Sincericide: Why Is It Different From Sincerity?
Is it always good to tell the truth? Is people’s sincerity really valued? When do we speak of sincerity and when do we come to sincericide? Talking about sincericide means telling the truth without thinking, without limits, without having in mind what the other person feels or wants. In short, we can say that sincerity applied without intelligence can cause unnecessary harm.
The ideal would be to use truth to help and sincerity to build, but never to harm or bring others down. The fact is that truth is a powerful weapon, not to be separated from empathy and social intelligence.
On the other hand, it may be that when we commit sincericide we are not telling lies and what we convey is true, but when we do it without thinking about the other or just to feel better, we are not doing any good or using the truth as we should. We are simply communicating objective realities that hurt at inappropriate times.
Does this mean that, in order not to hurt, it is necessary to lie? The explanation is not as simple as separating truths from lies, sometimes a truth is useless or only makes the situation worse. The best attitude is to communicate what we need to say, but with sensitivity, finding the right time and context or looking for the best way to do it.
What happens to my brain when I’m lying?
A study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience showed that when we lie, the amygdala, the area that works in our brain when we perform this action, decreases its activation as we tell lies. That is, she loses her sensitivity to the repetition of lies.
With this, we can conclude that by lying we make our brain relax and get used to not telling the truth. However, our function is not to lie, but to learn to select and convey the truth. Our relationships won’t last long if we don’t put some filters on what we say, regardless of whether the message is actually anchored in the truth or not.
As we pointed out earlier, sincericide does not provide better skills, nor does it improve our self-esteem, much less help us to improve our social relationships. What helps us, and a lot, is the sensitivity. Some truths must be conveyed with the delicacy of a butterfly, others must be kept until the time comes, others do not necessarily need to be shared because they don’t matter much, and others must be told gradually so that the person has time to assimilate. them.
Is it always good to tell the truth or is this sincericide?
The psychologist Claudia Castro Campos conducted a cognitive study on lying and stated that throughout the day we tell at least one or two lies, big or small, but we use them to make reality work in our favor.
We all know the saying: “What was said drunk was thought sober”. This happens when our brain systems of censorship or inhibition are relaxed, such as when we are drunk or when we are children, for example. In children the situation is not exactly the same as in adults; children are in the process of formation, but society and brain capacity prepare us to hide the truth, to conceal it according to the intention to control its impact.
People who have good social skills are the ones who know how to be honest but not hurting. It is not a question of lying, but of conveying information properly. It’s not about being the most sincere, but the one who communicates the truth the best. The best thing is to be true to ourselves and not forget the harm we can do to other people. The truth, imparted with intelligence and motivated by good intentions, will always be beneficial.
