What Happens When You Tell a Lie?

If you've spoken to someone for more than 10 minutes today, odds are that one of you was lying. If that person was your mother, the odds of lying increase dramatically.

For example, in the last month, 15% of people admitted to telling a lie at the workplace. Of those, 59% didn't feel guilty about it ("Printer jam? I had nothing to do with it"). The cultural expectation of lying varies depending on your job, as well: 94% of people expect politicians to lie in their work, as opposed to 27% for doctors.

When we lie, it stimulates three main sections of our brains. Lying activates the frontal lobe for its role in the truth-suppressing process, the limbic system due to the anxiety that comes with deception, and the temporal lobe because it's responsible for retrieving memories and creating mental imagery. It's like a sophisticated team of con men all working together inside of your head. Pretty comforting, no?
Take a look a this infographic to see more facts and figures about lying at work, school and the poker table, all taken from psychology journals and surveys. Though we may never stop lying, the way we're doing it is certainly changing