Lie Detecting 101

Children learn from a very young age (around five years old) that they can attain knowledge that others don’t have and therefore manipulate another’s perception of fact. In other words, they learn to lie. Despite discovering this ability at a very early age, children are novice liars, and so their lies are quite easily detected by adults. However, as people continue through life telling Self-Focused and Other-Focused Lies for a variety of reasons, they become more accomplished in the art of deceiving others. Accepting that, in general, humans do lie regularly (often with good intentions) and therefore should be well-practiced at it, how good are we at detecting the lies that others tell us?

Most people over estimate their ability to detect lies. You’re reading this book, which is aimed at teaching people how to detect lies, so perhaps you don’t fit into this category. However, it is clear that most people are over confident when it comes to knowing when someone is lying. Most people believe that they can tell if their partner or close friend lies to them. Surprisingly, this is not generally the case. There are two primary reasons for this misunderstanding: confidence and closeness. Let me explain.

Due to the close relationship with the partner or close friend, a person “naturally” becomes over confident in being able to identify lies told by that person. This assumption is based upon the person’s belief that he or she knows the partner more intimately than most, and will therefore be able to identify any telltale signs of deceit. This assumption is greatly weakened by the fact that humans inherently want to believe what they are told by those they love. Understandably, it is very difficult in an intimate relationship to remain objective and calculating in terms of assessing whether or not that person is lying. On one hand, people want to believe they are being told the truth, and on the other, they are over confident that they’ll see it if it occurs, due to the closeness of the relationship. The combination of these two factors can lead a person in a relationship to overlook otherwise obvious signs—signs often detected by people outside the relationship.

As will be discussed in more detail later in the book, these skills must be practiced regularly to be an expert lie detector. It’s unnatural for parents to continuously be suspicious of their children throughout the entirety of their childhood. Similarly, it is not conducive to a close relationship for one partner to continuously assess and be suspicious of the other. It is for these two reasons that people don’t often focus their “Liedar” on those they love, and they are therefore at a disadvantage when they do because they are not well-practiced in looking for their partners’/friends’ telltale signs of deceit. Often others outside a relationship are better at detecting the lies of those involved within the relationship. Why? Because they don’t have the close and confident factors to overcome, they remain objective and are therefore more accurate at assessing the verbal and nonverbal clues of lying.

Has there been a situation in your life where you have seen one partner lying to the other, and yet that partner seems to miss all the clues that are obvious you? Similarly, has there been a situation when you’ve heard a person in a relationship who has suffered because of a significant lie say, “I just didn’t see it coming”? Perhaps after a relationship or friendship has ended, you have reflected on certain things and realized that perhaps the person wasn’t as honest as you thought when you were in the relationship. The reason that you have better clarity to assess the degree of truthfulness of the person after a relationship has ended is because some of the confidence and closeness has been eroded or completely removed. It is often the case that after a relationship has ended, due to one partner’s infidelity, the innocent party gains the objectivity to see there had been evidence of the infidelity during the relationship. The closeness and confidence hid them in plain view.

Many parents believe they can always tell when their children lie. This is true when their children are younger. However, as children become older they become better at lying, and by the time they reach the age of fifteen, lies can become extremely difficult to detect. Parents need to keep in mind that while they have had a lifetime of observing their children’s behavior—including detecting lies, which is easy while they’re younger (causing the parent to be over confident)—the child has also had a lifetime of observing the parents’ behavior and has learned through experience every time they have successfully lied. Accordingly, children modify and develop their behavior. By the time they are adolescents they have a veritable database stored away on ways they have manipulated, harassed, or successfully lied to their parents to get what they want or to avoid punishment. I am by no means cynical of children or being critical in anyway. Everyone has gone through this process while growing up, and most would agree that they have manipulated or lied to their parents and got away with it at some stage during their childhood, more successfully so as a teenager.

All is not lost though, as parents will still be able to detect most lies told by their children regardless of age, where there is a high level of emotion attached to the lie. For example, the child may have done something significantly wrong and may feel an extreme amount of personal guilt or fear of the consequences (Emotional Response). When this occurs, the child’s amplified emotion causes a Sympathetic Nervous Response and can trigger obvious telltale signs of lying, such as averting eye contact and fidgeting. (Emotional Response and Sympathetic Nervous Response are examined in The Lying Response on page 32). Regardless of how practiced children become at deceiving their parents, it is still very difficult for them to disguise a lie where there is a huge detrimental consequence or punishment for doing so. On the other hand, when children tell a small lie, they know their parents will not be extremely disappointed or overly angry if the lie is discovered. They know that this small betrayal, if discovered, won’t end with a significant punishment. For these two reasons there is not a large degree of emotion attached to the lie, and there will only be extremely subtle deceit clues that will reveal the child has in fact lied.

Despite the fact that parents continually try to teach children to always tell the truth, there is a school of psychological thought that says it is natural for children to lie to their parents as part of gaining autonomy and independence as they grow up. This may be true; however, parents can take solace that they will, in most cases, always be able to tell when their children tell them a “whopper.” Later, this book reveals some of the subtle secrets in astute lie detection that may assist parents when interacting with their children. If you are a parent, I advise you to hide this book from your children!

