Three exploratory studies were aimed at describing the purposes of lies and the consequences of lying. Data were collected through a partly open-ended questionnaire, a content analysis of several tape-recorded interviews, and a large-scale survey. The results showed that two of every three lies were told for selfish reasons, while three of every four lies were told to social or economic superiors. These results suggest that the dominant reason for lying is to equalize imbalanced interpersonal relations, and that liars are consistently more satisfied with their lies than with themselves. Since social proscription against deceit creates personal costs for the liar (costs that are difficult to assess), lying probably occurs most often when rewards are both large and assured. Many lies are told repeatedly, in identical situations; so they are presumably field-tested for both costs and benefits. (Author/RL)