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How can you tell if someone is lying?

theatlantic.com

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Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#21

Post by aidenn0 »

dwaltrip wrote: post #16
aidenn0 wrote: post #7

Any time I talk to someone about this evidence it's always "yeah, most people suck at telling liars, but I'm good at it." Lake Wobegon effect for people reading.

This article primarily focuses on the ineffectiveness of using non-verbal cues. It doesn’t really go into that much depth on how easily (or not) liars can be detected by analyzing what they actually say. It briefly mentions that this method appears more effective (although the accuracy was still only 80% or so).

I should have included more details, but the claimed expert lie-detectors almost always name non-verbal cues as the trick to detecting liars.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#23

Post by dwighttk »

aidenn0 wrote: post #7

Any time I talk to someone about this evidence it's always "yeah, most people suck at telling liars, but I'm good at it." Lake Wobegon effect for people reading.

Lake Woebegon effect is such a terrible name. It is very easily possible that every student in a small town is above average compared to e.g. the national average.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#24

Post by colejohnson66 »

airstrike wrote: post #18
themgt wrote: post #12

This was good, and I mostly agree that using verbal strategies that amount to digging into/reviewing the details of what a person is claiming is the best way to detect liars. The TSA thing at the end seems like a bit of a derail though: But, Mann says, without knowing how many would-be terrorists slipped through security undetected, the success of such a program cannot be measured. And, in fact, in 2015 the acting he…

IIRC their 95% failure includes failing to spot explosives and the like in their scanners

Here’s a nice article about their internal tests that failed 95% of the time: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tsa-fails-95-percent-tests-ho...

> In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.

That doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#25

Post by roenxi »

The article seems to have avoided mentioning the easy way of detecting a lie - go and collect some evidence then compare it to what the person is saying. Incentives count as weak evidence for detecting lies. While not foolproof, it is much more effective than looking for verbal cues.

Detecting lies by assessing someone's demeanour is a symptom. The average person seem to have this unshakeable belief that they are psychic and can deduce other people's thoughts. They can't.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#26

Post by jmcgough »

I played a ton of Among Us in 2020, which is a game where you have to figure out which of your friends are lying. I quickly learned that going off "well they're acting pretty guilty" was an easy way to lose. A friend of mine would immediately jump to accuse me whenever I cast suspicion on them, even if they were innocent.

Way better to rely on actual evidence and not hunches, even more so when it comes to giving someone a prison sentence.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#27

Post by tasty_freeze »

seibelj wrote: post #9

The only way to lie effectively (if you are committed to lying, which IMO is not a good longterm strategy) is to commit to the lie 100% and then believe it yourself. For example, if you want to lie about where you were, you have to believe yourself that you were there. If you consciously think you are lying, it won’t work. It’s like forming a new truth and then fully accepting that reality. Many years ago I worked at…

I worked with a pathological liar for about a year. We didn't have day to day interactions, but he was always eager for an audience and if I had time I'd humor him.

My goal was to let him spin his yarn and wait for him to contradict himself in some way. Rather than directly going a "gotcha" I'd act sincerely confused, "Oh, you just said you met him yesterday, but earlier you said you met that person months ago. I must be misunderstanding." Then I'd just enjoy how effortlessly he would create a new fabrication to cover up the gap in his story. I guess practice makes perfect, or at least better.

He was incredibly bold. Once he told me about spending Thanksgiving with a coworker ... and that coworker was in his cube immediately adjacent to mine. After the BS artist left I asked the guy in the next cube if her heard that ... nope, he was wearing his headphones. When I relayed the story, he said nope, he was more likely to shoot the BS artist than invite him over for a meal.

He ended up getting fired because he was taking time off work to attend classes at Stanford. After a few months of this someone in HR checked with Stanford and they said they had no record of a student by that name. LA few weeks after getting fired, HR received a call from another company checking references on one of our former employees, Dr. .

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#28

Post by clouddrover »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #17

Most of us can’t reliably tell when a romantic interest is actively signaling their mutual interest. If we can’t get cooperative activities right, most of us don’t have a chance to spot a liar through nonverbal cues. The fact is that random effects are huge when dealing with people. Is that person you’re interrogating not showing emotion because they’re a psychopath, or because they were taught not to display emotion…

> current polygraph techniques can allegedly be beaten with training

No training is needed because polygraphs don't work. Polygraph testing is about as worthwhile as astrology:

https://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph

https://www.salon.com/2000/03/02/polygraph/

And inadmissible in court in many places:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2000/6.html

> if trained polygraph techs with special equipment

There are no trained polygraph techs. They are, at best, con artists.

Re: How can you tell if someone is lying?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

jmcgough wrote: post #26

I played a ton of Among Us in 2020, which is a game where you have to figure out which of your friends are lying. I quickly learned that going off "well they're acting pretty guilty" was an easy way to lose. A friend of mine would immediately jump to accuse me whenever I cast suspicion on them, even if they were innocent. Way better to rely on actual evidence and not hunches, even more so when it comes to giving some…

[deleted]
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