Are You a Cheater or Are You a Liar?

Honest People

Not everyone lies and not everyone cheats. In fact, many people do neither. If you ran in a marathon and followed all of the race rules, you would not be a cheater. You were a fair competitor. If you actually came in 35th place, and you told everyone you came in 35th place, you would also not be a liar. You would be a non-cheater and a non-liar. You would be an all-around honest type.

Cheaters But Not Liars

There is a distinction between cheating and lying. Cheating is acting unfairly to gain an advantage. If I cheat, I am intentionally ignoring the rules so as to come out ahead. Cheating needs not involve lying. If a person in a marathon race takes a detour or hops in a cab in order to get to the finish line quicker, they have obviously flouted the rules of the competition, but they have not lied. That is, they have not expressly made statements with the intent to mislead others. They are cheaters, but not liars.

Source: Pixabay

Liars But Not Cheaters

What about lying without cheating? Let’s say I run in a marathon and come in 573rd place. I followed all of the rules. I did not cheat. However, if I tell you that I came in first place in the race, I have lied. I’m not a cheater, but I am definitely a liar.

Cheaters and Liars

It is also possible for a particularly dishonest person to both cheat and lie. Back at the marathon, someone could cheat by taking a shortcut that let them finish in third place, and then they could go home and tell everyone that they came in first place. They are both a liar and a cheat.

New Findings about Cheaters and Liars

In a recent study, researchers from Spain and the United States carried out a study examining the dishonesty profiles of people playing a coin toss game. In the game, participants at home flipped a virtual coin via a website. They then reported to the researcher whether the coin had come up heads or tails. If it came up heads, they won six dollars. If it came up tails, they received only one dollar. What the participants didn’t know was that the researchers were secretly tracking the data from the website so they would know how the coin toss actually turned out. The researchers could see if the coin came up heads or tails. So what did they find?

Source: Pixabay

Excluding the people who actually won the coin toss, we can examine how the others performed. 37% of people who lost the coin toss honestly reported their loss. They played the game fairly and were honest. They were non-liars and non-cheater. Another 7% played fairly but lied about their results. They followed the rules and lost the coin toss, but then lied and said that they had won. Another 7% cheated. They were supposed to flip the coin only once, but they continued to flip it until the coin finally came up heads. They then honestly said that the coin came up heads. They were cheaters but not liars. Finally, there were the most dishonest people- the cheaters and liars. These people didn’t even bother to flip the coin (cheaters), yet claimed that the coin came up heads (liars). The researchers referred to this group as the “radically dishonest.”

If You are a Cheater You are Probably a Liar Too

So it appears that most people are either honest or they are not. They either behave forthrightly, or they go all-in with both cheating and lying. Perhaps once someone crosses the threshold of one type of dishonesty it makes it easy to be unscrupulous in other ways. To answer the original question of whether you are a liar or a cheater, it seems that if you either a liar or a cheater, you are probably both.