Me and a friend of mine have been having a bit of a debate on whether or not it is possible to predictably spot people who are lying. I will post a couple of things I found out on the net on this subject, which both claim that it’s possible…
my friend says these are about as reliable as the kinds of lists you see in Cosmopolitan (‘Top 10 ways to get the man of your dreams’ etc.)
I’ll allow him to make his own argument on the subject though.
My own feeling is that there probably are some body language giveaways that would tend to occur when people are telling lies.
OK so I’ll just post those rules/theories/lists now as the next couple of responses here. Let me know what you think.
If anyone knows of any evidence that backs these claims up… lemme know.
There are quite a few visual cues when a person is lying, but they tend to vary from person to person. I would think that you’d need to speak to a person for a long time, and watch their body language carefully when you know for a fact that they’re telling a lie. A friend of mine is an investigator, and one particular person that he interviewed would stroke his chin whenever he lied.
Some indicators that seem common: shaking the head “no” slightly; looking away while making the statement and then looking right back; trying to look too casual; lifting a hand toward the mouth area; tensing the shoulders and rapid blinking.
Schlock and psycho babble. Bad liars are easy to spto. Good liars will walk down your list of 10/8/42 “ways to spot a liar” and have you buying them lunch for their trouble.
There has never been a reliable method for knowing when a stranger is lying to you.
as Spiritus said, bad liars are easy to spot. luckily, few people are good liars.
to be a good liar is a difficult thing. you must maintain your story against total doubt. a person can claim to know you are lying, and you must be able to say “no i’m not.” and mean it.
as far as polygraphs go, the person administering the test plays a much bigger role than the things measuring bodily responses, by prodding the person to admit lies, and scaring them into thinking they’re found out.
but since there is no sure way, i think we all agree, to spot a liar, it is conceivable that someone could beat every single method that exists.
The best way of finding out a person is a liar, is to believe them, and remember their words. Kind of nice, too, because it is also the best way of finding out a person is reliable and honest. Once a confirmed liar finds out that you put their lies in the place of the truth about them, and won’t change that opinion until they change the lie, they either stop lying to you, or stop spending time with you at all.
Either one works to your advantage.
I admit, this method requires listening well to people, and remembering what they have said to you.
There are also facial ticks that give a liar away to a very astute observor. But that takes a lot of skill.
Look at the whole picture and don’t jump to the conclusion that just because he is scratching his neck, he is lying. But things do add up over a period of time. Listen to your instincts.
There are, however, those really adept liars who are as smooth as silk off a spool.
Cosmo’s lists are probably much more reliable than this nonsense.
Works great once you’ve confirmed a lie, then look back at someone’s behavior and can point at gestures. “Of course he was lying; it was obvious from the way he picked his nose/rubbed his mouth/crossed his arms”.
These “How To” lists rank up there with The Psychopatholgy of Everyday Life, and Interpretation of Dreams, as useful guides to deciphering human behavior.
hm… i simply do not trust anybody its like everybody is lying by default, unless i have a good reason to believe they are telling the truth …
i basically dismiss most of what i hear as garbage, i only keep talking to appear sociable
if i really want to know the truth i will try to get it through other means, NOT try to get it out of a suspected liar
at one point i told my best friend that he stole a lot of my money from the drawer at my house … he was dumbfounded he could not believe that i would suspect him of doing anything of the kind. (i found the money later, it was never stolen in first place) i was not about to trust him even though he was my best friend and being totally honest - because trusting anybody is a weakness. fortunately everything worked out …
so if i don’t believe you its nothing personal, i just find it stupid to belive people just because they are your good friends
its epistemology, you don’t need any proof to NOT believe in something, but you do need a proof to believe.
of course if you tell this to anybody they will tell you that they are “innocent until proven guilty” and if they do, i will reply to them that i am done having communications with moronic scum such as they are.
BECUZ that axiom has nothing to do with our case at hand. it means you are not PUNISHED unless proven guilty and i do not plan to punish anybody. but i do not have to believe you, whoever you are, until you prove your veracity.
Paul Ekman did research on body language and lying, and wrote a book about it: Telling Lies. His conclusion was that both polygraphs and watching body language can be useful in figuring out if someone is lying, but neither is infallible.
Actually the hard part about finding “foolproof” ways to tell if someone is lying is that everyone has different behaviors. To say that if a person blinks a lot or avoids eye contact means they’re lying is a bad assumption. The only good way of being sure that you’re talking to a liar is to get to know their normal patterns of behavior. Someone could be avoiding eye contact and fidgeting just because they’re shy, in which case they might hold eye contact and be stiff as a board when they lie. It’s not guaranteed, but a good rule of thumb is that if someone is doing something that is outside of their normal behavior, they might be lying.
I disagree with most… here is why, as it pertains to me…
1. No eye contact. His eyes will look away. If the room has a means of egress - that’s where they’ll look.
And if it is the point of ingress I will be looking there to check out chicks
2. Crossing of arms and/or legs (a protective instinct).
Yes, of my somewhat oversized belly and “package”
3. The pupils of the eyes will narrow. Lying is stressful.
This could be true, but so is conversing with someone who is staring at my pupils that intensely…
4. Hands on the face, especially the mouth. They are “covering” the lie.
No, I am just shy, and given your constant glances at my mouth, I must have some broccoli stuck in my teeth
5. Talking fast. A liar wants to get it over with.
Again, no, my brain moves way too fast for my tongue… not that my brain is going anywhere important, it just gets there faster.
6. Sometimes the head will nod a “no” when answering a “yes” question or visa versa. This is a subconcious movement.
This could be, I have not noticed myself doing outside of a mode of sarcastism
7. Mispronouncing the words or mumbling. A liar kinda thinks he is not lying when he pronounces words incorrectly or mumbles.
No, see my answer to 5, add to that a tongue that for all intent and purpose is 2 sizes too big for my mouth, damn my orthodontist.
8. Overstated friendliness/laughing. He wants you to believe and he wants you to like him so you will believe him.
This I have seen in a certain relative who is a habitual liar… so I won’t deny this. Plus, I don’t do this unless drunk and then I have a completely different excuse
A cop once told me that you know someone is lying if you can see white on three sides of their iris, meaning that they will open their eyes more when lying (unintentionally).
I think this list is pretty naive. I’m not going to go through the list point by point, but just to address the very first thing - everyone says people don’t make eye contact when they’re lying. Therefore, liars know this to, and can conciously overcome this. I have lied to people before, and I have no trouble making and maintaining eye contact while lying. My brother (who I’ve been thinking of Pitting on this very topic) lies all the time and has no trouble with eye contact while doing it.
Your list assumes the liar feels guilty about lying. This is not the case for many (most?) people. Humans have a strange way of being able to justify pretty much anything they choose to do to themselves, and if they’re telling lies, it’s a fair bet that they’re convinced that they aren’t doing the wrong thing.
its like everybody is lying by default, unless i have a good reason to believe they are telling the truth …