{"id":18397,"date":"2007-02-22T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-02-22T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/agree-with-george-washington-lying-is-always-wrong\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:43:37","slug":"agree-with-george-washington-lying-is-always-wrong","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2007\/02\/22\/agree-with-george-washington-lying-is-always-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Agree With George Washington: Lying is Always Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asked in a Pew Research Center survey to assess the moral dimensions of different behaviors, 43% of Americans took the same stern view reportedly espoused by George Washington, whose birthday is today: Lying is morally wrong, even if it is done to spare someone else\u2019s feelings. In fact, willful departures from the truth are more widely judged immoral than are sex between unmarried adults or gambling \u2014 though lying is not as harshly judged as such behaviors as cheating on your income taxes, getting drunk, smoking marijuana or engaging in homosexual behavior (see chart).The activity that drew the most widespread moral disapproval, 88%, was \u201cmarried people having an affair,\u201d while the one that drew the least was \u201covereating\u201d \u2014 although a sizable minority (32%) said that activity was morally wrong. Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the percentage of Americans who say that lying is morally wrong, even if it is done to spare someone else’s feelings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713064136","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[791],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-18397","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-pew-research-center-staff","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short 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