Gini Graham Scott - Lies and Liars: How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How You Can Detect and Deal with Them

Copyright 2016 by Gini Graham Scott

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo : iStockphoto

ISBN: 978-1-63450-382-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-388-4

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

G ini Graham Scott has published over fifty books with mainstream publishers, focusing on social trends, work and business relationships, and personal and professional development. Some of these books include Internet Book Piracy (Allworth Press 2016), Scammed (Skyhorse Publishing 2016), The New Middle Ages (Nortia Press 2015), Turn Your Dreams Into Reality (Llewellyn 2015), The Very Next New Thing (ABC-Clio 2010), The Talk Show Revolution (ASJA Press 2008), The Privacy Revolution (ASJA Press 2008, previously published as Mind Your Own Business: The Battle for Personal Privacy , Plenum 1995), and Fantasy Worlds (ASJA Press 2007, previously published as The Power of Fantasy , Carol Publishing 1994).

Scott has gained extensive media interest for previous books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, Montel Williams, CNN, and hundreds of radio interviews. She has frequently been quoted by the media and has set up websites to promote her most recent books, featured at www.ginigrahamscott.com and www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com.

She has become a regular Huffington Post blogger since December 2012 and has a Facebook page featuring her books and films at www.facebook.com/changemakerspublishing. Her articles and blogs about social issues and everyday life are also featured on her blog at www.ginigrahamscott.com/blog.

She has written, produced, and sometimes directed over sixty short videos, which are featured on her Changemakers Productions website at www.changemakersproductions.com and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/changemakersprod. Several recent short videos dealing with social issues are being pitched for development into full-length films. These include: Forgive Our Taxes , The Middle Class Homeless , The Truth About Lying , and Internet Book Piracy . Her full-length feature film The Suicide Party #Save Dave is being released in 2016; her second feature Driver is in production with Dear Skyyler Productions for release in 2017.

She has a PhD in sociology from U.C. Berkeley and MAs in Anthropology, Pop Culture and Lifestyles, Mass Communications and Organizational/Consumer/Audience Behavior, and Recreation and Tourism from Cal State, East Bay. She is working towards an additional MA there in Communications.

Additional bio and promotional material is at her websites at www.ginigrahamscott.com and www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com.

INTRODUCTION

I hadnt intended to write a book about sociopathic liars. But after I spent two years living in L.A. to get into the film business, I found myself drawn into the web of a woman Ill call Sylvia who claimed she could produce and direct my script. She continually lied about it for five years, until I discovered the truth. At the same time, she victimized an associate, Rick, after she and her partner shot a film for him in another country and refused to give him the film. When he called me to declare Sylvia and her partner were criminals, she told me increasingly bizarre stories about Ricks connections to a criminal underworld that were after her and her partner, so she feared for her life and put the film under lock and key.

At the time, I believed her. How could someone who presented herself as a successful producer invent such stories? But in time, as explanations and excuses mounted about the delay in editing my film, I began to question and finally doubt her. When I spoke to others from the cast and crew, I uncovered an extensive pattern of secrets and lies, and I realized I had missed many warning signs along the way. I had become the victim of a sociopathic liar, as had my business associate and many cast and crew members.

This experience inspired my research into sociopathic liars, who are at the extreme end of a continuum of liars, and according to varying research accounts represent about 14 percent of the population. A higher perspective of sociopaths may be in certain fields, where there is pressure to gain success, so deception and trickery may be part of ones repertoire to achieve this end.

In 1994, I published a book called The Truth About Lying about how and why people lie and how to detect and deal with their lies. That book was inspired by several people lying to me in various business dealings, and in writing the book, I developed a Lie-Q Test to score people on the how much they lied. This led to a continuum of liars in four major categoriesthe self-proclaimed Model of Absolute Integrity who almost never lies, the Real Straight Shooter who normally doesnt lie, and the Pragmatic Fibber and Real Pinocchio, with a greater aptitude for lying. These four categories included almost everyoneand everyone liesand for most people, lying was largely a practical way to get along in the world and have better relationships with others. Virtually no one was a compulsive or sociopathic liar.

After my book published, lying became even more common and acceptable after President Clinton put the face of a popular politician on everyday lying due to accusations about the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998. Initially he protested I did not have sex with THAT woman, though ultimately Clinton came clean and followed these revelations with an apology tour, which put him back in the nations good graces. In turn, this saga of lying and forgiveness increased public awareness about lying and led to a new interest in lying, generally from books and articles about detecting lies and those revealing the extent of lying in public and political life.

Later, reality TV and game shows like Survivor and Big Brother helped to make lying not only acceptable but a necessary strategy to win the game through manipulating others and lying when necessary to remain on the show. The winning approach was lying strategically to create alliances while betraying others and offending the least number of people who might vote against one in the end.

Yet, while everyday lying has become more common and acceptable, there is a great distinction between pragmatic, socially acceptable lies and the big lies which become a crime and result in deep public scornas in the Bernie Madoff case, or the frequent and guiltless lies of a sociopath, which harm others. Such a sociopath is commonly charming and articulate, so it can be hard to detect the lies, which makes it more devastating when the lies are uncovered, after a close personal or long-term business relationship. These lies can be especially harmful when they lead unaware victims to actions based on these lies, such as by investing or loaning large sums of money based on false assurances and promises.