Very often it's conflict avoidance

Like if your parent / teacher / boss goes ballistic because you fucked up, you're not likely to tell them you fucked up again. If this pattern starts when you're younger especially it tends to ripple out through the rest of your life

This can be frustrating because it appears irrational. Then again, so is life

I said to a psychologist one time "it seems to me people tacitly accept other peoples lies because it validates their own", although that doesnt explain why people lie in the first place. The psych agreed.

Back in the day, I had an aquaintance with a guy who was a thief. One day I asked him why and he declared "because Im smarter than they are!". He was refering to the store clerks. It wasnt even about sticking to the man, it was a simple real-time mania of ego, outwit the clerks. High narcissism. He ended up in the business of custom theivery but I dont think that worked out very well.

In my perhaps unorthodox view it is a projected fear-based-tauma potentially from past lives, that seeps into the present when we are not aware of the returning fear, that can speak on behalf of us or have temporary access to our vehicle. We have more than one body in which illness can attach more subtly if allowed.

We all start life here afflicted, one way or another. It is consistent focus on conscientiousness that bestows conscious awareness of the bundle of afflictions in their complexity that allows a stoic harmony, in body and soul to be as we are now and forever more no matter what.

TL; DR

Attacks of fear can have a person abandon themselves, which feeds the fear to be intelligent enough to see a next opportunity another time.

So I have had this obsession with truth my whole life. Ultimately big truth but down to truth in general. I feel truth and falsehood are antithecal in more than just the obvious way. Its kinda like kastanzas line from seinfeld about it not being a lie if you believe it. You see it with trump. In order to lie you have to in some ways believe it yourself. The more you lie. The better you lie. The more you have to convince yourself its really true in some way. I personally believe this in all things. If you kill, regardless of reason, you are going to be a killer. Maybe not as much of a killer as someone who premediates on a complete innocent but repetition is going to pile on. Same with stealing and such. Im digressing here a bit but essentially for some people lying becomes so much a part of who they are that they do it for the smallest of reasons some of which only makes sense in their head. Its kinda funny because honest people (like ones obssessed with truth) will get a lotta flak for not just telling a white lie.

There's lots of reasons. Avoiding conflict, avoiding accountability, fear of retribution, self-delusion, acts of retribution or sociopathically WANTING to hurt people, apathy, social acceptance, the fact that people don't care what the truth is as long as they don't have to do anything they're happy. Greed, gluttony, lust, indifference, envy, pride, wrath... trying to pin down precise motivations is complicated.

Because it can give you an advantage.

Story time:

I once messed with the sim lock thing and accidentally lock it ( mean y'all know the sim pin lock and pul lock thing?), and my mom didnt notice it yet, and I felt scared, but at the same time was thinking "maybe if I just come clean and apologize, everything would be fine!", you know, how tv portrays western parents.

Oh well big mistake, I forgot I was Asian. So I told my mom and she instantly ~~transformed into a tiger and devoured me (figuratively)~~ yelled at me and said a bunch of thing like 無鬼用 (useless) 搞破壞 (troublemaker?) and the 食嘢唔做嘢做嘢打爛嘢 (all you do is eat and contribute nothing and when you do try to do something you break everything). Oh keep in mind I was like no older than 11 at the time. 😭

I actually cried like a baby. So yeah, I thinkg that's pretty much the turning point where I learned a thing about the adult world.

I should've just never mentioned a thing and just blamed it on "technical issues" when she eventually tries to make a call.

So many great answers, and they are all different yet accurate!

Another contradiction I've found (and is reflected in a lot of the answers) is that everyone SAYS that they want people to tell them the truth, but when we actually do tell them the truth, they turn into a tiger and devour us, or a similar negative reaction. We request the truth, but at the same time, we psychologically train everyone around us to lie to us.

I'd go as far as to claim that lying is virtually always unnecessary. People are quick to come up with examples where they think it's the right thing to do, yet when you ask these people when they themselves would rather hear lies than the truth I usually get nothing.

Lying to "not hurt someone" implies that you consider yourself a better judge of this person's ability to manage their emotions. That's not how you treat an adult, especially one you pretend to respect and care about.

However, not lying isn't synonymous with radical honesty either. No need to tell everything that's on your mind - just don't say something you know to not be true. If grandma's cooking isn't to your liking you probably don't need to insult her for it if she asks. I'm sure you can come up with something more diplomatic. If rudeness and insults are the "truth" then than perhaps reflects more on you than on them.

Lieing is easy. Telling the truth is hard. People in general suck.

Honestly, most of the time the people who are lying beleive there is a slim chance they can safely navigate the situation with minimal harm to themselves and/or others even without divulging the truth. Which is actually accurate a lot of the time, in theory at least.

That said, most people do not actually have the intelligence to finesse a situation effectively when in the constraints of their lies. Most lies are sloppy or imperfect and most liers are not intelligent enough to handle the strategic part of lying.

In some cases, some might have a hard time accepting the truth, so they manufacture a lie because they want to believe the lie.

some people are really creative~ and are born story tellers. gotta make use of that skill~

Because I didn't want to work today on (U.S.) Veteran's Day.

Human psychology.

Some people lie because its fun

because it's easier

and telling the truth generally makes people hate you and think you're an asshole, because the expectation is you should lie to make people feel good as much as you possibly can. and rarely does telling the truth feel good for anyone.