The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [30]
• Theirreasons and explanations (“I told everyone at work I was late because I had car trouble”; “I told him I didn’t take out our garbage because I didn’t know where to take it”)
There were some big lies scrawled in participants’ lie diaries, but not enough to satisfy our perverse interest. So in the next set of studies, we asked people to tell us specifically about the most serious lie they ever told and the most serious lie anyone ever told to them. In response, we heard stories of far more consequential transgressions, though no one confessed to murder. We learned about many adulterers, people who lied about the severity of an illness (their own or someone else’s), some who lied to almost everyone around them about their sexual identity, and much more.
The stereotype we have of liars is that they are crass, materialistic, exploitative, and uncaring. They want something—such as a better grade, a better job, money, or sex—and they will lie to get it. Although liars like that do exist, after studying thousands of lies, big and small, one thing became very clear to me: Lies told merely to fulfill immediate crass desires are the exceptions.
Instead, ordinary humans usually tell lies because they care. They care about what other people think of them. They want other people to think they are a daring ski jumper and not a couch potato. They don’t want others to know that they were late for work because they are so disorganized that they couldn’t get out the door on time. They don’t want a potential employer to realize how little they actually know—not just because that would undermine their chance of getting the job, but also because they might appear to be the kind of person who would put a patient at risk just to get a paycheck. That hit to their reputation would hurt.
Ordinary people also lie because they care about other people’s feelings and reputations. If that college student had told her boyfriend the truth about how she really felt about him—that she never even thinks about him—he would have been devastated. Even though she is not attracted to him, she doesn’t want to wound him. People who lie to minimize the seriousness of their own illness or that of a beloved relative or friend are often trying to spare others from worry. It would be hard to argue that adulterers are not trying to satisfy their own needs and desires—and I’m not going to try. Sometimes, though, there is more at stake than the opportunity to continue their romps undeterred. Telling the truth about their transgressions would ruin their reputation and hurt the person who should have been the sole recipient of their intimacies. Some adulterers actually do care about both.
Dexter lies about some of the same kinds of things that the rest of us do. For example, he tells many lies about his actions, plans, and whereabouts; about what he knows and doesn’t know; and about why he does some things and not others. His underlying motives, though, are simpler. Ultimately, all of his lies are told in the service of one goal—hiding who he really is and what he really does, so he can continue to do it. At times Dexter pretends to care about how other people feel and what they think of his skills and his character, but that’s only because he has to fake all that to get away with his killing. Psychologically, that puts Dexter on a whole different planet from Deb, Rita, LaGuerta, Angel, Masuka, and you and me. As non-psychopathic humans, we almost can’t help but care what others think of us.
The Dexter Morgan Show: The Writer/Director Tries to Make It Unremarkable
Dexter is the writer, producer, star cast member, and director of The Dexter Morgan Show. Like The Truman Show, it is a program that (almost) never goes off the air. Unlike every other person in show business, though, Dexter wants his performance to be utterly unremarkable. He wants viewers to turn away in boredom—nothing to see here. That’s because the first step in getting away with a lie is to make sure that the question of whether or