Telltale Signs of Lying
Telltale Signs of Lying
You may have seen popular movies or television shows based on the premise that a lead character can tell whenever someone is lying. From comic books to detective novels, the idea of someone who can see through every lie has a powerful hold on our imaginations – but does this “superpower” only exist in fiction, or can we tell when someone is lying in real life?
Depending on how experienced a liar someone is, it can be tremendously hard to ascertain whether they are telling the truth or telling a lie. Some people can even lie their way through polygraph, or lie detector, tests. However, there are a few classic tell-tale signs of lying that psychologists and detectives have relied on for years. In this article, we’ll explain what a few of these are.
Discovery News reports on some of the tips that a former CIA agent gives for determining whether someone is lying or not. According to the CIA agent, a few of the bigger indicators include: “repeating the question to stall, attacking the interrogator, complimenting the questioner, invoking religion (“I swear to God…”), using qualifiers (“basically,” “pretty,” or “usually”), selective memory (“not that I recall”)”…the list goes on.
In many of these cases, it’s a matter of applying common sense to the story that someone is telling you: does the story that this person is telling me make sense, and does the way that they are telling it make sense? However, many of these “tell-tale signs” can be a bit difficult to perceive, especially because, in many situations where you are attempting to determine whether or not someone is lying, that person may be nervous already, and many of the tell-tale signs simply resemble behaviors people do when they are nervous. For example, the CIA agent also cites nervous tics, “such as throat clearing, swallowing, biting lips and fidgeting,” and “profuse sweating” as classic signs that someone is lying. However, many people fidget and sweat normally. This is why it helps to know what it’s like when someone is telling the truth before figuring out if that person is lying – a reason why, in many questioning sessions and even interrogations, the persons in charge of leading the interrogation will start the session with “easy” questions.
WebMD has written a useful post with a few potentially more practical tips for figuring out whether someone is lying, featuring trained federal agent and former police officer J.J. Newberry. Newberry says to look for inconsistencies and contradictions, such as details in stories that don’t make sense. However, perhaps counter-intuitively, Newberry says the most important thing to do when trying to figure out whether someone is lying is to figure out when they’re telling the truth. “People can look like they’re lying but be telling the truth,” she says, and finding out what amongst the lies is a truth can actually help you understand why someone would feel the need to lie, which can help you, in turn, tell truth and lies apart.
The easiest way to tell whether someone is lying, of course, is to catch them in the act. If you’re in the Charlotte area and are looking for answers, don’t wait – contact Piedmont PI for a free consultation today!
