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The internet remembers everything. Scroll back far enough, and you can usually spot the moment you were lied to—by a politician, a brand, a company, maybe even someone close to you. And yet, here we are. Still watching. Still buying. Still listening.
So why do we accept being lied to? Why don’t we walk away, call it out, or at least demand consequences?
With social media and now artificial intelligence (AI), lies come at us from every angle. One might assume that easy access to information would make lies easier to detect: We can compare statements, cross-reference sources, and verify facts within seconds. But most of the time, we don’t.
To understand why, we need to stop framing lying as a moral failure and start looking at it as a psychological defense.
1. We Tolerate Lies and Often Agree With Them
Consider food advertising. Fast-food burgers in ads look thick, juicy, and perfectly assembled. In reality, they are flatter, soggier, and smaller. Ice cream in commercials is often mashed potatoes or lard. Shampoo ads rely on lighting, extensions, and CGI. Hotel brochures show empty beaches and oversized rooms. We know this. And yet, you see the ad, and you feel hungry.
This isn’t stupidity—it’s cooperation.
What’s happening here is a form of willing suspension of disbelief. Much like watching a movie, we temporarily accept a distortion because it offers pleasure, comfort, or fantasy. The cost of challenging these lies is frustration and disappointment, and it often outweighs the benefit. So we cooperate.
From a psychological standpoint, this reflects what Avery Weisman called the difference between reality testing and reality sense.1 “This is real!” does not always equal “This is true.” Reality sense is emotional conviction, while reality testing is verification. An image can fail reality testing and still feel real enough to influence behavior. So, what feels good is good enough for our brain.
2. Narcissistic Lies and the Weight of Early Trauma
Not all lies are harmless. In narcissistic and manipulative family systems, lies are not decorative—they are structural.
Children may be told repeatedly that their perceptions are wrong, their emotions exaggerated, their needs inconvenient: “You’re too sensitive.” “That never happened.” “You’re imagining things.”
As adults, these individuals may intellectually recognize the manipulation. They can name narcissism, read about gaslighting, and even quote psychological literature. And yet, in moments of conflict, the old belief resurfaces: “Maybe I am overreacting.” The lie has been exposed, but the conviction remains.
Weisman wrote that belief doesn’t survive on facts alone. It survives on emotional certainty. “We believe only what we feel to be true. Emotional acceptance is more convincing than reason or reliable information.”1 If a belief once protected attachment or safety, it doesn’t disappear just because logic shows up.
This dynamic is visible in trauma bonding and gaslighting. A person may review messages, recordings, or TV images that clearly show deception, yet still feel uncertain. “I can see the proof,” clients often say, “but I’m still not convinced.” Evidence dismantles facts, but it does not automatically dismantle conviction.
Many unresolved inner conflicts are rooted in these protected self-lies. They once regulated pain. So, challenging them would require mourning losses the psyche might not be ready to face, as they are too traumatic to accept.
Oh, and by the way, this is why some people avoid therapy and are afraid to talk about their family in a negative light. They fear that if the inner and internalized family lies or protective fantasies are stripped away, there will be no structure left to support them.
3. Avoiding Conflicts
Calling out a lie usually creates trouble.
With others, it risks rejection, retaliation, or loss of belonging. Internally, it creates cognitive and emotional tension. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance explains this well: When knowledge clashes with behavior or group loyalty, people adjust their perception of truth to reduce discomfort.2
This is why lies often survive in families, couples, workplaces, and cultures. Reality is not discovered individually—it is co-constructed. What a group agrees to treat as real becomes real enough to act on. Silence becomes a form of loyalty to the group; it provides a sense of belonging. Challenging the shared narrative threatens attachment and invites criticism.
Weisman emphasized that reality testing emerges through frustration, but only when frustration is tolerable.1 When it becomes overwhelming, people retreat into distortion or alternative realities. From this perspective, tolerance to lying functions as a regulator of emotional pain.
This is why choosing the timing for confronting lies might be problematic. If done prematurely, it can backfire. If done belatedly, lies are forgotten, suppressed, and archived, so the conflict is avoided (but not resolved).
Conclusion
We tolerate a certain amount of deception because it often serves a purpose. It helps us preserve social life and inner comfort. It also protects us from emotional pain or from conflicts with others. Confronting the lies would cost more, at least in the short term, than letting them slip.
However, if we get too comfortable and our tolerance reaches beyond all limits, lies become chronic, relational, and identity-shaping. They erode trust—both in others and in ourselves. The cost is paid slowly: in anxiety, confusion, and fractured self-identity.
Children rely on truth to survive, because for an infant, a betrayal of trust by a caregiver is a kind of psychic catastrophe, a “little death.” We become more accustomed to breaches of trust as we grow up, yet our inner child remains vulnerable to repeated distortions of reality.
For this reason, holding lies accountable—first of all to ourselves, quietly and without confrontation—is an act of self-care, and the maintenance of a true view of reality.
