A poll of a wide selection of UK adults found of those who admit to lying, 42 per cent consider themselves to be convincing fibres. Although a further 43 per cent admit they struggle to tell believable miss-truths.
Other frequently told lies include making out you spent less on something than you really did and pretending to enjoy a meal you didn’t particularly like. The biggest reasons for lying include not wanting to offend others by revealing what they really think (52 per cent), keeping people onside (34 per cent), and avoiding a telling-off (32 per cent).
Commissioned by Uber Eats, the only food ordering service to deliver Honest Burgers, the research found 51 per cent, of the 2000 polled, feel guilty when they don’t tell the truth. And this might be with good reason – 42 per cent revealed a lie has come back to haunt them. Following the findings, a pop-up booth called ‘Tasty Truths’ will open to the public where they can confess their fibs – with those who do so receiving a free burger.
A spokesperson for Uber Eats:
“Honesty is a virtue, but as the research suggests it’s not always easy to come by. Although the reasons we’re dishonest are often for admirable or understandable reasons – like not wanting to hurt someone else’s feelings. But with so many people feeling burdened with their fibs to the point of feeling guilty, we hope the ‘Tasty Truths’ pop-up will go some way to alleviating such feelings.”
The study also found those polled are most likely to lie to a partner – with 46 per cent of those who admit to lying having done just that. Work colleagues (44 per cent) came second, followed by employers (36 per cent) – while 23 per cent confessed to fibbing to a police officer and 14 per cent to their child’s teacher.
Other frequent miss-truths include ‘I’m busy then’, ‘nice to see you’ and ‘I haven’t got any change’. The likes of ‘I’ve got no money’, ‘I got stuck in traffic’ and ‘I don’t know what happened there’ are also by no means rare occurrences.
Despite 80 per cent of everyone polled admitting to lying, 37 per cent believe it’s never okay to stray from the truth. And 50 per cent believe honesty is always the best policy. Carried out through OnePoll, the study found 71 per cent believe they can tell when someone else is being dishonest.
The ‘Tasty Truths’ pop-up will be in Liverpool on Thursday October 27 and London on Friday October 28 between 11:30 and 14:30 on both days.
Top 20 most common lies
- ‘I forgot’
- ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’
- ‘I am listening’
- ‘I’m busy then’
- ‘Nice to see you’
- ‘I haven’t got any change’
- ‘I’ve got no money’
- ‘I got stuck in traffic’
- ‘Don’t know what happened there’
- Not disclosing actual price of an item you purchased
- ‘I’m not very well’
- ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you’
- ‘That meal was nice’
- ‘I’ve got a headache’
- ‘The email went into my junk’
- ‘I had to work late’
- ‘The train/ bus was late’
- ‘I can’t/ couldn’t get any phone signal
- ‘I enjoy my job’
- ‘I like what you’re wearing’
