I think one person misunderstood me – the replies #1 and #2 are copied and pasted from a couple of different webpages out there on the net. One was the BBC, can’t remember the other one but could relocate it if needed.
This book “Telling Lies” looks like it may be worth a look… it’s not published by Cosmo, is it? 
Uh oh. Copying and pasting information directly from other sites is a big no no here on the SDMB. You may want to ask a Mod to close this up.
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very sorry about that… thanks for doing that for me rather than shut this down. Those are the right webpages by the way.
Hola!
Being the child of depression era parents and a student of a private school owned and ran by a conservative sadistic Catholic woman, I learned how to lie to keep my ass from getting beat.
First, the deal about a liar will not look “straight into” someone’s eye is pure BS. If I have to lie to you, I will look straight at you and give you the information that you want to hear, because I know that’s how everyone thinks. This is also important, people, especially Americans, think and do exactly alike, and it gets no better now in the “age of security”, that we now live in.
I do not like people getting into my business and I value my privacy. I hate when I get on a website and they make me REGISTER to use a message board (hint hint) or other tools. So, I just use fake names and what not.
Lastly, what makes me sick was the story of George O’Leary, a successful college coach who was hired to coach Notre Dame. Then some bozo looks at his resume and saw that he lied about playing football in New Hampshire 20 years previous. So “OH MY GOD! HE’S SUCH A LIAR AND MISERABLE HUMAN BEING!!”, and because of American standards of hypocracy generated by the leftist press he lost the job. Pure BS. BS.
Im sorry if this turned into a BBQ.
SENOR
Being in the Navy, lying has become a valuable part of my repetoire. There’s a thing called “Looking out for your shipmates” where if needed, you can convincingly tell a Chief or officer (or nosy Leading Petty Officer) that so-and-so is out using the head, when they’re really racked out (sleeping). That’s just the smallest of the lies.
As a technician, I constantly tell little “mis-truths” to those around me to make sure that I don’t put my own ass into the fryer when I’ve informed everybody that I have gotten a piece of gear up. I wouldn’t be an E-4, or even in the Navy right now if some people knew what I did to keep some of this gear running.
Tips to telling a good lie:
1: KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
2: Act as though nothing out of the ordinary has/is happened/ing
3: Don’t talk longer than needed.
4: Learn the art of terminating conversations.
5: KISS
2 and 4 in particular take a lot of practice to learn. I’ve been burned a few times, but the keeping it simple portion of it allows you a chance to back out if everything seems to be backfiring. A subtler sixth rule would be to talk circles, so that it’s REALLY easy to back out if needed.
Now, I don’t advocate lying just to lie. If you know anything about politics, there are things that you don’t want to let others know. This is the reason I hate the navy. I hate having to lie, I hate having become so good at it. It’s just a necessary development.
I realize that this is subtly off topic, but I figured that in order to try to spot liars, you should know a little bit about how the good ones work.
Yes, but most liars wear stripes.
And have big noses.
This topic has been covered before – some data is presented there which might be useful in this discussion.
One doesn’t always have to be astute to spot such a tic. Just look at GW Bush when he says something brief and dismissively humorous, with that little, barely-breathed chuckle and that upturned right corner of the lip, with a little turn of the head in that direction. It’s a little more subtle than the old joke about Nixon - “when you see his lips move”.
I saw a special on TLC (I think) with John Cleese about the human face and it’s expressions.
There was a section on lying and people trying to spot them. They also had catagories for people who you might think would be good as spotting lies like Policemen, judges, teachers and all of those people did no better then chance at spotting liars.
There were some CIA agents who did a little better than chance.
Actually, it was Secret Service agents, Zebra – that’s what I linked to in my earlier response.
Well, my wife is VERY good (nearly infallible) at telling when I’m fibbing, hiding something, or not telling the whole truth.
BUT…
So, what does this prove? That people often DO give off certain signals when they’re not telling the truth, but they aren’t always the same signals. My wife knows MY signals very well, and reads them perfectly. But other people either don’t give off any signals or give off very DIFFERENT signals, ones she hasn’t learned to read.
My ex husband had a very obvious (to me) eye twitch in his left eye whenever he lied, which was also every time is lips moved. Anyway, once I figured it out, it was maddening to talk to him- like a big light was going off over his head “I’M LYING NOW! ALERT! ALERT!”
So some people do have physical giveaways, but I didn’t see his for a year or so.
The best way to tell a lie is to convince yourself that it is the truth.