August 9, 2024, 9:00 pm | Read time: 6 minutes
People lie when they don’t want to hurt each other, out of politeness, but above all to gain an advantage. But what about the animal kingdom? Here, too, there is deliberate deception. PETBOOK editor and behavioral biologist Dr. Saskia Schneider reveals which animals deceive others of their kind and whether dogs and cats can lie, too.
American psychologist Jerry Jellison once claimed that people lie up to 200 times a day. Nowadays, it’s believed that people lie about twice a day on average. Children begin to lie as early as the age of four or five. Studies have shown that skillful liars possess above-average social skills, communicate effectively, and can think complexly. They also have a great deal of empathy. Lying can have advantages – not only for humans. Animals, too, are capable of deliberate deception – but does this mean they can lie? To answer this question, we first need to define exactly what we mean by the word “lying.”
What is lying?
Philosophers and theologians typically define a lie as a message intended to mislead. Intention plays an important role here. When humans lie, they typically do so with intent, fully aware that they are conveying false information through language or actions.
Deception also occurs in animals. However, biologists distinguish between so-called functional and intentional deception. Functional deception occurs, for example, when a fly pretends to be a wasp due to its color but is actually completely harmless. The fly does not do this consciously and is probably not even aware that it resembles a wasp. Their coloration evolved over time as it provided a survival advantage.
Animals can deliberately deceive
Intentional deception is a behavior that animals consciously employ to secure an advantage. There are many examples of this in the animal world. For instance, ground-nesting birds feign injury to lure a predator away from their nest or young.
Some birds make false alarm calls to lure birds of other species away. In this way, they increase their own success in searching for food. But do the animals genuinely understand the implications of their actions? Or has their behavior developed over the course of evolution, just like the color of the fly?
In fact, answering this question is not easy. Nonetheless, certain observations in the animal kingdom have led researchers to believe with considerable certainty that such behaviors constitute deceptive communication or, in other words, intentional deception.
Ravens deceive other ravens
In an experiment with ravens, scientists found that these birds present false realities to other ravens to prevent food theft. Instead of searching for their own food, dominant males tend to observe and pursue subordinate ravens in their search for food. As soon as the lower-ranking males succeed, they take the prey away and eat it themselves.
However, the lower-ranking ravens quickly developed a strategy against this: they often only pretended to have discovered food. If the dominant males then pounced on the supposed prey, they used the time to fly to where they had actually found food.
Capuchin monkeys warn of imaginary enemies
Similar behavior is also observed in primates. For instance, chimpanzees are known to leave a feeding site to prompt other group members to follow suit. They are actually signaling: something is wrong – let’s get out of here. However, these animals sometimes deceive each other, only to return later and consume their food in solitude.
Capuchin monkeys also like to deceive each other about food. NoUsuallymembers of a group warn each other when danger is imminent. However, the animals often give false alarms and announce non-existent enemies. As soon as the other Capuchin monkeys have fled, they make off with the abandoned food.
Such behavior in animals could indeed be characterized as lying. So far, it has mainly been observed in socially intelligent animals such as primates or corvids. But what about our pets?
Can dogs or cats lie?
For dogs, at least, science has proved they deliberately deceive other animals or even humans if it gives them an advantage. In a study conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich and published in the journal “Animal Cognition,” the aim was to answer whether dogs deliberately give people false information.
To do this, the scientists presented the dogs with two humans in an experiment: One of them behaved cooperatively and shared treats with the animals. The other human showed the treats to the dogs but kept them for himself, behaving like a competitor.
Dogs deliberately lead people to the wrong places
In the experiment, the animals were asked to lead the two humans to one of three boxes. One was empty, another contained a dog cookie, and a third contained sausages, which are highly appealing to most dogs.
The results showed that the dogs were most likely to lead the cooperative human to the box of sausages. In contrast, they deliberately led the “competitor” away from this box to one of the others so that he would not take the sausages away from them. The researchers concluded that the dogs deliberately gave false information and withheld other information.
It is not possible to say whether they “lied” because the task was to lead the human to one of the boxes—i.e., not to any particular one. Nevertheless, the authors write in their summary of the study that the results showed that dogs distinguish between the cooperative and the competitive partner and that they are able to use tactical deception.
Comparable studies have not yet been carried out for cats. However, many owners are certain that the animals are capable of deliberately deceiving them. But you have to be careful here because we humans like to interpret something in our pets’ behavior that has completely different causes.
Conclusion: Can animals lie?
According to current scientific knowledge, many animals can deliberately deceive each other or other species to gain an advantage. Researchers in Switzerland have also demonstrated this capability in dogs.
However, whether this behavior can really be equated with lying in humans is controversial. This is because lying, in the sense that we humans understand, presupposes that the liar is aware that the person being lied to has knowledge and beliefs that may differ from their own.
For decades, scientists have investigated whether animals possess such awareness or understanding of their counterparts, often encountering contradictory results. This level of awareness is most commonly attributed to apes.
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Sources:
- Sebeok, T. A., „Can Animals Lie?“. In: I Think I Am a Verb. Topics in Contemporary Semiotics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3490-1_10
- discovermagazine.com, „Are Humans the Only Animals That Lie?“ (accessed on 02/08/2024)
- scientificamerican.com, „Deception in the Animal Kingdom“ (accessed on 02/08/2024)
- vice.com, „Dogs Will Lie to Get What They Want, Study Says“ (accessed on 02/08/2024)
- psychologytoday.com, „Do Dogs Ever Lie to or Try to Deceive People?“ (accessed on 02/08/2024)