r/psychology • u/psych4you • 19h ago

When It Comes to Finding a Liar, Honesty Isn't Enough

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-at-any-age/202504/when-it-comes-to-finding-a-liar-honesty-isnt-enough
100 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

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u/gayjicama 17h ago

This article makes me think of Lucy Letby. A number of people at the hospital she worked at had an extremely difficult time thinking of her as a threat to the babies she took care of.

And her personality (or persona) showed a number of the qualities that people confused with honesty: “content, selfless, intelligent, and sociable.” I wonder how this played into how people evaluated her.

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u/EmergencyCat235 11h ago

If you haven't noticed, there is a lot of scepticism re: her conviction. I'm afraid she may actually be innocent. Which is horrific... this would be even more horrific than a baby killer on the loose, tbh. It would be a complete failure of the hospital and justice systems.

Former Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Sumption: Why I believe Lucy Letby is probably innocent:

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u/gayjicama 10h ago

There’s also a lot of evidence of her guilt. I listened to the whole Daily Mail podcast and I’m pretty convinced (and so is the UK criminal justice system)

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u/EmergencyCat235 10h ago edited 10h ago

I was convinced as well. It certainly is true that some people are unable to revise their opinions or change their beliefs, even in light of new information. Just human nature, I guess.

Article - Lucy Letby's case has been torn apart by the world's greatest minds. Yet those who believe she shouldn't be retried all spout the same old tripe...

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u/gayjicama 9h ago

I’m happy to revise my opinion based on new evidence, not new interpretations of the current evidence.

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u/EmergencyCat235 9h ago

The 'new interpretations of current evidence' and scepticism of the safety of this conviction aren't coming from lay people. The people who are now speaking up can't be brushed aside as 'trouble makers' or 'conspiracy theorists'. These people have better things to do than defend a baby killer, unless they felt it was their duty to speak up. They also have reputations to consider, have made themselves vulnerable to professional and public scrutiny, and I don't believe they would be speaking out unless they felt they had to. There are too many different professionals casting doubt on critical aspects of this case to ignore.

There is potentially a miscarriage of justice here. The jury may not have found her guilty beyond reasonable doubt if it had seen the whole picture, and I think it's worth showing a jury the whole picture. A retrial is necessary

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u/gayjicama 8h ago

I’m absolutely fine with a retrial if the evidence points to it. I know her defense is releasing a packet of arguments in a few days and I’ll definitely be curious to read it.

But even if the method or the circumstances of one specific death are called into question, I would need a lot more information than that to be convinced that she had absolutely nothing to do with any of the babies, A through Q.

There’s so much information in this case partially due to the number of babies involved. If people are forming their opinions just from the op-eds calling for retrials, I urge you to research the details of the trial and all the charges as well — they’re just as important, and include a lot of information the response pieces leave out

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u/Ravada 5h ago

Daily Mail isn't a great source of information in the UK mate.. It's a joke.. Please don't tell me your evidence is from there.

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u/EmergencyCat235 11h ago

Podcast - The Other Side of Lucy Letby: Yet More Lunatics Speak Out

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u/gayjicama 10h ago

Couldn’t make it through the Covid rant. Is there a relevant part of the podcast I should listen to?

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u/EmergencyCat235 10h ago edited 10h ago

It's hardly a rant - the host (a GP) is talking about how that judge pointed out that Sweden had no lock downs and compared the results to countries that did use lock downs as a response. No difference in morbidity and mortality.

In fact, he's using that as an example that this judge is someone who isn't afraid to speak up when there are things he feels need to be questioned/analysed/examined more closely.

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u/MrBarret63 19h ago

Summary please!

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u/psych4you 19h ago

Here is an AI summary of the article:

The article discusses research by Caleb Reynolds and colleagues on the complexities of honesty and how to identify a liar. It explains that honesty includes being direct, not stealing or cheating, and keeping promises, in addition to telling the truth. The research involved a "prototype analysis" across five studies to determine what people truly mean by "honest." The article concludes that focusing on truthfulness, rather than being distracted by other seemingly honest behaviors, is key to spotting a liar.

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u/oneswishMcguire 18h ago

The arti le goes on to explain that "truthfulness" is the central factor in determining honesty. Not stealing and being direct are secondary traits associated with honesty.

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u/MrBarret63 19h ago

Interesting, thank you! :)

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u/antagonizerz 17h ago

Be me, born with emotional blindness. Spend my entire life studying facial and body cues as well as reading every text book on the subject as per my psychologist. Get better at recognizing emotions but also recognize that people have 'ticks' when they're not being truthful. Realize that people lie constantly, and for stupid reasons.

I'm pretty good at recognizing emotions in people now and can do it automatically about 50% of the time.

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u/Cognitiventropy 12h ago

I'd like to know a little bit more.. were you diagnosed with psychopathy, autism or something similar?

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u/wittor 9h ago edited 8h ago

The article misleads the reader into thinking truthfulness is a personal characteristic when in fact truthfulness, as the article describes, is patently a subjective feeling, and a feeling that can be manipulated.
It mistakenly equates to know someone is lying with attributing trustworthiness to a person.

And I know this is not the scope of the article nor the (I hope) better research it is based. But imagine when they discover how a person being mistaken can affect the perception of their trustworthiness.

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u/Ok-Advance101 17h ago

Tell me more please

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u/Prawn_Mocktail 15h ago edited 15h ago

I think honesty as a stand-alone doesn’t necessarily connect with benevolence. Some people give signals of kindness and compassion and can approach situations knowing they are hurting people, acknowledging this but not acting to minimize this. They are honest in that they are direct and request things from people that can be said no to, it’s just that they ask people who are less likely to say no, by virtue of them having appalling self-esteem and being very emotionally reliant on them. 

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u/gayjicama 13h ago

I think this article is basically saying the same thing, but reversed: that traits associated with benevolence don’t actually tell us how honest someone is, and can cloud our judgment when we try to assess “honesty.”

It makes sense that it would also have a reversed effect like you describe

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u/Stunning-River989 54m ago

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