The Leo Burnett Advertising Agency ...

Illustration: The Leo Burnett advertising agency did a nationwide telephone survey a few years ago on lying, cataloging when we lie, how we lie and why we lie.

The results were interesting. Ninety-one percent of all Americans confessed that they regularly lied… One out of every five admitted that they couldn’t get through even one day without going along with a previously manufactured lie. Guess what the survey revealed that we lie about the most: our income, our weight, or our age? This is kind of funny, since you cannot conceal a weight problem. In second place was money, and third was our age. There was also a contender that came in fourth: our true hair color.

Now here’s what I found most intriguing about the study: People no longer seem to care about lying. We accept it. It doesn’t bother us. We don’t get upset when someone exaggerates, falsifies, fabricates, or misrepresents the truth…The study found that in the past, people thought lying was wrong. Now, almost half of all Americans say it isn’t.

(James Emery White, You Can Experience an Authentic Life (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), 121-122.)