PASSING OFF SOMEONE ELSE'S ANECDOTE AS YOUR OWN

(June, 2015) A study has revealed that nearly half of people have admitted to passing off a good story they heard from another person as their own. The research team from Southern Methodist University asked 447 students to take an online survey about their storytelling habits.
– 46 per cent admitted hearing someone’s story and later passing it off as their own. Some of those surveyed sought to explain themselves by claiming that a story was more engaging if it was told in the first person rather than reported speech.
– 32 per cent said they had spiced up their own anecdotes with details stolen from someone else.
– 53 percent of participants said they had heard someone else telling a story that had been lifted from their own personal experience.
* So I think their point is we’re just a great big old sack of liars.
* Thanks, that really makes us feel great.
* Actually, it reminds me of the time I dated Demi Moore.
* The truth is, Southern Methodist University didn’t do this study – Northern Methodist University did, and Southern stole the story.
* So people say stories that aren’t true. Okay, but I kind of knew that from following politics.
* PHONE TOPIC: Do you steal other people’s stories and tell them as if they were your own? Have you ever been caught at it?