
"Students in the morning group were more likely to spell the words 'moral' and 'ethical,' compared with the afternoon group, which was more likely to spell the words 'coral' and 'effects,'" medicalnewstoday.com notes.
So what does this mean?  "The researchers say that moral disengagement, which is the extent to which people are unethical without feeling guilt about it, had a hand in how strong the morning morality effect was," according to the web site.
But once a cheater, always a cheater.
Not surprisingly, they found that participants who had a higher inclination toward moral disengagement were more likely to cheat in both the morning and the afternoon.
However, the most honest ones in the groups were most honest in the morning, but less so in the afternoon. The researchers note that these honest people "may be the most susceptible to the negative consequences associated with the morning morality effect," according to medicalnews.today.com.
Now, I'm a morning person and I don't tend to lie.  I don't think I'd do it more in the afternoon if I were tempted to, but who really knows?  I don't usually notice the time of day when I do lie!  I'm more worried about whether the person I'm lying to will figure it out than whether it's light or dark outside.
 

 
 
 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Social Media Replacing Human Contact? Nah

Take Herbal Supplements? Even Green Tea Extract Can Lead to Liver Damage

Need the ER? Pray Your Doc Plays Video Games