By Gary Pearlman
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“Those who will lie for you will lie against you”
Bosnian Saying
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When trying to spot a liar watch and listen carefully, when someone is accused of something and they are innocent, usually they will resent the accusations and want to explore the topic further. When the conversation changes direction is the person glad the subject has changed instead of wanting to know where this fantasy came from. The guilty want the subject changed. Failure to deny or explain when an explanation would be expected is not a good sign. Short answers that lack the normal amount of detail should make you ask why. Long answers, beyond what is normal are often used to distract and deflect.
While being accused (especially off guard) the lair will often remain expressionless instead of a look that would yell or express, WHAT? The liar is more concerned with how they are going to respond. They often will sit like they are before the principal and think of a response
Look for posture, confident people tend to stand and sit straighter with shoulders back, while more insecure people tend to hunch over and put their hands in their pockets. The more insecure someone is the more they are prone to lying.
The person who is being deceitful will have little or no physical contact with the person they are lying to. This is an excellent and quite reliable indicator of a deceitful person. The liar will rarely touch the other person. They are unconsciously reducing the level of intimacy to help alleviate guilt.
They may go as far as putting an object, like a coffee cup or salt shaker in between themselves and you. A barrier of sorts. They often will avoid eye contact, and lean toward an exit or a wall as an instinctive urge to avoid the situation that endangers their cover. They often will turn their head or shield their eyes with their hands.
“A person speaking the truth is not concerned about whether you misunderstand them; they are always willing to clarify. The liar wants to be sure you understand their point immediately so that he can change the subject and no further questions will be asked. When the evidence is fragile, the words they use often become bold and solid to compensate. Skilled interviewers and interrogators know the following rule concerning contradictions. When a suspect uses a contradiction "It wasn't me” instead of “It was not me” statistically speaking, there is a 60 percent chance he or she's being truthful. Sometimes the Guilty, in an attempt to sound emphatic, don't want to use a contraction in their statement of innocence; they want to emphasize the not. (remember OJ)
It is always important to look for trends not just specifics. Don't become to judgemental without observing patterns.
Some people may be better "lie detectors" than others, better able to distinguish a lie by facial expression, cadence of speech, and other methods. According to David J. Lieberman PhD, these methods can be learned. Some methods of questioning may be more likely to elicit the truth eg "when was the last time you smoked marijuana?" is more likely to get a truthful answer than "do you smoke pot?". Asking the question most likely to get the information you want is a skill and can be learned. Avoiding vague questioning will help avoid lies of omission or vagueness.
If someone says they never lie, they are lying are usually among the worst of the liars. There are two kinds of people who lie, liars and hypocrites. Everybody lies at times watch out for the hypocrates. When trying to gauge a persons honesty, propose a solution that you know is too difficult to attain. If they tell you this is difficult or not doable they are confidant enough to be honest, if they agree to do the impossible and never even acknowledge the task as hard, they may also be willing to will lie about other things.
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Ideas on how to trip up liars
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| If you believe someone is lying, then change subject of a conversation quickly, a liar follows along willingly and becomes more relaxed. The guilty wants the subject changed; an innocent person may be confused by the sudden change in topics and will want to back to the previous subject. |
| To become adept at distinguishing lies, ask some neutral questions to establish the baseline of the subject. Watch their facial expressions and eye movements and test this method by asking questions and observing the pattern of shifts to left, right, up and down described above. |
| Fight fire with fire. Tell them you know. For example say I know you cheated I had you followed etc. then do not ask questions about what happened. Ask only the reason, assuming you already know the fact, like what did I do wrong that made you cheat. Be calm & persistent act sad like the result is a given the reason is all that is left to understood. Expect them to see if you are lying. In other words be a better liar & actor then they are. But if the bluff fails you will be worse off than before. Of course you could actually hire a private detective. |
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Psychology of lying
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The capacity to lie is noted early and nearly universally in human development. Social psychology and developmental psychology are concerned with the theory of mind, which people employ to simulate another's reaction to their story and determine if a lie will be believable. The most commonly cited milestone, what is known as Machiavellian intelligence, is at the age of about four and a half years, when children begin to be able to lie convincingly. Before this, they seem simply unable to comprehend that anyone doesn't see the same view of events that they do -- and seem to assume that there is only one point of view: their own -- that must be integrated into any given story.
Young children learn from experience that stating an untruth can avoid punishment for misdeeds, before they develop the theory of mind necessary to understand why it works. In this stage of development, children will sometimes tell fantastic and unbelievable lies because they lack the conceptual framework to judge whether a statement is believable or even to understand the concept of believability.
When children first learn how lying works, they lack the moral understanding of when to refrain from doing it. It takes years of watching people lie and the results of lies to develop a proper understanding. Propensity to lie varies greatly between children, some doing so habitually and others being habitually honest. Habits in this regard are likely to change into early adulthood.
