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10 Ways to Catch a Liar
Experts have 10 tips that can let you know if
someone isn't telling the truth.
By Heather Hatfield
WebMD Feature
J.J.
Newberry was a trained federal agent, skilled in the
art of deception detection. So when a witness to a
shooting sat in front of him and tried to tell him
that when she heard gunshots she didn't look, she
just ran -- he knew she was lying.
How
did Newberry reach this conclusion? The answer is by
recognizing telltale signs that a person isn't being
honest, like inconsistencies in a story, behavior
that's different from a person's norm, or too much
detail in an explanation.
While using these signs to catch a liar takes
extensive training and practice, it's no longer only
for authorities like Newberry. Now, the average
person can become adept at identifying dishonesty,
and it's not as hard as you might think. Experts
tell WebMD the top 10 ways to let the truth be
known.
Tip No. 1: Inconsistencies
"When you want to know if someone is lying, look for
inconsistencies in what they are saying," says
Newberry, who was a federal agent for 30 years and a
police officer for five.
When
the woman he was questioning said she ran and hid
after hearing gunshots -- without looking --
Newberry saw the inconsistency immediately.
"There was something that just didn't fit," says
Newberry. "She heard gunshots but she didn't look? I
knew that was inconsistent with how a person would
respond to a situation like that."
So
when she wasn't paying attention, he banged on the
table. She looked right at him.
"When a person hears a noise, it's a natural
reaction to look toward it," Newberry tells WebMD.
"I knew she heard those gunshots, looked in the
direction from which they came, saw the shooter, and
then ran."
Sure
enough, he was right.
"Her
story was just illogical," says Newberry. "And
that's what you should look for when you're talking
to someone who isn't being truthful. Are there
inconsistencies that just don't fit?"
Tip No. 2: Ask the Unexpected
"About 4% of people are accomplished liars and they
can do it well," says Newberry. "But because there
are no Pinocchio responses to a lie, you have to
catch them in it."
Sir
Walter Scott put it best: "Oh what a tangled web we
weave, when first we practice to deceive!" But how
can you a catch a person in his own web of lies?
"Watch them carefully," says Newberry. "And then
when they don't expect it, ask them one question
that they are not prepared to answer to trip them
up."
Tip No. 3: Gauge Against a Baseline
"One
of the most important indicators of dishonesty is
changes in behavior," says Maureen O'Sullivan, PhD,
a professor of psychology at the University of San
Francisco. "You want to pay attention to someone who
is generally anxious, but now looks calm. Or,
someone who is generally calm but now looks
anxious."
The
trick, explains O'Sullivan, is to gauge their
behavior against a baseline. Is a person's behavior
falling away from how they would normally act? If it
is, that could mean that something is up.
Tip No. 4: Look for Insincere
Emotions
"Most people can't fake smile," says O'Sullivan.
"The timing will be wrong, it will be held too long,
or it will be blended with other things. Maybe it
will be a combination of an angry face with a smile;
you can tell because their lips are smaller and less
full than in a sincere smile."
These fake emotions are a good indicator that
something has gone afoul.
Tip No. 5: Pay Attention to Gut
Reactions
"People say, 'Oh, it was a gut reaction or women's
intuition,' but what I think they are picking up on
are the deviations of true emotions," O'Sullivan
tells WebMD.
While an average person might not know what it is
he's seeing when he thinks someone isn't being
honest and attribute his suspicion to instinct, a
scientist would be able to pinpoint it exactly --
which leads us to tip no. 6.
Tip No. 6: Watch for Microexpressions
When
Joe Schmo has a gut feeling, Paul Ekman, a renowned
expert in lie detection, sees microexpressions.
"A
microexpression is a very brief expression, usually
about a 25th of a second, that is always a concealed
emotion," says Ekman, PhD, professor emeritus of
psychology at the University of California Medical
School in San Francisco.
So
when a person is acting happy, but in actuality is
really upset about something, for instance, his true
emotion will be revealed in a subconscious flash of
anger on his face. Whether the concealed emotion is
fear, anger, happiness, or jealousy, that feeling
will appear on the face in the blink of an eye. The
trick is to see it.
"Almost everyone -- 99% of those we've tested in
about 10,000 people -- won't see them," says Ekman.
"But it can be taught."
In
fact, in less than an hour, the average person can
learn to see microexpressions.
Tip No. 7: Look for Contradictions
"The
general rule is anything that a person does with
their voice or their gesture that doesn't fit the
words they are saying can indicate a lie," says
Ekman. "For example, this is going to sound amazing,
but it is true. Sometimes when people are lying and
saying, 'Yes, she's the one that took the money,'
they will without knowing it make a slight head
shake 'no.' That's a gesture and it completely
contradicts what they're saying in words."
These contradictions, explains Ekman, can be between
the voice and the words, the gesture and the voice,
the gesture and the words, or the face and the
words.
"It's some aspect of demeanor that is contradicting
another aspect," Ekman tells WebMD.
Tip No. 8: A Sense of Unease
"When someone isn't making eye contact and that's
against how they normally act, it can mean they're
not being honest," says Jenn Berman, PhD, a
psychologist in private practice. "They look away,
they're sweating, they look uneasy ... anything that
isn't normal and indicates anxiety."
Tip No. 9: Too Much Detail
"When you say to someone, 'Oh, where were you?' and
they say, 'I went to the store and I needed to get
eggs and milk and sugar and I almost hit a dog so I
had to go slow,' and on and on, they're giving you
too much detail," says Berman.
Too
much detail could mean they've put a lot of thought
into how they're going to get out of a situation and
they've crafted a complicated lie as a solution.
Tip No. 10: Don't Ignore the Truth
"It's more important to recognize when someone is
telling the truth than telling a lie because people
can look like they're lying but be telling truth,"
says Newberry.
While it sounds confusing, finding the truth buried
under a lie can sometimes help find the answer to an
important question: Why is a person lying?
These 10 truth tips, experts agree, all help detect
deception. What they don't do is tell you why a
person is lying and what the lie means.
"Microexpressions
don't tell you the reason," says Ekman. "They just
tell you what the concealed emotion is and that
there is an emotion being concealed."
When
you think someone is lying, you have to either know
the person well enough to understand why he or she
might lie, or be a people expert.
"You
can see a microexpression, but you have to have more
social-emotional intelligence on people to use it
accurately," says O'Sullivan. "You have to be a good
judge of people to understand what it means."
Extra Tip: Be Trusting
"In
general we have a choice about which stance we take
in life," says Ekman. "If we take a suspicious
stance life is not going to be too pleasant, but we
won't get mislead very often. If we take a trusting
stance, life is going to be a lot more pleasant but
sometimes we are going to be taken in. As a parent
or a friend, you're much better off being trusting
rather than looking for lies all the time."
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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"Most people can't fake smile, the timing will
be wrong, it will be held too long, or it will
be blended with other things." |
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