I’m not sure if this belongs in General Questions or in IMHO, so I’m going to start off here.
I love being able to read people and call their bluffs so today I’m looking for even more signs of lying to bolster my BS detector. Things that you look for yourself when listening to someone you suspect may not be entirely on the level, or even things you have read indicate someone’s being dishonest. I trust that a lot of responses here will be drawn from personal experience and there may not be a lot of agreement as to what constitutes as a bad signal, so I’m placing this thread here instead on in GQ. With having said that, if anyone has any book recommendations on reading body language or if they have a link to a video that demonstrates many visual ques, link me away!
Things I notice people doing when they’re lying:
[ul]
[li]Averts looking me in the eye.[/li][li]Increases the speed of their speech.[/li][li]Becomes touchy, defensive, sensitive, agitated even. Ususally very suddenly after they the lie.[/li][li]Rapid blinking[/li][li]They become over explanatory. They have a long, long story to cover themselves.[/li][/ul]
In the non-body language area, I notice a sort of hybrid of two things in the OP:
*Increases the speed of their speech.
They become over explanatory. They have a long, long story to cover themselves. *
Some liars don’t let me get a word in edgewise. Like a car dealer trying to distract you, get you off the point, etc. Maybe they talk faster or not; maybe they have a long story or they just repeat the same points they’ve already made.
Since I don’t lie, I generally assume people are telling me the truth unless proven otherwise. If people lie to me, I’m terrible at detecting it. I just trust that others are telling me the truth. May not be the case, but how else am I going to live life? Assuming everyone’s out to deceive me? Doesn’t seem worth it.
I think it’s extremely hard to detect a liar if they are a stranger to you - I can usually tell when my friends are lying because I know them so well.
Friend A gets a twitch in his left eyelid when he’s fibbing.
Friend B takes too long to think before she answers.
In the school of NLP, they call it calibrating(I think). Work out your baseline of what normal behaviour is, and look for anything different!
I agree with the averting eyes thing, that’s one thing I notice a lot.
Honest people deny accusations.
Liars want to know why you’re asking.
“Did you sleep with my wife?”
“Go to hell.” - Probably true
“No, of course not.” - Probably true
“Why would you ask me that?” - Probably a lie
“Who told you that?” - Probably a lie
Look for pauses in their speech as they assemble and double-check their story.
This one is very person-specific, but when you hear phrases like “Honestly,”, “Frankly”, “To be honest”, “To tell you the truth”, etc., that can be a big red flag.
Joe Ski I’ve done everyone of those things since 2 grade when I got Sydenhams Chorea. Think of a Tourette’s person to make that easier to understand. I guess your cues don’t always work. You need to think about your cues.
The whole face acts as a lie broadcasting device. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the cues are very subtle.
Researchers have identified something like +30 involuntary expressions, most lasting a quarter of a second - things like inappropriate smirking, looking away, licking the lips, etc. Of course, sometimes you do these things normally, or telling the truth while nervous, but human lie detectors are good at picking these up. When in doubt, repeating the question or asking “are you lying to me?” can give them a +90% success rate.
(I wish I had a cite for any of this, but this is IMHO, so there)
I don’t believe that. If somebody asked me if I fucked his wife, my natural reaction would be: “Why on earth would you ask me that?”
(On the other hand, if I would’ve fucked her, I’d probably go: “No.”)
I recently read about a study about these matters, where it was shown that policemen generally thought they were very good at discovering a lie, when in fact they were not, and also told about their tricks, which were proven useless.
But also… do people generally lie to you, or why do you look for these “signs” when you are talking to people…? I find it a bit odd. - Do you lie yourself much when talking to people?
Watching Judge Judy has been a fascinating exercise in this (mostly because you get so many chances to practice ). Watching the complainants as they answer Judge Judy’s questions, I’m starting to see the tiny tells people have. There was one guy in particular recently who flat-out lied, I’m sure of it - in answering the question, he didn’t pause much, and he didn’t look away much, and he didn’t change his voice or mannerisms much, but he glanced ever-so-slightly down and to the right (the "creative"side), and he just didn’t seem the same as his previous answers. I also notice that Judge Judy doesn’t allow people to look anywhere except at her when answering questions. Another guy was telling the truth for the first half of his story, and lying for the second half (which is how Judge Judy ruled). It’s all very interesting, especially for me, another honest person who never expects it when people are lying in real life.
My problem with me is I can do all these things when I’m nervous or get confused in a conversation, but not necessarily lieing :D.
