Why it is Sometimes Easier to Believe a Lie Over the Truth
First of all, this is not a general rule of life. No rule says that believing in lies is easier than believing in the truth; however, people find it much easier to believe in a lie in many cases.
The first question you need to ask yourself here is why would someone ever believe a lie?
Don’t we all want to know the truth?
Well, that’s not a correct question to ask. Most people don’t want to know the truth as much as they want to feel good about themselves or as much as they want to forget about the things that make them feel bad.
Let’s suppose that an average-looking person was complimented about his looks. In such a case, that person will want to believe in this statement simply because it would feel very unpleasant if the truth was otherwise.
We need to believe in some things.
This leads us to the first and the most important point that leads to believing in lies. We sometimes believe in things just because we need to believe in them and not because they are real things. If a certain belief is required for a person to feel good, this person might believe in it, even if it was wrong, to feel better.
People develop certain beliefs to maintain their psychological stability.
In such a case, any threat to that belief is considered a threat to the person’s psychological stability. In such a case, the person doesn’t just believe in a lie, but he also defends it strongly because he won’t handle the psychological pressure that he will go through if he admitted that he was wrong.
Because the truth can be harsh
In many cases facing the truth requires a tremendous amount of courage, which can be very harsh. Most humans have an intense desire to escape from their problems and even construct a false reality to avoid facing the truth.
In addition to all that, we selectively choose the pieces of data we want to consider true, and we ignore everything else. Our brains can easily allow us to discard a fact and to focus on another one just because the latter matches what we want to believe in.
Because we want to believe in certain things, our brains help us do so by distracting us from the evidence that proves otherwise. This is why we selectively filter data to keep the lies we believe in intact.
Because we have no knowledge
The easiest person to lie to is a young toddler. And why is that?
Because that young kid knows tiny things about the world, the less a person knows, the easier it is for someone to fool them.
This is another reason why so many people believe in lies. Many people don’t take knowledge seriously and, as a result, end up being fooled by others.
Because we are emotional beings
Even the smartest human can be deceived and fooled once emotions get involved. A smart human could become just like a little child once emotions get involved.
It’s much easier for a person to believe a lie when controlled by emotions such as fear or anxiety. And because we are emotional beings, we can easily believe in things just because our brains aren’t working properly because of those emotions.
