絕望

????在當前就業市場的競爭和經濟狀況下，對個人背景潤潤色的狀況絕不少見。實際上，據戴爾卡耐基培訓學校（Dale Carnegie Training）副總裁邁克爾?克羅姆稱，雇主發現簡歷中公然說謊的數量正在增加，比如改變雇傭日期以掩蓋空檔期或者羅列一些夸大的職責。

????“僧多粥少，隨著失業率上升、求職競爭加劇，人們開始在簡歷中夸大其詞，甚至干脆撒謊，”克羅姆說。有幾項研究顯示，所有簡歷中有一半至少會有一處信息不那么準確，無論是有意為之還是無心之過。

????從波士頓郊區一所小型天主教學院獲得的一個學位可遠不如硅谷辦公室內充斥的哈佛（Harvard）或斯坦福（Stanford）文憑那般閃亮。因此，湯普森或許感到他需要一個科技學位作為自己的優勢。唐納德?川普和川普房地產公司（Donald Trump and the Trump Organization）顧問理查德?S?伯恩斯坦恩說：“如今的世界競爭如此激烈。如果你沒有讀一流的MBA，沒有上一流的學校，沒有良好的教育背景，人們就會看低你。”

自欺欺人

????一旦說了一個謊，長時間不加糾正，可能自己都會開始相信這是真的。“說多了，他們自己都信了，”圣地亞哥精神分析學家戴維?瑞斯說。

????“回顧一下這些人的成長歷史，他們早在掌權之前就已經形成了這種行為模式。他們養成了一種由于缺乏自信而虛夸的習慣，”瑞斯說。“等他們升遷到了更高的職位，如果他們從未被戳穿，他們就會認為永遠都不會被抓住。”

????一旦升到管理頂層，他們可能被諂媚者所簇擁，開始相信種種贊揚之聲，看不見真相。“必須對人問責。管理者面臨的問題是沒人對權貴說真相，”波士頓Skout Group總裁戴維?蓋伯勒表示。這家公司幫助企業管理員工和文化帶來的風險。戴維說：“他們把自己封閉在這樣的一個世界中：認為自己一貫正確。”

人性

????我們總是會為自己處于道德或倫理灰色地帶的行為辯解，很多人還會更進一步，盡力掩蓋赤裸裸的謊言。我們無師自通，總是文過飾非，以便相關行為符合自己的身份。如果我們自認是誠實人，不管中立的第三者怎么看，我們都會給自己的行為套上一層道德的外衣。

????“大腦總是不停地在跳舞，‘我如何才能得到更多我想要的東西，同時又不違背自己的本性，’”Grey Matters Intl.的凱文?弗萊明稱。Grey Matters Intl.是一家基于神經科學的高管發展和培訓公司，總部位于懷俄明州Jackson Hole以及俄克拉荷馬州塔爾薩。“大腦總是在不斷消除這種不和諧。”

Desperation.

????In this competitive job market and economy, credential embellishing is far from rare. In fact, employers are seeing an increase in the number of outright lies on resumes, such as changing employment dates to hide an employment gap or listing enhanced responsibilities, according to Michael Crom, vice president at Dale Carnegie Training.

????"With the higher levels of unemployment and the increased competition to get a few jobs, people begin to exaggerate and outright lie on their resumes," says Crom. Half of all resumes contain at least one inaccuracy, whether deliberate or inadvertent, according to several studies.

????A degree from a small Catholic college outside Boston doesn't quite have the same shimmer as the Harvard and Stanford diplomas littering Silicon Valley offices, so Thompson might have felt he needed the edge of a technology degree. "Today's business world is so competitive. If you don't have the right MBA, didn't go to the right school, don't have the right educational background, people look down on you," says Richard S. Bernstein, an adviser to Donald Trump and the Trump Organization.

Self-Deception.

????Once you tell a lie, and leave it uncorrected long enough, you can start to believe it's true. "People start saying something enough that they start believing it themselves," says David Reiss, a psychiatrist based in San Diego.

????"Looking back on the history of these people, the pattern started before they were powerful. They got into the habit of inflating things out of lack of confidence," Reiss says. "Once they got to a higher level, if they've gotten away with it, they think they'll never get caught."

????Once executives reach the top levels of management, they can become surrounded by sycophants, start believing their own accolades, and lose sight of the truth. "You have to be able to hold people accountable. What happens with leaders is there's nobody who is speaking truth to power," says David Gebler, president of Skout Group in Boston, which helps organizations manage people and culture based risks. "They've got themselves locked into a world where they really believe they're not doing anything wrong."

Human Nature.

????We all have the tendency to rationalize behavior that falls in an ethical or moral grey area, and many of us stretch that line to cover outright lies. We're wired to adjust the narrative of our actions to align with our identity. If we believe we're fundamentally honest people, we will rationalize our behavior to ourselves as ethical -- regardless of how it looks to an impartial observer.

????"The brain is doing this constant dance of, 'How do I get more of what I want while holding onto the identity that I think I actually have,' " says Kevin Fleming, owner of Grey Matters Intl., a neuroscience-based executive development and coaching firm based in Jackson Hole, Wyo. and Tulsa, Okla. "The brain is always wired to reduce dissonance."