Section C In this section, there is one passage
followed by five incomplete sentences. Read the passage carefully, and then
complete each sentence in a maximum of 10 words. Remember to write the answers
on the answer sheet.
We learn to lie when we are children, discovering as we get
older and as our awareness of self and others grows what we can and can’t get
away with. Come on, admit it. we’ve all been guilty of blaming a lack of
homework on the unfortunate eating habits of the family dog. Child psychologist
Jean Piaget, in his study of moral development, says that "the tendency to tell
lies is a natural tendency ... spontaneous and universal." It seems that to lie
is to be human. The Evolution of Lying
As humans, we communicate with each other via various verbal and
non-verbal signals such as spoken language, facial expressions, and body
gestures. But our ability to communicate is enhanced by our understanding
of what is going through someone else’s mind—our capacity to empathize with each
other. Not all living things on this earth have the ability to
empathize. Although animal psychologists may protest, evidence of empathy has
really only been witnessed in higher primates that means chimps, gorillas, you
and me. This ability to empathize is a product of being able to
recognize other minds as separate from your own—something that you are able to
do after about the age of two. Robert Wright, author of "The Moral Animal",
suggests that lying is a fundamental part of this empathy, a by-product of
sorts. If you want to purposefully deceive someone, you first have to be able to
understand what that person might be thinking. Many plants and
animals deceive others around them in order to get ahead in life. The Tawny
Frogmouth is camouflaged to look like the tree upon which it is perched to
deceive its predators and hide itself during the day. Some orchids deceive male
insects by looking like their female partners, getting a free pollination and
fooling the male into thinking it’s his lucky day. However, the
distinction between deception and lying is an important one. How aware are these
plants and animals that they are engaged in deception Although
deception in the animal kingdom can look like lying, finding examples of
conscious lying amongst animals is difficult, says Richard Byrne, Professor of
Evolutionary Psychology at the University of St. Andrews in the UK and author of
The Thinking Ape. But, according to Byrne, there is certain evidence that the
higher apes—chimps, bonobos and gorillas—do engage in a conscious form of
deception that is different to the plant and animal deception mentioned above.
Monkey Liars When chimpanzees are
foraging for food, a chimp who comes across something tasty will occasionally
pretend not to have noticed the food so as not to alert the chimps nearby and
lose his prize. But sometimes a competitor chimp will walk past the pretending
chimp, then hide behind a tree and peep out to see if the pretending chimp
really does have some food. There are many examples of animals
pretending not to have seen food in order to save it for themselves later, says
Byrne, but not of a competitor hiding and turning back to peep.
Byrne suggests that this could be an example of lying, monkey-style. "Why
would you do that if you didn’t have an idea that something is going on If you
have some kind of idea that there is something secret going on, you understand
deception. " Lying in this sense is part of an ability to take
into account the likely response of another. This is the ability to understand
another’s mind. Such an ability evolved because individuals and groups that
possessed this skill thrived. Why Because they were able to communicate and
interact more effectively as a group, which in turn affected their capacity to
survive. Ability to Speak=More Lies In
the case of humans, the possibility for lying increased even further because of
our use of oral language. To quote Robert Wright again, "We are far from the
only dishonest species, but we are surely the most dishonest, if only because we
do the most talking. " However, there is a restriction to the
advantages of lying and the benefits it can bring. Otherwise, we’d just lie all
the time! Paul Ekman, Professor of Psychology at the University of California,
San Francisco, believes that we did not evolve to be inherently deceptive
creatures because it would pervert our success as a society. "I suspect that our
ancestral environment was not one in which there were many opportunities to lie
and get away with it, and the costs for being caught in a lie might have been
severe. " Many plants and animals deceive others around them in order to ______.