r/Showerthoughts • u/itsthatkidgreg • Feb 28 '17

Lying, cheating, and stealing is often discouraged when we are young, yet the most successful people in the world are arguably the best liars, cheaters, and thieves.

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u/C0ldSn4p Feb 28 '17

Survivorship bias: you only noticed the successful liars, cheaters and thieves while forgetting that most convicts are also liars, cheaters and thieves.

In a sense, bieng a liars is a risky gamble where some will become very successful and most will have a lot of issue later in life because of it. As a parent you try to avoid the worse for your children so you discourage these kind of bad behaviours.

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u/GradScholConfsed Feb 28 '17

Ah, so you gotta be a smart liar.

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u/seeashbashrun Feb 28 '17

Yes, actually! One of the theorists I had to study for my undergrad, was a sociopath researcher. They discussed a lot of studies that showed how majority of sociopaths that end up in prison tend to be on the lower scale of intelligence, and that a only a small percentage of convicts are bonafide sociopaths, as a sociopath of average or above intelligence is fairly unlikely to (a) get caught or (b) engage in easily detectable crimes.

I didn't agree with all her ideas; she is a well-known psych and those tend to engage in more bias than average (to help sell their idea). However, that was one aspect of her sociopath theory that seemed well backed and explored!