Honesty is a quality highly valued by society. As children we are taught that we should not lie, but we are also taught how to lie. We learn that some lies can offer interesting benefits, and that they don’t always come true, so in the end they are not such a bad option.
Being honest is not the same as saying what people want to hear or saying in such a way what we want, think and think we make someone else feel bad. Sometimes the intention of the truth-teller is not to tell the truth, but to use it as an act of aggression or vanity, or simply to vent anger, which he justifies under the heading of honesty.
In general, however, honesty is not only a great virtue, but it can also provide great benefits. Our relationships with other people improve enormously when we are honest. And if we are honest ourselves, we can also expect honesty in return, which prevents misunderstandings. But on top of all this, honesty also has a positive effect on health. Below we discuss three reasons why.
1. Being honest improves your self-esteem
A study conducted by psychologist Robert S. Feldman at the University of Massachusetts revealed that people in a conversation lie about once every ten minutes. He also concluded that the main reason people lie is to appear kinder or more capable than they really are. In other words, they do it to be liked and admired by others.
Based on this research, other experts have argued that such lies are mainly used to hide reality from certain people. The reason is that deep down, people see their life and way of being as uninteresting, making them think it’s not worth the recognition of others.
The interesting thing about all this is that authenticity is one of the most valued and admired character traits. This means that the more sincere a person is when he talks about himself and his way of being, the more likely he is to gain the sympathy and admiration of others. All this contributes to an increase in self-esteem, which keeps the cycle going: more sincerity, more acceptance, increased self-esteem.
2. Honesty Reduces Anxiety
The problem with lying is that it never ends with one lie. If you tell someone you’re a rock star, for example, you’ll have to make up a hundred other lies to make the first one believable. For the person who lies, the worst thing that can happen is to get caught.
The liar must therefore not only have a good imagination, but probably also spend a lot of time keeping his story accurate in order not to be caught lying. He needs a very good memory to avoid contradictions in his story.
This will cost the liar an awful lot emotionally, which sooner or later will manifest as stress and anxiety. He must always be alert so as not to get confused, which only adds to the tension.
If you are honest, you will never have to carry this heavy burden. You don’t have to come up with explanations, or spend time enriching your story with details to make it believable. This allows you to be more relaxed and behave more naturally, avoiding that huge waste of emotional energy that you can now spend on more important things.
3. An inquiry into fairness and health
Doctor Anita E. Kelly, a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Templeton Foundation, conducted a study to examine the effect of fairness on health.
To do this, she gathered 72 volunteers who she divided into two groups. One group was instructed to be completely honest in all their conversations, while the other group was instructed not to be honest at all. The group that had to be honest was especially not allowed to lie, even about apparently small or unimportant things. The exercise lasted five weeks.
During these five weeks, the health of the volunteers from both groups was monitored and the volunteers underwent a weekly lie detector test. When the experiment was over, a clear difference was observed in the health of those who had been honest and those who had lied.
The first group experienced less headache, sore throat, nausea and dizziness than before the study, while the second group experienced no change in these symptoms.
The results were so encouraging that even the researcher decided to be completely honest over the coming winter. She noted that she needed less sleep to feel fully rested, and that she hadn’t caught a cold, something that normally always bothers her in cold weather.
Why do we trust other people?
