Lying and falsehoods pose major problems in the criminal justice system, contributing to wrongful convictions.

Dissimulation and falsehood in the natural world promote survival in many species.

Dissociative factors in human psychology may contribute to dissimulation and its justification.

Understanding the dissociative psychological context of dissimulation may help to fight against it.

Lying and falsehoods create a tremendous problem for the criminal justice system, resulting in large numbers of wrongful convictions (National Registry of Exonerations, 2025), despite the extreme legal consequences of perjury. The problem of dissimulation is significant in other areas, as well; the majority of people polled by the Pew Research Center believe that government communications and business advertising are filled with deliberately misleading or false information (Pew Research Center, 2025).

The Ubiquity of Falsehood Is Strange

Granted, the liar may gain a short-term advantage in any given case, but once you’re exposed as a liar, future victims would have to be awfully dissociated, psychologically, to believe you any further. Lies are frequently detected, presumably to the disadvantage of the liars. Why are humans so ready to dissimulate?

Falsehoods or the equivalent are ubiquitous in the natural world. For creatures that live moment to moment, falsehoods may prove entirely advantageous; dissimulation may have no long-term consequences, especially if those creatures and their conspecifics possess shorter or less sophisticated memories than their human counterparts. For example, some female fireflies give off mating signals to lure the males, after which they eat the males without a shred of the promised romance. Certain cuttlefish change their color and configuration to mimic females, preventing the need to fight or........

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