Key points
- Honesty is a complex quality that is thought, in some personality theories, to be associated with humility.
- A new study uses people’s own ratings to show that truthfulness is at the heart of honesty.
- Don’t be distracted by the qualities that go with honesty when trying to spot a liar; look to find the truth.
Being able to determine who’s lying and who isn’t is one of the most important communication skills you can have. The seemingly honest person who’s spinning a web of lies can trap you just as easily as the person who strikes you as sketchy. The longer you know someone, the better you can be at spotting their deception, but many situations in life involve gauging the words and/or actions of a stranger.
Take the common experience in which you’re shopping for a new outfit. It’s in the salesperson’s best interest to make the sale, and in some cases, a more expensive purchase benefits them more than a deeply discounted one. You, however, need an honest opinion. Lacking this person’s backstory, you need to figure out some other way to get direction than just relying on their words.
There are lower stakes in this situation than in others where judgments of honesty could have more significant consequences. Think about politicians who promise glorious results if you vote for them but who, once elected, turn their back on their constituents. What did you, and maybe thousands or millions of others, miss in what now seem like obvious clues?
The Honesty-Humility Trait in Personality Theory
One of the two most prominent contemporary personality theories is the HEXACO model, in which the “H” stands for “honesty-humility.” Proponents of this theory argue that the truly honest have an inherent inability to lie. Whether salesperson or politician, such an individual would be virtually incapable of steering people in the wrong direction…