Why do women lie more than men? Because we're 'nicer'

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[–]dungone 6 points7 points8 points 11 years ago* (18 children) | Copy Link

women are encouraged

Says who? How? What counts as a valid excuse? It seems that just about anything - whether being late for a curfew, getting a bad grade in school, or not having money for taxi fare - can induce women to lie horrifically about rape. And that is no little white lie. This gives me very little hope for there being reasons for the little "white lies" where women are legitimate victims of some external pressure rather than the perpetrators who are doing it just because they can get away with it.

tell white lies so as to spare people's hurt feels.

These so-called white lies benefit the liar far more than the person who is being lied to. Don't forget that this is a self-reported study.

When they claim that their lies prevent hurt feelings or make things simpler, they could very well be talking about something like lying about who the father of a child is. The idea that it's not hurting anyone their assessment, not the people who are being lied to. The mentality I've come across among liars is almost without exception that a lie is always beneficial so long as nobody finds out. That or, as long as they don't have to deal with the fallout themselves because they're long gone by then.

It should be framed as Toxic Femininity.

I'm inclined to agree, but for different reasons. Because the lies are more damaging than liars make them out to be and because it's the whole entire victim mentality that drives these people to rationalise the havoc they create. It's more about the lack of accountability.

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 2 points3 points4 points 11 years ago (15 children) | Copy Link

Says who? How? What counts as a valid excuse?

I'm not trying to 'excuse' anyone

It seems that just about anything - whether being late for a curfew, getting a bad grade in school, or not having money for taxi fare - can induce women to lie horrifically about rape.

I was talking about lies in general, not lies about rape.

False rape accusations are obviously environmentally incentivized or at the very least non-disincentivized. However, the point I am making is that speaking very generally women are culturally encouraged to spare hurt feelings and be "diplomatic" (etc). This works out to lying, ultimately.

I'm not trying to make women "the victims" per se. I'm trying to point out that no person's rational interests are served by a culture of euphemism, 'diplomacy' and "must not hurt feels."

[–]dungone -1 points0 points1 point 11 years ago* (14 children) | Copy Link

lies in general, not lies about rape.

But I was using inductive reasoning. I was saying that if women have a pattern of such flimsy reasons for lying about rape, specifically, then they probably also have very flimsy excuses for lies in general. In other words I disagree with the author's thesis that some invisible external force "encourages" women to lie. Quite simply, they do it because they can get away with it. Because they receive positive reinforcement for doing so, even, such as this article and the entire mentality behind it.

It would be useful to compare it to what happens when a man lies about similar things. Let's say a man is breaking up with his girlfriend because he is seeing another woman, but he lies about the reason. Is he a good guy sparing her feelings, or an lying, cheating asshole? It's a rhetorical question. This is how it goes.

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago* (7 children) | Copy Link

I was saying that if women have a pattern of such flimsy reasons for lying about rape, specifically, then they probably also have very flimsy excuses for lies in general.

That isn't very good deductive reasoning either. Surely rape is a different issue from meaningless matters. I mean, telling a lie about a minor and easily-fixable slip at the supermarket is one thing, but telling a lie about an atrocious criminal act is another.

In other words I disagree with the author's thesis that some invisible external force "encourages" women to lie.

Social pressure isn't an 'invisible external force'. It makes itself visible through cultural artefacts. "Man up" and that kind of crap pressures men to lie. The same thing happens with women being pushed towards diplomacy/feels-ism. Both sexes are pressured to lie in different ways.

[–]dungone 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago* (6 children) | Copy Link

That isn't very good deductive reasoning either.

Inductive.

Surely rape is a different issue from meaningless matters.

Being different in itself isn't a good argument, it's just special pleading.

Social pressure isn't an 'invisible external force'.

It is when it's being used as an excuse (i.e. the "Patriarchy") that doesn't actually exist. For example, both men and women struggle to pay for college, but feminists like to proclaim that female students who prostitute themselves are somehow victims who are being forced into it. Same thing here. When all you really have are a bunch of really flimsy self-serving excuses for lying to cover your ass, you can't just blame it on "social pressure" and call it a day. It's really just a bunch of flimsy self-serving reasons. No one is making some women lie 30 times a day. I mean, they're not like a POW at the Hanoi Hilton, but they're making it sound like that's what the daily experience is for the average woman. That's feminism for you.

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

[–]dungone 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

Not really.

