Academics aren't the only ones prone to a touch of fabulism; we all are, just less dramatically.

Some people invent entire identities and keep the act going for decades without cracking.

The psychology behind extreme lying has very little to do with confidence.

Jason Arday has dominated the British news media this week. I cannot remember a story building this fast, breaking news of fresh tidbits in the ongoing saga of the Cambridge professor whose version of events has come under sustained and very public challenge. The reality is that academics have always been known to suffer from a touch of fabulism. As an academic myself, I can understand the temptation to big up your research a bit, if only to stand out in an overcrowded and highly competitive arena. Arday isn't the first or last person to over-inflate a CV, and the phenomenon has always intrigued me. Not in the way the right have glommed onto it, like manna from heaven: Look, see, DEI gone mad! I'm more intrigued by why someone would stretch the truth to that extent.

Why Do Fabulists Deceive?

Fabulists have always fascinated me. Usually, a sense of fear or shame stops us from spinning elaborate fairy stories to impress others, and we grow out of it in childhood. I recall telling everyone in my class as a child that I had not one, but two full-size Olympic swimming pools and a pony at home. But why do others carry the habit into adulthood? Are they not afraid of getting caught out? The thing with Arday is that some of the claims attributed........

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