What's the evolutionary advantage of truth-telling?

Question

Telling the truth seems to be something that is deeply ingrained in the human psychology. When a person attempts to tell a lie, a number of physio-psychological reactions kick in which are very difficult to hide or suppress, such as nervous ticks, elevated heart rate, increase sweating, tendancy to execute small physical "tells" such as scratching the head or face, averting the eyes, rapid blinking etc.

Can such involuntary symptoms os lying be just a reaction to socially learned behaviour ("always tell the truth") or is it something much deeper ingrained? Has the human race evolved with an internal tendancy to tell the truth that must be overcome in order to be able to lie effectively? If so, what possible evolutionary advantage could there be to this bias towards telling the truth? From that, does it follow that an inability to lie easily would be a evolutionary disadvantage, and if so, why?

Answer 1

It has nothing to do with evolution.  God created us with the ten commandments innate and sin has caused us to forget those commandments to some extent but deep down we know between right and wrong because we are created that way.

Answer 2

The mind does not process negatives.

Like if I tell you not to picture an Elephant.

or DON'T see a black cat.  you can't help but see that black cat.

now lying to yourself is like trying to process a negative, your mind wont agree and conflicts will arise.

now the reactions we have when lying may be down to social behaviour i am not really sure, i do know that people who practice lying for a living can change their reactions with other reactions like instead of facial ticks, smiling or open gestures. lawyers do it all the time.

so the physical reactions can be changed, but the mind will always have problems with lies...its just the way the brain works

Answer 3

The ticks and signals of lying have to do with the brain coming up with the lie... not an innert need to tell the truth.  

People become nervous...and the eyes seem to stare at the part of the brain that is working:  look down if you are using the creative part of the brain... or you look up if you are trying to recall.

Truth telling is important in creating strong social bonds.  People will not make social bonds with you if they know you are a liar...you will not be trusted.  

Of course... many people are liars.  They live their life telling lie after lie.   So there are definetly evolutionary advantages to being a liar...

Answer 4

Physio-psychological reactions are well and good, but for most of the time humans have been interacting, very few people could read them well, and even then not perfectly.

Even modern behavioral sciences are incomplete in its understanding of human motivations.

There has always then been an interplay being varying capacities to lie and to detect lies.  Some lying has been and continues to be necessary however.

Humans are mostly truthful, but obviously some lying takes place to get along.  One can lie unselfishly to a loved one to spare feelings, or lie to someone threatening you to free yourself from their aggression.  

Clearly, there are situations where a lie can work to a liar's advantage in a selfish manner, such as to secure food or sexual partners.

But as humans are social creatures that rely on the cooperation and acceptance of their peers, a successful human has to be trusted within their group or risk exile, which was an almost certain death sentence in prehistoric times.

It's not like they could just go to the store for food.  Survival for a lone human is not close to being a certainty.

So we are geered towards innate truthfulness with a capacity for opportunistic lying, much like we are basically monogamous, but with a penchant for opportunistic philandering.

Human animals use their native intelligence to create enhanced survival opportunities.

Answer 5

Probably have an advantage when people know you are telling the truth and they dont know when you are lying.

Answer 6

If you are caught lying, people won't trust you.  Then you risk the consequences described in the story of the boy who called wolf.