It is unless you have a good explanation for why the difference matters, which I don't believe you did.

I think you may be confusing the circumstantial reasons that prompt a lie with the morality of the given lie itself.

If someone makes a false rape claim to get out of a taxi fare, it's morally worse than if she claimed that she got abducted by aliens who took her money. But the circumstantial reason is "free taxi ride" for both.

A significant reason would be if the girl's mother threatened to disown her and throw her out on the street if she broke her curfew or dated someone of a different race or religion. Claiming that she got raped in that case would still be morally unjustifiable, but the reason for lying would no longer be as flimsy. And let's still be careful not to special plead here. Where men have equal if not worse social pressures than women, it fails to explain why women lie more under the same conditions.

So, to revisit my argument once again. The article's author is trying to tell us that society "pressures" women to tell little lies. Meaning that they have a non-flimsy reason for them. Like an almost metaphysical reason above and beyond the actual circumstance at play in the lie (i.e. the Patriarchy made them do it). Does that seem reasonable? Absolutely not. They have flimsy reasons for even the most morally abhorrent of lies, and society lets them get away with it on top. It therefore goes to reason that they also have flimsy reasons for the little lies, and that society simply lets them get away with it.

[–]YetAnotherCommenter -1 points0 points1 point 11 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

It is unless you have a good explanation for why the difference matters, which I don't believe you did.

You don't think that there's a difference between alleging something minor/meaningless and alleging rape?!? Rape is a big deal! This is why false rape accusations are a big deal, moreso than accusing another person of something meaningless. This is why we need to be thorough about all rape accusations.

If someone makes a false rape claim to get out of a taxi fare, it's morally worse than if she claimed that she got abducted by aliens who took her money. But the circumstantial reason is "free taxi ride" for both.

I agree. That's precisely the point I am making. Accusations of rape are big issues, not things to be dismissed as "special pleading."

Where men have equal if not worse social pressures than women, it fails to explain why women lie more under the same conditions.

Social pressures don't work the same way on different sexes. In the case of rape, women are pressured to cover it up because "I AM NOT A SLUT!!!" And the same is true in the case of regretted consensual sex too! They claim the sex was really rape so they weren't sluts!

Men have pressures too; they're just different pressures. It is quite possible for both sexes to be screwed over by the traditional gender roles in asymmetric ways.

Women are encouraged to lie, to cover up, to falsely claim rape, etc. This isn't great for either sex, and its often oppressive to men. Its also often oppressive to women. It isn't a zero-sum game. Both men AND women are fucked over by this (in the long run), although clearly men face the majority of the short-run damage in this situation.

I'm not defending liars. All I am saying is that their lies aren't just arbitrary choices - women, like men, respond to social incentives.

[–]dungone 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

You don't think that there's a difference between alleging something minor/meaningless and alleging rape?!?

I went to some pains to point out that if the reason is the same, then the reason is the same. People have been accused of rape over a couple dollars' cab fare. The reason is the actual goal, and the rape accusation is merely the means to an end. The actual goal doesn't have to be in any way "serious" or "worthy" of the magnitude of a false rape accusation. Yes, people do make false accusations over trivial bullshit. Surely you don't deny this?

So I'm trying to point out this very fact. I'm assuming I just failed to articulate it well enough because the logic itself is crystal clear. After all, we are talking about the actual goals of lying. And it's clear that big lies and little lies can share trivial goals. People have trivial bullshit reasons to invent even the most tremendous lies. It therefore goes to reason that they also have trivial bullshit reasons to invent trivial lies, because there is not a single reason why not. Therefore the author's excuse that it comes down to social pressure for women cannot hold. The far more obvious conclusion is that they can get away with it. And that's not social pressure, but rather the lack of it. It's the direct opposite thesis of what the author of the article puts forth.

All I am saying is that their lies aren't just arbitrary choices - women, like men, respond to social incentives.

But men have the same incentives. They have to pay taxi fares and take tests in college, and so on and so forth. Men face the same exact socially awkward situations. And according to this study, they don't lie about it even nearly as much for their own convenience.

Women are encouraged to lie, to cover up, to falsely claim rape, etc.

By being allowed to get away with it, or even being rewarded for it? Sure, but that's not social pressure. It's the opposite. It's more like social privilege. Why deal with uncomfortable situations when you can just lie about it and turn the tables on the person being lied to? Or just withhold the truth to prevent them from challenging you on an equal footing? It's not like they can do anything about it that can't be fixed with yet another lie, rumour, social exclusion, or similar form of relational aggression.

