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Better and worse ways to spot a liar

bbc.com

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Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#71

Post by samuellb »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #49
samuellb wrote: post #19

Not sure if trying to "trap" the liar is always the right way to go. Once I had to work with a freelance web master and we were trying to cancel his contract and make him transfer the domain name to us (an association I was working for). I confronted him by asking politely for a written copy of his contract because I thought he was lying about the length of the contract. He was insulted and claimed there was a verbal…

Are you sure he was a liar and not just an idiot? I had a boss who had some similar really deep-seated beliefs about the technical aspects of domain registration and hosting that he would stubbornly refuse to be corrected on. Oddly enough he's now running his own web development business... Edit: Don't get me wrong, he was a pathological liar as well ;)

Perhaps, and I had this in mind when I talked to him. But it was also non-technical stuff. For instance, one time he said he was on vacation for a month, but then I talked to his friend the day after who insisted that he was not on vacation. And he claimed that a support person of the hosting company had said that the domain couldn't be transferred without deleting all his customers' files. When I asked the support directly, they said it was no problem at all. But I don't think he was doing this for the money (it wasn't much), I think it was more like saving his face, like IshKebab suggested.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#72

Post by rorykoehler »

haberman wrote: post #68
rorykoehler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to take things as I go (at least when planning seems like overkill, e.g. for non-critical things). This caught me by surprise the last time I flew into NYC from Europe. I had intended to get into the city and then call a friend I was staying with to meet up and go to their place from there. Naturally I didn't get the address before hand. They wouldn't let me into the country without an address on my dis-embark…

The UK does the same thing when you fly there, in my experience.

Yes it's not unique to the USA. Doesn't make it anymore reasonable/useful though.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#74

Post by mratzloff »

samuellb wrote: post #19

Not sure if trying to "trap" the liar is always the right way to go. Once I had to work with a freelance web master and we were trying to cancel his contract and make him transfer the domain name to us (an association I was working for). I confronted him by asking politely for a written copy of his contract because I thought he was lying about the length of the contract. He was insulted and claimed there was a verbal…

You should have got what you wanted (domain transfer) before the question of his contract even came up. After clearing it first, I would have said someone higher than you (ideally having recently joined the organization) found out and made it a requirement that all domain names are owned by the organization. That way the freelancer wouldn't feel nearly as personally threatened.

Only then do you end the contract. (Kind of scary that the org didn't have a copy of his contract on file, though. Sounds disorganized.)

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#75

Post by veb »

jshap70 wrote: post #51
justzisguyuknow wrote: post #43

This seems to me like the technique that is already employed by Israeli airport security agents. They have a normally-flowing inquisitive conversation with every passenger boarding flights to or from the country, and they are very good at detecting when the details don't add up or when the person is acting too uncomfortable.

Except I am bad with names, so when they ask somebody's name and you can't remember it then you get pulled aside for more questioning.

Or if you didn't hear the persons name properly or have a speech impediment ...

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#76

Post by veb »

watsonc73 wrote: post #58

From what I understand you typically need a 'base-line' of normality to know when someone has deviated from that. People can get nervous or make mistakes at any point. The best way to set the base-line is to have a general conversation to put them at ease and then ask the more consequential questions. This could lead to longer queues though which would be an unfortunate side effect. TL;DR Use the deviation from the b…

That's how the polygraphing process works, right? Isn't that generally regarded as useless?

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#77

Post by splat »

JonnieCache wrote: post #38
piokoch wrote: post #32

"Thomas Ormerod’s team of security officers faced a seemingly impossible task. At airports across Europe, they were asked to interview passengers on their history and travel plans" It is so sad that nowdays it is not seen as absurdal that some kind of policeman is asking passangers about their travel plans. The journalist get excited that new methods of catching "cheating passangers" are beind developed. Apparently i…

Have border guards not always asked those questions? I'm pretty sure it's been like that since before the 20th century.

Border guards and passports as we conceive them didn't really exist until the 20th century. The historian Paul Fussell wrote in his book Abroad:

"[B]efore 1915 His Majesty's Government did not require a passport for departure, nor did any European state require one for admittance except the two notoriously backward and neurotic countries of Russia and the Ottoman Empire."

And it wasn't until 1945 that Americans were generally required to hold a passport to travel abroad during peacetime. [1]

[1]: http://www.archives.gov/research/passport/index.html

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#78

Post by gambiting »

abawany wrote: post #54
gambiting wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean nowadays? 20 years ago if you wanted to drive from Poland to Germany, the Policeman would spend no less than 20 minutes interviewing you and everyone in your car about every single detail of your journey. In some cases they would order you out so they could unpack all of your luggage and look around the car for any contraband. Nowadays? Nowadays you get in the car and drive through the border, passin…

Certainly your experience of a journey from communist Poland to Germany was full of Brave New World experiences. Now that that regime is gone, your travel is easier. The GP is pointing out that the rest of the world appears to be adopting the tactics that you encountered 20 years ago. Traveling to the US or Israel, for example.

I said 20 years ago - after the fall of communism. The situation looked like that pretty much until we entered the EU in 2001. Funnily enough, passing the border was easier during communism,because so few people did it that the guards assumed that since you are holding a passport in your hand you must have gone through a very stringent process of obtaining one, and would mostly have a look at your picture, your visa if you had one and let you go quickly(passports also had to be returned to the government upon return to Poland, you had to apply again if you wanted to leave again). Then after 1989 anyone could get a passport whenever they wanted,so border controls became a lot more strict.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#79

Post by pelario »

Clearly, such tricks may already be used by some expert detectives – but given the folklore surrounding body language, it’s worth emphasising just how powerful persuasion can be compared to the dubious science of body language.

It strikes me to the degree that the folklore is mixed with the (so called dubious) science. I was always interested in the topic, and had indeed read a book when I was teenager, with ideas such as the iconic example of Clinton touching his nose.

About 5 years ago I went to the topic again; learned that one of the biggest authority in the topic was Paul Ekman and read a couple of his books

Surprise surprise, the main takeaways were ideas such as:

(...) not to jump to early conclusions: just because someone looks nervous, or struggles to remember a crucial detail, does not mean they are guilty. Instead, you should be looking for more general inconsistencies.

Or

There is no fool-proof form of lie detection, but using a little tact, intelligence, and persuasion, you can hope that eventually, the truth will out.

Ekman repeated all over the place that there is no body language for lies, only for emotions, and that the emotions can have a variety of causes. And that was already clear the last century! If some security entity has bought something that promised to spot lies, it was probably folklore-based and no science-based.

Re: Better and worse ways to spot a liar

#80

Post by mratzloff »

watsonc73 wrote: post #58

From what I understand you typically need a 'base-line' of normality to know when someone has deviated from that. People can get nervous or make mistakes at any point. The best way to set the base-line is to have a general conversation to put them at ease and then ask the more consequential questions. This could lead to longer queues though which would be an unfortunate side effect. TL;DR Use the deviation from the b…

Incidentally, this is how I interview people. Random BS for 5-10 minutes followed by interview questions. It also works for one on ones with staff to tell a recent funny anecdote about some subject they're interested in to get them to breathe and open up a little.
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