Some evolutionary psychologists believe that our capacity for speech was developed as a tool of persuasion as opposed to a mechanism for relaying the truth. That is, we learned to talk as a way to convince others to do and think what we want. If we merely needed to communicate facts, a rudimentary system of grunts and gestures would suffice as it does for nearly every other animal.
As a result, much of the communication in a relationship involves deceit. The majority of these untruths are
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.