Why do people lie?

INTRO
Howdy, I’m Maya! Have you ever been lied to and wondered why? I mean, think about it, why do people lie? For a
personal gain, or to try and help someone else? To hurt others or to protect them? Possibly even just to get out of a
difficult situation. We’ll explore this further, after a short story of a personal experience to further our understandings.

*story*

STORY ASSESMENT AND RESEARCH

As we can see, she lied in order to manipulate other’s feelings and turn the situation against me. Was it right for her to
do this? Absolutely not. She clearly was in the wrong and she could see this too, so, to take advantage of our parents
who were not there to witness what happened, she lied. The question is, why? Why couldn't she tell the truth – to
generalise it – why can't people tell the truth? From my research, I found that in most cases it is generally difficult to
determine the reasons of dishonesty, however, it may be easier to tell when the lying is compulsive. See, compulsive
liars tend to have lied for most of their lives as they might not have had everything growing up so, as an innocent
young child, started to make up stories about how they got this awesome new toy or how “the dog ate the homework”.
However, as they grow up, they continue to lie and these lies become engraved in their head, making their memories
distorted and erratic. The ACA (American Counselling Association) states “Repetitive liars can sometimes feel so
much pressure that their memory is unreliable. They try to relieve that pressure by saying something that will make
the situation work. For that person, what was just said is what they want to believe. The person lying may so badly
want the lie to be the truth that the lie becomes the person's actual truth.” These seemingly harmless lies may do more
damage than good from just wanting to avoid being embarrassed, to hide an awkward situation, or to simply have
others think better of the person can really take a toll. As well as this, mantracare.org say that “Lying, or making an
intentionally false statement with the intent to deceive someone else, is sometimes seen as a childhood behaviour
problem. While it is normal for children to occasionally lie, compulsive lying in children can be a sign of a more
serious problem.”

My opinion
In my opinion, I think that people lie because of power. Imagine this: in a conversation with some friends a person,
who we’ll call Ron, hasn’t spoken to in a while, they bring up their successes and one by one they each go around
saying how successful

Conclusion
In conclusion, because it is hard to give a straight answer to the question,