This book investigates the science behind “big liars�—those rare people who use lies as their principal way of navigating life. Most people are mostly honest, most of the time. And there aren't that many big, pants-on-fire liars in the population overall. But just a few big liars can have an outsized impact on the people around them--ruining personal relationships, bankrupting businesses, and even, when they attain political power, undermining the fabric of society. Big Liars explores this small but dangerous group through the lens of psychological science. Fascinating new research gives us insight into the nature of dishonesty and dishonest people, explaining who lies, what types of people lie a lot, how often people lie, how big liars are created, how they operate, how we can recognize them, and how we can avoid being victimized by them. This book has crucial implications for mental health treatment, as well as our efforts to grapple with the effects of big liars—and their big lies—on social movements and society as a whole.

This book analyzes the science behind pathological lying, and offers important lessons for research and clinical practice. Curtis and Hart expertly synthesize and unify historical and contemporary writings and research on pathological lying, into a functional and cohesive resource for researchers and clinicians. By offering a succinct, theory‑driven, and empirically corroborated account of this disorder, the authors aim to provide clinicians with the tools they need to more accurately identify and effectively treat patients. For a hundred years, research on pathological lying has been fragmented and diffuse; as a result, the disorder has been called by different names and characterized in innumerable ways, with no formal definition or diagnosis. Recently, there has been a re‑emergence of research examining pathological lying, which has helped establish research markers, categorical distinctions, assessment profiles, and clinical parameters.