And this is what we should really be talking about when it comes to these little white lies. We already know that women engage in relational aggression to a far greater extent than men, to the point of Forbes' ForbesWoman column calling it the worst kind of bullying. It's all about being manipulative, in similar ways that make women inclined to use proxy violence (hire a hitman) instead of overt violence (axe murderer). The point is that there are probably some very good reasons why these women self-report lying far more often than men, which is probably consistent with other types of behavior that is prominent among women. But "social pressure" is a cop out.

[–]TBFProgrammer 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

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[–]TBFProgrammer 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

Induction in the general sense means that you are looking for a trend in specific examples to come up with a general rule. It differs from deduction, where you apply a general rule to a specific example.

It would appear you are correct. It would also appear that inductive reasoning is a weak form of reasoning and provides no justification for dismissing the criticisms that were directed at you.

Further, I would argue that this is very different from how mathematical induction works. Mathematical induction is really more of a deductive iterative proof constructor with reference to this meaning of induction. The only thing that could count as inductive under this meaning is the each=>any=>all progression that permits mathematical induction to be utilized.

You could say that the "base case" is the fact that people have trivial reasons for lying and that the "generalised increment" is the fact that people continue to have trivial reasons for lying even in the most extreme case.

The triviality of reasons would increment via more valid reasons. The extreme case would increment via less extreme cases. The increment would be the reason we can expect to see no change in the incidence as these items increment, and can not composed merely of multiple severities or validities being aligned.

[–]dungone 0 points1 point2 points 11 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

It would also appear that inductive reasoning is a weak form of reasoning

The vast majority of reasoning is inductive in nature. This is the reason why a kid doesn't stick his finger into boiling water after the first time he experiences it. It's a heuristic rather than a proof. Without it, you would keep sticking your finger in boiling water hoping for a different outcome every time until someone offered you a logical proof that boiling water is always hot. Induction is the basis of creating a predictive model and then using the model as a means reason about the world around us. Which in turn is the basis of testable hypothesis and scientific theories. I wouldn't characterise it as "weak", but rather as "useful".

The increment would be the reason we can expect to see no change in the incidence as these items increment,

But first you'd need to come up with a quantifiable natural number scale on which to increment. I said they were different, after all.

In this case all we know is that we see no change. We can come up with a regression of sorts by connecting our two points and conclude that based on the known data, the reason for a lie is a constant function of the severity of the lie.

The article makes a different claim. It claims that the reason for a lie is a social good that is inversely proportional to the severity of the lie. In other words, small lie = socially beneficial, big lie = socially harmful. And furthermore, it claims that women lie more often than men about little things because women are socialised to be "nice" and that this is all peaches and cream. In other words, this socialisation is the fitness function that determines which lies women tell.

The far simpler explanation is that people of either gender lie simply because they can get away with it, to the extent that they can get away with it. And the fitness function for the type of lie they choose is based on what is necessary and sufficient for a given situation, without getting caught.

So there are two different models. One that's reasoned, simple, and predictive, and accounts for all lies in all situations for both men and women alike. And the other has no predictive ability and appears to be based on wishful thinking alone.

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[–]dungone 1 point2 points3 points 11 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

I'm disagreeing with the article's characterisation of women's behavior and it's interpretation of the study. I'm not misreading it. Specifically, the article claims that the outcome of the study is a result of socialisation and because women are "nicer". This is a cop out for various reasons that I mentioned in this thread, including the fact that it's a self reported study where men and women got to characterise their own lies.

Specifically, lying about paternity is a perfect example of a huge lie where the liars almost always justify it as nothing more than a little white lie. Because it's good for the "family" and the "child" and it makes things "simpler" and because biology doesn't define fatherhood, whereas a woman tricking a man to act like one supposedly does. And it's not just the liars who think this way, but enough of a majority of people so that DNA paternity testing faces major legal hurdles in most countries.

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Title	Why do women lie more than men? Because we're 'nicer'
Author	thrway_1000
Upvotes	107
Comments	38
Date	June 10, 2015 12:55 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/398j9e/why_do_women_lie_more_than_men_because_were_nicer/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-do-women-lie-more-than-men-because-were-nicer.978057 https://theredarchive.com/post/978057

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