Pseudologia fantastica is a term applied by psychiatrists to the behaviour of habitual or compulsive lying. |
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Deception and lies by animals
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| The capacity to lie has also been claimed to be possessed by non-humans in language studies with Great Apes. One famous case was that of Koko the gorilla; confronted by her handlers after a tantrum in which she had torn a steel sink out of its moorings, she signed in American Sign Language, "cat did it," pointing at her tiny kitten. It is unclear if this was a joke or a genuine attempt at blaming her tiny pet. Deceptive body language, such as feints that mislead as to the intended direction of attack or flight, is observed in many species including wolves. A mother bird deceives when it pretends to have a broken wing to divert the attention of a perceived predator -- including unwitting humans -- from the eggs in its nest to itself. |
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The Truth Is....
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Things don't have to be complicated.
The truth really does work.
The truth is not an excuse to be callous and mean
The truth lets us grow to become better than we are.
If no one is honest with us, we cannot see what to work on.
We aren't all smart, tall, pretty, or successful. That's the truth.
Lying won't make anyone smart, tall, pretty, or successful.
That's also the truth.
That also is OK,
the truth is we need to be ourselves
and find what our true calling is.
That is happiness
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Extra Tips
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Tip No. 1: Inconsistencies: Find differences from the norm
Tip No. 2: Ask the Unexpected: Catch them off guard
Tip No. 3: Gauge Against a Baseline: Find changes from normal behavior
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Tip No. 4: Look for Insincere Emotions:
Example an angry face with a smile; you can tell because their lips are smaller and less full than in a sincere smile.
Tip No. 5: Pay Attention to Gut Reactions
Tip No. 6: Watch for Microexpressions: Nothing beats perception and careful nuanced observation. A microexpression is a very brief expression, usually about a 25th of a second, that is always a concealed emotion. When a person is acting happy, but in actuality is really upset about something, his true emotion will be revealed in a subconscious flash of anger on his face. Whether the concealed emotion is fear, anger, happiness, or jealousy, that feeling will appear on the face in the blink of an eye. The trick is to see it. Almost everyone -- 99% of those we've tested in about 10,000 people -- won't see them.
Tip No. 7: Look for Contradictions
Anything that a person does with their voice or their gesture that doesn't fit the words they are saying
Tip No. 8: A Sense of Unease
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Tip No. 9: Too Much Detail
Tip No. 10: Don't Ignore the Truth: Logic has it's place |
Can you spot a Liar? test!
Click here! to take it
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The Best Lie Detectors
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| The best lie detectiors are people who have a natural gift of perception. If they have been trained how to spot a liar and use that gift all the better. These people are fairly rare. In tests one group of people (one profession) far surpassed all others. Can you guess which profession? The answer is at the bottom of the list below. |
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How to spot a liar: Traits and signs of liars
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 . Liars tend to move their arms, hands, and fingers less and blink less than people telling the truth do. Liars usually do not use their hands much or less than they usually do. They often fold their arms together in front of them or position items such as books, cups or other things between themselves and the person asking the questions. |
| . Liars' voices can become more tense or high-pitched. The extra effort needed to remember what they've already said and to keep their stories consistent may cause liars to restrain their movements and fill their speech with pauses. People shading the truth tend to make fewer speech errors than truth tellers do, and they rarely backtrack to fill in forgotten or incorrect details. |
| . People who lie tend to avoid details in favor of bold facts. Liars tended to string together very simple actions. They tend to avoid details. |
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. Sadness is very hard to fake. When someone is genuinely sad, the forehead wrinkles with grief and the inner corners of the eyebrows are pulled up. By contrast, the lowering of the eyebrows associated with an angry scowl can be faked by almost everybody. If someone says they are sad and the inner corners of their eyebrows don't go up, they are likely faking it.
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| . People who are uncomfortable or lying often repeat the question you ask them. |
| . When we smile genuinely we move more than just our mouth, the orbicularis oculi, the muscle around the eye that gives us ‘crow's-feet’ also moves. Liars tend to just move their mouths. It takes only two muscles, the zygomaticus major muscles that extend from the cheekbones to the corners of the lips produce a grin. |
| . Liars may also feel fear and guilt or delight at fooling people. Such emotions can trigger a change in facial expression so brief that most observers never notice. These split-second "microexpressions." are emotional clues are as important as gestures, voice, and speech patterns in uncovering deceitfulness. |
| . Speech Pattern Changes. Liars may mispronounce words, mumble and take longer pauses between a question and a response than honest people. This happens because the liar is not sure where they’re going with the lie or might be having trouble following through with the lie. |
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. Looking down while talking may indicate someone is embarrassed or does not know, looking to their right (your left) would indicate that they are constructing or makinging something up
Police often ask a suspect to describe someone in detail. If the suspect looks to their right (your left) they are generally constructing or making up the visual description. If they look to their left (your right) they are generally recalling the details from their visual memory.
