Vojnosanit Pregl 2018; 75(2): 219–223.
VOJNOSANITETSKI PREGLED
Page 219 UDC: 159.98::616.89-008.453 https://doi.org/10.2298/VSP151213243D
CURRENT TOPIC
Pathological lying and tasks of psychological assessment Ciljevi psihološkog testiranja u proceni patološkog laganja Dragana Đurić Jočić*†, Nevenka Pavlicić‡, Vesna Gazivoda‡ Faculty of Media and Communications, *Department of Psychology, Belgrade, Serbia; Clinical Center of Serbia, †Clinical for Psychiatry, Belgrade, Serbia; Clinical Center of Montenegro, ‡Psychiatric Clinic, Podgorica, Montenegro
Key words: psychological tests; personality assessment; personality disorders; diagnosis differential; psychopathology.
Introduction According to Webster's dictionary ¹, the definition of the word lying has double content: a) a speaker claims something that he/she knows or believes to be untrue with intent to deceive, b) to create a false image or a wrong impression. It is essential that the speaker knows that the content is false and intends to deceive someone. Thus, people with delusional disorder cannot be considered pathological liars even though they do not tell the truth. Lying is human behavior that can have its own normal and pathological forms of appearance. In daily life, people lie most often about their true feelings, incomes, achievements, sex life, and age 2. If we have a look at everyday lies we can see the extent to which people use untruths in their communication considering them neither immoral nor subjecting such statements to moral judgement. „Normal“ and pathological lying There are individual differences among people in terms of frequency of lies, a degree of lies and objective they want to achieve. The motivation for lying is a result of complex mutual influences of conscious and unconscious contents. A lie is often generated from multiple sources 3: lying to avoid punishment, to preserve a sense of autonomy (“Others do not need to know everything") and identity ("I do not love myself as I am, I will become someone else who is more attractive"), then, lying as an act of aggression with intention to inflict damage to others, as a way of fulfilling the desire (people make up what they want to happen), or as a way of getting a sense of power over partner, doctor, etc. Sometimes
Ključne reči: psihološki testovi; ličnost, procena; ličnost, poremećaji; dijagnoza, diferencijalna; psihopatologija.
lies are told out of self-deception in order to boost and protect the suppression of self, as in the therapeutic process to prevent access to personal content related to the sense of personal weakness and failure. Lying may be motivated by the need to manipulate the behavior of others but also to help others. Lying is often motivated by the need for establishing self-esteem ("I'm not worth anything, so I have to lie to feel worthy or lovable"). Lying can be thought of as a defensive psychological strategy to protect a person from emotionally intense or traumatic events. If the events exceed the capacity of the person to deal with reality, they can use lies as a kind of fantasy and self-deception which falsifies reality, no matter if that reality is an everyday stress or some major life traumas. People who have experienced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to exposure to the war, pathological lying has the function of protecting their psychological integrity 4. This view emphasizes the role of lying in intrapsychic regulation, which is as important as the motivation directed towards external objectives – the person’s need to be socially accepted and wanted. When we face a patient who tells untruth, the question is: where is the line between "normal lying" (it is common to all people if they are exposed to certain circumstances) and "pathological lying"? Pathological lying is compulsive and impulsive, pervasive behavior of individuals (persistent and stable as a personality trait); its goal is not to achieve material gain and sometimes it has self-defeating quality (e.g. people lie even when it is harmful or dangerous for them, even in the judicial process) 5. Lying becomes pathological if it interferes with normal development or is destructive to the quality of life and environment of the person involved 5.
Correspondence to: Dragana Đurić Jočić, Faculty of Media and Communications, Department of Psychology, Šibenička 12, 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail: dragana.djuric.jocic@fmk.edu.rs