At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, psychology professorBella DePaulo got 77 students and 70 townspeople to volunteer for an unusualproject. All kept diaries for a week, recording the numbers and details of the liesthey told.2 One student and six Charlottesville residents professed to have told nofalsehoods. The other 140 participants told 1,535.3 The lies were most often not what most of us would call earth-shattering.Someone would pretend to be more positive or supportive of a spouse or friendthan he or she really was, or feign agreement with a relative’s opinion.According to DePaulo, women in their interactions with other women lied mostlyto spare others’ feelings. Men lied to other men generally for self-promotingreasons.