Emma Levine

And I think this is the tension that comes with lying.

We could argue that this was the right lie to tell, that it successfully promoted the U.S.

interests and avoided a lot of harm, but it's never without some long-term cost.

And in this case, the cost is trust, trust in what your leaders are telling you.

Well, I think it's emphasized everywhere.

Children growing up with religion often learn about the Ten Commandments that emphasize rules about avoiding deception.

Parents tell this to their children.

Corporate codes of conduct frequently emphasize integrity and honesty.

So we see this everywhere, particularly in the U.S., where we think a lot about the freedom of speech, which in part promotes honesty, that we should always be engaging in truthful discourse and speech.

It is a paradox, and it's very confusing.

And this is kind of the nuance that we have to figure out every day of our lives from a very young age, right?

You tell your children, never lie, and then they hear you telling their sibling to tell their grandmother they love this gift that they hate.

And we're just puzzling and fumbling our way through when, in reality, there are very clear situations underlying the exceptions.

We just don't say them out loud that much.

We've run a lot of these studies in which we're trying to manipulate and think about what changes our fundamental judgment of lying.

And so in this particular situation, we're trying to play with the fragility of the target.

So as you stated, right, the employee has turned in a report.

The manager doesn't think it has been done well.

If you just ask, right, should

Hmm.