Published 2013-05-01T06:00:00Z”/>
Kevin Crittenden
Lies are like internal, invisible parasites. But they don’t just suck the honesty from everyday interactions. They also add to anxiety, stress and restaurant tabs.
We’ve all heard the myth of the harmless white lie. But while there may be a place for a well-timed omission or narrative embellishment, white lies can be a lingering detriment.
When we do this, it wastes money and causes unnecessary stress.
As consumers, we sometimes go out to eat. Food service employees ask, “Is everything all right?”
If there’s some dissatisfaction that doesn’t seem worth fussing over, most people won’t speak up. In this case, the omission of a legitimate complaint constitutes a white lie.
No big deal, right? Lies like these rarely resurface in a restaurant interaction.
Well, a consumer behavior study shows those who are ineffective complainers are more likely to leave bigger tips, according to Jennifer Argo and Baba Shiv from the Journal of Consumer Research.
This is a result of cognitive dissonance which involves “situations in which our actions do not match our beliefs, creating a state of psychological and emotional discomfort,” according to psychologist Guy Winch, who has been working in private practice since 1992 and has written extensively about the benefits of effective complaining.
People want their actions to match up with their stated experience. When they tip big after lying, it’s as if they’re saying, “Yes, everything was grand. Let me prove it: Please, take extra money.”
Customers can either bury their unvoiced dissatisfaction with cash or convince themselves the meal was indeed above average, without bugs in the food, and therefore tip decently.
Of course, eating out entails a range of experience between excellent and awful. Anybody who complains every time loses credibility and dining company.
However, being able to complain effectively is a skill that affords a foodie room to correct any mistakes and preserves a consumer’s internal integrity.
When we lie to ourselves in this way it’s often a reaction, an unconscious reflex, not a money-grubbing plan to snub hard-working food service people.
While a common mistake like this might seem insignificant, lying in social situations outside of a restaurant where friends, family and acquaintances know you personally can be toxic.
Lying is bad for your health because it takes substantial cognitive energy. Where the truth has a natural place in your memory, a lie has to be fed repeatedly to keep it separate from what actually happened.
Various fictional plot lines for different relationships need to be sustained under close guard with fresh layers of B.S., to seal in falsehood, or else the deceiver is exposed.
Not to mention, people are generally pretty instinctive when it comes to sniffing out a fib. Failure to make eye contact or changing the subject of conversation are common-sense cues hinting something might be off.
Lying may have cost Pinocchio a freakish facial disfigurement, but for us there are real consequences.
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<strong>Kevin Crittenden can be reached at </strong><a href=”mailto:[email protected]”><em>[email protected]</em></a>
