3 reasons why you pass off your friend's story as your own
Don't lie you've done it
Don't lie you've done it. PHOTO: ZAP2IT
Have you ever retold a friend's great story but just decided to drop the part where the incident actually happened to your friend? Instead, to bask in the glory, you take all the credit for the story.
According to the Mirror, a new psychological study called Borrowing Personal Memories claims that it's a common omission to shamelessly steal your friends' stories and pass them off as your own, for reasons not entirely known.
Now why do we do this is an interesting question and researchers have concluded three plausible reasons for such story stealing:
1. It adds spice to your daily routine boring life
Sometimes people crave attention in their social circles, so when they come across a good story they decide to be the main character in it. And let’s face it, your listeners don’t really care about your friend, he is nonexistent to them anyway.
2. It would take ages to explain who Humayun is
Being lazy is possibly one of the best reasons explaining this conundrum. The story is amazing, but you don't want to spend hours explaining who your friend is, which sect he belongs to, how you two are friends, if he's human or not. It's just too much work. So instead of going through all that hassle, you decide to make the story yours. What they don't know won't hurt them... right?
3. The story makes you sound "cooler"
You want to be ranked high among your peers. By making an interesting story yours, you want to seem "cool" in front of everyone.
Three out of five of us will take elements of people’s stories and make them their own. That great one-liner though, " ...and then I jumped from the third floor." (You're only missing background music to accompany the great story).
The time you really told your boss off or pulled the chair before the teacher could sit or the thing that happened in Murree last winter. It all has just happened to you.
Singapore-based Alan Brown and his colleagues found that most of us do this, and it's not a one-time thing. This act usually makes us forget that the story wasn't ours in the first place.
Researchers claim that once we start presenting other people's stories as our own we actually forget who those things happened to in the first place. The funny part is, people actually believe you without any double checking.
PHOTO: IBTIMES
According to the Mirror, a new psychological study called Borrowing Personal Memories claims that it's a common omission to shamelessly steal your friends' stories and pass them off as your own, for reasons not entirely known.
Now why do we do this is an interesting question and researchers have concluded three plausible reasons for such story stealing:
1. It adds spice to your daily routine boring life
Sometimes people crave attention in their social circles, so when they come across a good story they decide to be the main character in it. And let’s face it, your listeners don’t really care about your friend, he is nonexistent to them anyway.
2. It would take ages to explain who Humayun is
Being lazy is possibly one of the best reasons explaining this conundrum. The story is amazing, but you don't want to spend hours explaining who your friend is, which sect he belongs to, how you two are friends, if he's human or not. It's just too much work. So instead of going through all that hassle, you decide to make the story yours. What they don't know won't hurt them... right?
3. The story makes you sound "cooler"
You want to be ranked high among your peers. By making an interesting story yours, you want to seem "cool" in front of everyone.
Three out of five of us will take elements of people’s stories and make them their own. That great one-liner though, " ...and then I jumped from the third floor." (You're only missing background music to accompany the great story).
The time you really told your boss off or pulled the chair before the teacher could sit or the thing that happened in Murree last winter. It all has just happened to you.
Singapore-based Alan Brown and his colleagues found that most of us do this, and it's not a one-time thing. This act usually makes us forget that the story wasn't ours in the first place.
Researchers claim that once we start presenting other people's stories as our own we actually forget who those things happened to in the first place. The funny part is, people actually believe you without any double checking.
PHOTO: IBTIMES