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How to tell when someone is lying?

newyorker.com

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Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#3
The article's OK, but it doesn't actually deliver on the headline by illustrating the "tells" of a lie. This book is much more practical.

http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1...

One of the most interesting ideas is that no single tells indicates a lie, but clusters of them together are strong signals. A few would be: 1) pausing before you answer (lies take longer to compose than truths); 2) touching your face with your hand (blood rushes from your face when the fight-or-flight response kicks in, prompting an itching sensation); 3) fidgeting at the place where your body rests on something more solid (floor, chair, armrest); 4) vacillating between an appeasing and angry tone; 5) leaning away and closing your body language.

Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#4
It seems to me that under some circumstances, developing a skill for detecting liars could be dangerous. If you are good at catching liars, then your confidence in people who you do not belief to be lying could go up, which could in turn increase the damage done by false-negatives.

Knowing that in all likelihood some of the people I interact with are sociopaths/psychopaths (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% of the population are, and most blend in with the general population), I distrust my own ability to determine when somebody is or is not lying to me. Being self-critical in this way limits the damage done by the few that will inevitably slip through.

Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#5
post #3

The article's OK, but it doesn't actually deliver on the headline by illustrating the "tells" of a lie. This book is much more practical. http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1... One of the most interesting ideas is that no single tells indicates a lie, but clusters of them together are strong signals. A few would be: 1) pausing before you answer (lies take longer to compose than truths); 2) to…

These are also all traits of social awkwardness

Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#6
post #3

The article's OK, but it doesn't actually deliver on the headline by illustrating the "tells" of a lie. This book is much more practical. http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1... One of the most interesting ideas is that no single tells indicates a lie, but clusters of them together are strong signals. A few would be: 1) pausing before you answer (lies take longer to compose than truths); 2) to…

This might be somewhat of an unfortunate list, as I tend to do 1, 2, 3, and 5 when I'm answering a nuanced question that requires a careful answer (i.e. non-technical family member asking if it's really possible for the NSA to spy on all of us)

Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#8
post #3

The article's OK, but it doesn't actually deliver on the headline by illustrating the "tells" of a lie. This book is much more practical. http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1... One of the most interesting ideas is that no single tells indicates a lie, but clusters of them together are strong signals. A few would be: 1) pausing before you answer (lies take longer to compose than truths); 2) to…

This might be somewhat of an unfortunate list, as I tend to do 1, 2, 3, and 5 when I'm answering a nuanced question that requires a careful answer (i.e. non-technical family member asking if it's really possible for the NSA to spy on all of us)

I totally agree.

Answering questions empathetically takes a lot of effort.

Re: How to tell when someone is lying?

#10
post #3

The article's OK, but it doesn't actually deliver on the headline by illustrating the "tells" of a lie. This book is much more practical. http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Lie-Former-Officers-Deception/dp/1... One of the most interesting ideas is that no single tells indicates a lie, but clusters of them together are strong signals. A few would be: 1) pausing before you answer (lies take longer to compose than truths); 2) to…

This book is a decent guide to decoding body language (including, but not limited to, deception): http://www.amazon.com/What-Every-BODY-Saying-Speed-Reading/d...

The author's approach is that you must observe a "baseline" of what is normal behavior for an individual in order to accurately read body language. He suggests looking for deviations from normal behavior along with clusters.

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