More than three-quarters of Britons admit to having lied to appear more intelligent, with people regularly claiming to have read classic literary works or pretending to speak a foreign language in an attempt to impress others.
A survey of 2000 people found 78% said they had lied to appear smarter, with about two-thirds (62%) pretending to have read books such as Crime And Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
George Orwell's 1984 was the top choice for fakers trying to impress, with 26% claiming to have read it .
Other popular choices were Leo Tolstoy's epic War And Peace and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings said: "The study shows being intelligent has never been more sexy and that the vast majority of us are working hard to appear smarter than we actually are."
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