Study: Needing To Urinate Could Make You A Better Liar

LONG BEACH, Calif. (CBS Sacramento) - Being able to suppress the urge to urinate may make you better at telling lies, according to a new small study.

California State University researchers found that exercising self control in one task can have a "spillover effect" and influence self control during another task, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald.

The team of researchers decided to test this concept by asking 22 students questions on their views regarding controversial social issues. They were instructed to lie for some of their responses during the interview.

The researchers then gave half of the participants a large drink of water (700 milliliters) and the other half a few sips of water (50 milliliters).

The students were interviewed again 45 minutes after consuming water.

Interviewers found it more difficult to tell when students were lying when they had a full bladder, in addition to being more likely to believe these liars were being truthful.

Liars who needed to urinate  "displayed significantly fewer behavioral cues to deception, more behavioral cues signalling truth, and provided longer and more complex accounts than truth-tellers," according to the study authors.

Researchers note that although bladder control is distinct from other forms of self control, similar resources from the brain are used.

"They're subjectively different, but in the brain they're not. They're not domain-specific. When you activate the inhibitory control network in one domain, the benefits spill over to other tasks," Dr. Iris Blandon-Gitlin told New Scientist. 

The findings were published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.