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Think you know how to fool other people?
By Arianna Jeret — Last updated on Apr 04, 2023
You obviously know whether or not you've lied to people (which pretty much most if not all of us have at some point), but have you ever wondered how good a liar you are?
If so, TikToker Yasin Mammeri shared an easy test that just might help you out.
According to a video he posted on the popular app, this simple, one-step test, known as the "Q" test, reveals whether or not you're a good liar.
How to take the Q test for lying and find out if you are a good liar.
Using the index finger of your dominant hand, draw a Q on your forehead — a capital letter Q. Once you've done this, the tail of the Q will rest over either your left eye or your right eye.
Depending on the way you draw the Q, this will determine just how good you are at lying.
What it means if you draw the Q with the tail over your right eye...
"If you've drawn the Q over your right eye," Mammeri explains, "you're doing it as if you could see that Q yourself," suggesting you see the world "from your own perspective."
People who do this, he says, have a tendency to be "quite honest."
What it means if you draw the Q with the tail over your left eye...
As for the left-tailed Q makers among us, Mammeri claims you were drawing the Q from another person's perspective instead.
"You're used to being in other people's minds and you tend to be quite a bit better at lying," he explains.
Is there any validity to this test of your lying skills?
Surprising as it may be, the Q test didn't originate on TikTok but was popularized by Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K., back in 2014.
On his website, Quirkology, Wiseman explains the theory behind the test's results.
People who draw the letter Q with the tail to the right, and therefore in a way in which they can read it themselves, tend to be self-centered.
"They tend to come across as being the 'same person' in different situations, and their behavior is guided more by their own values than the needs of others," Wiseman states, adding that they "pride themselves on being straight with people, and expect others to be honest with them."
This, he claims, means they are "not especially good" liars, but may be more skilled at knowing when others are lying to them.
People who draw the letter Q with the tail to the left, and therefore in a way in which others can read it, tend to be other-centered.
"They tend to be concerned with how other people see them. They are happy being the center of attention, can easily adapt their behavior to suit the situation in which they find themselves, and are skilled at influencing the way in which others see them," Wiseman claims.
This means they are often good at lying, but not at knowing when they are being lied to.
Could the way you draw the Q really be more about whether you are left or right-handed?
Maybe. Wiseman doesn't seem to address this question, but research conducted in 2008 by Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School, does seem to back up the self-centered vs. other-centered theory posited by the Q test.
Galinsky asked half of his study participants to write an essay about a time when they felt powerful and asked the other half to write about a time when they felt someone had power over them:
"Subjects then read a set of instructions that they believed would test their coordination. In the first task, participants used their dominant hands to snap five times as quickly as possible. In the second, they used their dominant hands to write an E on their forehead with a marker.
Those who wrote about moments of high power more often wrote the E so that a person facing them would see a backward E, indicating self-focus... Those who wrote about times of low power wrote the E the opposite way so that a person facing would see it correctly."
The results, while not considered infallible, do suggest the direction in which people write letters with their hands has more to do with the focus of one's perspective than with handedness.
So, basically, there just might be something to the Q test after all... Or am I lying to you?
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Deputy Editor Arianna Jeret, MA/MSW, has been featured in Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post, Yahoo Style, MSN, Fox News, Bustle, Parents and more. Find her on Twitter or more.