Teenagers Likely To Be Most Successful Fibbers, Study

Teenagers tend to be the likeliest to lie compared to others in their age groups, and are also the "quickest and most successful fibbers" says the first study that maps deception across a lifespan, according to hngn.

Scientists at the University of Amsterdam examined the age-related differences in "lying proficiency and lying frequency". They surveyed 1,005 people between the ages of 6 and 77 years at the city's Science Centre NEMO.

Participants were asked a number of fundamental general knowledge questions to find out their lying frequency, and also were given a reaction time-based deception task to identify their lying proficiency.

In the first test, the research team discovered that teenagers were the "quickest and most accurate liars". They also admitted that they told an average of 2.8 lies in the last 24 hours.

The worst and least frequent liars were children aged 6 to 8 years and people above 60 years.

Hence, the conclusions took an inverted U-shaped bell-curve, with lying proficiency and frequency shooting up when children enter adolescence, and then coming down.

So there is an "important age-related difference in deception" which "generally fit with the U-shaped pattern of age-related changes observed in inhibitory control," said the team.

There is low inhibitory control, or preventing attentional or behavioral responses for teenagers, said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Thus, they tend to suppress the truth, compared to other age groups.

As earlier studies show that the trait is difficult to assess or measure, it should be carefully monitored.

The study was recently published in the journal Acta Psychologica.