Is It Possible To Spot A Liar?
How to spot a liar: four sure-fire signals that you haven't been using.
Most of us think we know the telltale signs of a liar—shifty eyes, sweating, a long, winding story that seems highly improbable. The stereotypes are even cross-cultural: a 2006 study done at the Texas Christian University found that similar perceptions of liars exist in over sixty countries.
In reality, however, there is not one behavior all liars exhibit and some behaviors we associate with lying could mean something else entirely. Because of this, few people are very good at spotting liars. Even the so-called "experts"—body language professionals, customs officials, etc.—are only right about half the time.
Deciphering a liar from a truth-teller is not completely hopeless; it just isn't as easy as is seems. How to know when a liar tells the truth?
Can't Smile While You're Lying
After taking an online test to see if I could discern a fake smile from a real one, I realized that, like most people, I'm not very good at it. I got about 50 percent correct—not much better than chance alone. Although it can be hard for the untrained eye to detect a genuine smile from a false one, they are different, and some small clues can help you pick out which is which.
Much of this has to do with paying attention to subconscious control of facial muscles. Paul Ekman, a professor of psychology at UCSF and author of Telling Lies, developed a way to distinguish real emotions from fake ones by identifying the role of specific muscles in our face. The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) looks for things called "microexpressions," which are brief displays of real internal feelings.
Part of what he found is that although fake smiles and genuine ones use some of the same muscles, real smiles use muscles generated by the unconscious brain, meaning there are certain facial actions we can't fake.
For instance, in both fake and real smiles, the zygomaticus major muscle pulls the cheeks upward. However, with genuine smiles, the parts of our brain that process emotion also raise the orbicularis oculi and pars orbitalis muscles, which raise the cheeks and cause the eyes to crinkle.
Looking back at the test faces, I noticed that sometimes the deceitful smilers also seemed to have squinted or creased eyes. The key is to look at the "eye cover fold," which is the skin between the eyelid and the eyebrow. With real smiles, this area moves downward and the eyebrows lower a bit as well. It's hard—if not impossible—to consciously try to do this. Quiz: Do You Fall For Bad Boys?
Actions
Body movements can also hint at a liar. In a 2003 study on cues to deception, UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Bella DePaulo found that liars are tenser and fidget more than those who are telling the truth.
Discussion
All these signs at best tell you someone is anxious or nervous about something not that they are lying per se. If you think someone is lying try get them to recite the events in the reverse direction start at the end. You can go "so wait.. before X(event) what happened again". Liars often forget to memorize the story in reverse and there is no actual event for the brain to recall.
Other signs:
- Too much or too little eye contact!
- Qualifying statements: "Look I am only going to tell you once! "I did not have sexual relations with that women"
- Manipulators: Touching ears, rubbing nose, scratching etc. One sided shoulder shrug
- Gestural retreats and blocking: White telling the lie, a step or motion back, folding arms, placing and object between the two of you.
- Irregular breathing, sweating, pronounced swallowing....
Don't look for one there will usually be a combination of them. Alss it mean the person is NERVOUS to necessarily LYING.
ha! I read it while dating him. It actually doesn't help, because usually a liar confronted with his lie retreats farther into the lie. So I like to say things like "You seem nervous, why?" Or other observational statements that might help me get around the liars walls.
I volunteer as a mentor and one of my mentees was a pathological liar and the one thing I learned was that when she lied not to press her or confront her, but to change the subject. Often times liars are just trying to impress you. Of course, the rest of the time they are doing it to hide their dastardly deeds.