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| Up and to the Left: Indicates a visually constructed Images. If you asked someone to "Imagine an ice cream sundae with a red cherry on top", this would be the direction their eyes moved. In their mind they are "Visually Constructing" an ice cream sundae with a cherry in their mind. |
| Up and to the Right: Indicates a Visually Remembered Images. If you asked someone to "What color shirt or blouse did you wear yesterday?", this would be the direction their eyes moved. In their mind they are "Visually Remembering" the color. |
| To the Left: Indicates an Auditory Construct thought. If you asked someone to "Try and ceate the sound of a speeding train in your head", this would be the direction their eyes moved. In their mind they are imagining and creating the sound of a speeding train. |
| To the Right: Indicates an Auditory Memory. If you asked someone to "Remember what the National Anthem sounds like", this would be the direction their eyes moved in while remembering the song. |
| Down and to the Left: Indicates a Feeling / Kinesthetic / Sensory impression that is being created. If you asked someone to "Can you remember the taste of chocolate?", this would be the direction their eyes moved in while they recalled a smell, feeling, or taste of eating chocolate. |
| Down and To the Right: Indicates an Internal Dialog. This is the direction of someone's eyes as they "talk to themselves." |
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. Fidgeting may indicate nervousness due to deception.
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Over-emphasizes details. When people are trying to avoid telling the truth, they often pick some obscure point and talk about it a lot instead of focusing on the key issue.
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. Touching the face while talking may be a sign the person is uncomfortable or deceptive. The higher up on the face the worse the lie.
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| . Shifty Eyes. A liar often will not look you straight in the eye. |
| . Changing Pupils. A liars pupils may change in size. This happens because when under stress (e.g. lying), adrenaline is released causing the pupils to dilate. Enlarged pupils can also indicate attraction so don't forget always look for patterns of lying. |
. Speech Pattern Changes. Liars may mispronounce words, mumble and take longer pauses between a question and a response than honest people. This happens because the liar may be hesitating before they make up a lie, or they are searing for a suitable lie that fits the occasion. Speech hesitations. Pausing, throat clearing, or other stalling techniques may indicate that a person is embellishing the truth.
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| . Fidgeting. Tapping the fingers, nose scratching,, fake coughs and playing with something in their fingers could all be the signs discomfort and lying. |
| . Heavy breathing, sweating or tight jaw. |
| Touching nose. Research shows that when people lie, they tend to touch the base of their nose a lot. |
| . Looking up while talking may indicate someone is lying. Looking up or down. They may be stalling for time. |
| . People who lie tend not to use pronouns like "I" or "me". |
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. If questioned enough liars often will not be able to remember the lies they have made up and will attack or leave before they are trapped.
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| . Liars are afraid of getting caught and they might feel guilty so they may express anger or storm around as a show to hide their anxiety. That way the anger or anxiety they show has reasonable explanation, besides the real one, which is - they are lying. |
Too much or too little eye contact. Liars tend to avoid looking people in the eye, but if they are staring you down, they may be working hard at lying.
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| Mouth pursed. When people tell a lie, they can't get enough oxygen, so they tend to breathe through their mouth instead of through their nose. |
| Using humor or sarcasm to avoid a subject. |
Answers questions not asked. Without even asking them a question, liars will defend themselves.
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| Using your exact words to respond can be an indication of lying. You say, for example, "Did you leave this here?" and they respond, "No, I did not leave this here." |
| Blood in cheeks reveals liars Many people blush when they are telling a lie. It's a very subtle phenomenon but this slight increase of blood flow to the cheeks can be detected. A camera that detects liars by monitoring the temperature of their face could lead to more acurate detection of terrorists and illegals at airports and border crossings. |
Norman Eberhardt and James Levine of the Mayo Clinic and Ioannis Pavlidis of Honeywell Laboratories, both in Minnesota, have developed the high-resolution thermal imaging camera. This can identify an instant rush of blood to the area around the eyes, a phenomenon that has been linked with lying.
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| In the image on the top [right] the normal blood flow pattern can be seen and contrasted with the increased blood flow (bottom image) of a peron who is lying. |
| The temperature of the eye region can rise by several degrees. However, the thermal camera needs to be many times more sensitive to detect this change accurately at a distance. In tests the system picked out liars with comparable accuracy to conventional polygraph equipment, which is more complicated and time consuming to use. This method is just beginning to be used in forensic environments and holds promise for the future. |
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Signs of defensiveness
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| . Crossing arms, legs and or ankles |
| . Hands on hips |
| . Avoiding eye contact |
| . Closing mouth tightly, clenching teeth or jaw |
| . Refusing to talk |
| . Avoiding the situation, leaving the uncomfortable situation |
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Answer to what profession
is best at detecting liars
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Secret Service Agents
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Has anyone tried pretending they knew to trick the liar & had it work?thank you
this has been the most reaffirming article I have read on this topic. written with out frills and buffer. I have a significant history researching this topic online as well as a natural ability. THANK YOU,THANK YOU, THANK YOU,!
Fix the typos and grammatical errors. It is difficult to read because of them.Another lie
I hate to respond negatively but your first paragraph seemed far fetch in itself. I often exhibit the same behavior when telling the truth. Although I enjoyed the tips at the end. Thank you.awsomeness
^_^i never lie and i just really like this story that this man made i dont even know you but ur pritty f*#kin awsome