30 Times People's White Lies Totally Backfired On Them

Drizzho told Bored Panda they came up with the idea to ask Redditors this question when analyzing their own behavior. "I was thinking about a white lie I told as a child that backfired on me maybe a year later," they explained.

But ultimately, "Lying is normal. Though most people don't tell any lies on a given day, when we track people's lying over time, we find that over a three-month span, 99% of them report lying," psychologist and co-author of 'Big Liars' Dr. Christian L. Hart also told Bored Panda.

For example, a study of 1,000 Americans published in 2010 discovered that 59.9% claimed not to have told a single lie in the 24 hours prior, and of those who confessed to lying, most said they'd told very few.

In total, 1,646 lies were reported; however, half of them came from just 5.3% of the participants. This illustrates Dr. Hart's sentiment and highlights that lying is usually rare, except in a small group of prolific liars. Since the paper was released, its findings have been replicated numerous times.

It also appears that changing conditions don't add too much variance. Research by David Markowitz from the University of Oregon showed that people seem to lie systematically, and whether the communication is happening face-to-face, via email, social media, texting, video chat, or phone, the rates are very similar — between 7.8 and 12.3 percent.

"Many people report that the purpose of their lie is innocent or benign," Dr. Hart told us. "They lie to spare someone's feelings, to spare themselves from embarrassment, or just as a matter of convenience."

"Their lies are not intended to take advantage of anyone. Only a minority of lies are told for malevolent reasons."

Drizzho thinks we shouldn't write someone off if we catch them in a "little" lie, as sometimes we do so even if we're talking about the most trivial things. Especially children.

Dr. Hart agrees. "Since we know that everyone lies from time to time, we should probably continue to trust people whose lies we detect," the psychologist said, reiterating that it's the intent we should be aware of.

"If we notice that someone is lying a lot or if their lies are selfish and malevolent, we should probably reconsider whether they deserve our trust."

So if no one got hurt and the person you caught lying wasn't trying to affect your life in any negative way, perhaps it's best to just move past it. After all, we'd like others to do the same for us, too.

Signing off, Drizzho also asked if we could help and add a link to their cat's medical fundraiser, so if you want to read up on three-year-old Apollo's condition, visit the boy's GoFundMe here.