This is more likely with folks who aren’t already friends and ties strongly to a recidual social shyness thing, I’m sure. If I start fumbling a conversation, I can get embarrassed and all of the above can start coming out. At times, when factual issues are being discussed, I’m quite certain it comes across as me just pulling stuff out of my ass :p.
That’s how I do it. I assume everyone lies and that it’s only a question of what they are lying about.
I look for changes in behavior. Some people never look you straight in the eyes. If that person suddenly does look you in the eyes, he’s probably lying.
Another way to tell is to ask for more details. The truth has all the details filled in. For a lie that takes a lot more work and most people don’t bother. Where did your car break down? Who did you call for help? How long were you waiting? How much did this cost you? Where was it that you said the car broke down again? If they are lying chances are the story will break down somewhere. Very good lairs will just tell you about the time their car broke down last month and pretend it happened today. That way they have more details to work with.
Asking for verifiable facts also helps. Lets say a customer is lying about buying a certain item from your store and wants you to refund it. “When did you buy this item from this store? Let me check the computer/cameras to see if you did.” That sends them running in a hurry. The ones with pride will waste your time, hoping that by sticking to their story you’ll believe them against the overwhelming evidence.
A good grasp of reality also helps (e.g. know that a hooker will never let anyone have sex for free.)
The liar’s right. I can feel the difference myself, just trying it out - looking to the right does feel shiftier to me. Thanks to my aging, swiss cheese brain, looking to the left (the memory side) feels very familiar.
Another trick: have friends you are too stupid to believe.
Me: Did you steal my magazine last time you were at my house
Friend: Oh… er, maybe… I mean, I might of accidentally put it in with my stuff…
Me: All right, just bring it back tomorrow.
Friend: Okay.
10 minutes later…
Friend: Bad news, I cut some pictures from your magazine.
Me: WTF? Dumbarse.
I tend to do that when faced with a false accusation. For two reasons that are basically (I think) passive-aggressive :
Why on earth would I have to even deny your stupid accusation? Since when do I have to justify myself?
Let’s see how you dig your own hole by showing how baseless your accusation is, you moron!
Regarding the OP question, I never relied on any specific hint. I believe that someone might be lying either because I find the story not believable or because I get “bad vibes”.
I once had a job interview, and it was going well. During the course of the interview a couple of names came up, of people I had worked with before–people in the NY office or the LA bureau, for instance. In my business these were people who often were called on to give informal (and never-mentioned) references. So the interviewer mentioned a name, and I agreed that I knew him when he worked in our NY office. Then I suddenly and perversely remembered getting drunk with the guy late at night during a conference, during which he’d revealed all manner of things I really did not need to know–or remember.
I could feel myself turning red and heating up. I immediately went into all the stuff you just mentioned–over-explaining, talking fast, in fact downright babbling, not looking the guy in the eye, trying to change the subject. I got very flustered; I tried to get calm, and finally told myself I just had to get out of there.
It probably sounded like I was lying. It was embarrassing. I did not get the job. I don’t know what came over me.
The thing was, the guy was probably so drunk he didn’t remember telling me all that stuff. Too bad I wasn’t so drunk I forgot it.
The weird thing is that I lie all the time and usually have no trouble with it. (Note that these are professional lies, like during an evaluation when my boss asks me how I’m liking the job. Great, you know? The truth: Ugh.)
In my particular life, I seldom have to worry about the nuances – the people who have been inclined to lie to me have been careless (either intellectually or emotionally) enough to be inconsistent with their facts and/or details. That really bugs me. If you’re going to lie to me, you have to at least come up with a good story. Don’t tell me some silly crap that doesn’t make sense; I consider that disrespectful.
This might not be consistently accurate, but I believe that liars are more likely to get aggressive when challenged on a lie, trying to make your mistrust the new topic of conversation. Someone telling the truth is more likely to be hurt by the false accusation of lying, and eager to establish the truth.
I also find that liars are prone to embellishing their stories with irrelevant details.
). Watching the complainants as they answer Judge Judy’s questions, I’m starting to see the tiny tells people have. There was one guy in particular recently who flat-out lied, I’m sure of it - in answering the question, he didn’t pause much, and he didn’t look away much, and he didn’t change his voice or mannerisms much, but he glanced ever-so-slightly down and to the right (the "creative"side), and he just didn’t seem the same as his previous answers. I also notice that Judge Judy doesn’t allow people to look anywhere except at her when answering questions. Another guy was telling the truth for the first half of his story, and lying for the second half (which is how Judge Judy ruled). It’s all very interesting, especially for me, another honest person who never expects it when people are lying in real life.