So, if most people over estimate how good they are at detecting lies, how good are we “naturally” at detecting lies—without training, special skills, and knowledge? Studies have shown that, despite our general over confidence we are in fact not very good at detecting lies.6 In fact, most people have only a 50 percent chance of accurately identifying when someone has lied. This isn’t because we lie perfectly; it has been found that 90 percent of lies are accompanied by detectable clues, both verbal and nonverbal.7 Interestingly, research has found that there is no universal difference in the capacity to detect lying between genders, age, and social status.8 Regardless of whether we are male or female, young or old, none of us are “naturally” very good lie detectors.

It appears strange that we seem to have an ongoing need and natural ability to regularly tell lies as part of our normal human interaction—sometimes understandably so and other times maliciously, or for self protection—and yet we are poor at detecting lies. This is even more peculiar when you consider that one of the highest values we place on personal relationships is honesty. It would be reasonable to assume that as we value honesty so highly we should be attuned to detect it (or the lack of it), and our capability to lie would be matched by an ability to detect lies as part of the evolutionary process. However, this is not the case.

Why, then, are we better at lying than detecting lies? Professor Paul Ekman, the person on whom the fictional television series character Dr. Cal Lightman of Lie to Me is based, puts forward some interesting evolutionary explanations for this phenomenon.9 To summarize, Professor Ekman states that our ancestral environment, which consisted of small groups of people living in close proximity to each other with very little privacy, didn’t prepare us to have to psychologically assess and detect whether someone was being truthful. For example, in the case of adultery being committed within a group, due to the lack of privacy it would likely be physically “discovered” or by chance witnessed by other members, rather than having been ascertained through psychological assessment. Professor Ekman also believes the ramifications of being caught telling a lie in those primitive times would have been severe, possibly ending in death. In such an environment, lies would not have been told very often because of the significant ramifications of being caught, and the chances of being caught were high due to the lack of privacy. It appears as though our evolutionary background has taught us that we don’t need to try hard to catch a person lying because it will be “physically discovered,” and that lying doesn’t happen very often due to the serious consequences of doing so. Perhaps also it has taught us that when we do lie, we need to be very good at it.

In the twenty-first century, we live in a society where privacy is, quite rightly, vehemently protected and closely guarded. As such, the opportunity to “discover” or by chance witness another’s deceitful act is significantly reduced. For example, consider the exponentially increasing number of cyber crimes where the victim of the crime, be it a person, bank, or institution, has no personal interaction with, or even sees the perpetrator. Not that long ago, a check fraud thief had to show his/her face in the bank or business when cashing a fraudulent check, providing at least an opportunity for bank staff to detect the deceitful behavior firsthand. Even bank robbers had the decency to at least visit the bank they were robbing! Today, credit card numbers can be stolen and personal bank funds may be transferred into a thief’s bank account instantaneously—often via the encrypted laptop of some young cyber thief utilizing the free Wi-Fi of various businesses around the city, making the thief all but untraceable. In an effort to recover some of the funds, if a victim of such a crime then made enquiries into the transactions—where they occurred, who had access to the particular business Wi-Fi network etc.—the victim would very quickly find that all this information is protected by privacy policies and laws. Of course, these crimes can be investigated by law enforcement agencies that have the power to demand such information. I’m not an advocate against the protection of privacy (far from it), but these examples demonstrate the significance our society places on personal privacy, much more so than thousands of years ago. It appears things have changed greatly since our ancestors first walked the earth.

The ramifications of lying need not be as severe or long lasting as they were thousands of years ago. Today, liars who have previously been caught can easily change jobs, change partners, change phone numbers, change their “village,” and even change their name to avoid the ongoing consequences of deceitful behavior. Even serious criminals (who often utilize deceit as a business tool) are well supported by twenty-first century justice and rehabilitation policy. Court orders often suppress publication of their names and allow them to change their names upon release in order to make a fresh start, free from any consequences of their previous deceit. These examples are not provided to be critical of rehabilitation policies, but to highlight the ways in which our society is now more conducive to telling lies; there are more opportunities and less ramifications. Now more than ever we need to have astute lie-detection skills. Clearly, twenty-first century humans need to evolve and evolve quickly.

We come from an evolutionary background where lying didn’t occur very often, and when it did we had to be good at it. The detection of lying wasn’t often required, so it is understandable why today we find the “mental arms race” between lying and being able to detect lies “naturally” won by the former. Thanks, Doctor Darwin.

Gaining additional knowledge and practical skills to strengthen your lie-detection arsenal can redress this evolutionary imbalance. You are doing it right now by reading this book. By gaining additional theoretical knowledge and applying this practically, it is possible to attain rates as high as 80 percent accuracy in lie detection. Hopefully, by the end of this book you will be well on your way becoming a Human Lie Detector.

In summary, due to the evolutionary process there is a vast imbalance between our ability to tell lies and our poor ability to detect them. However, you will be able to dramatically improve and develop your ability to detect lies by gaining additional knowledge and practice. This will give you a mental advantage when interacting with others who are “naturally” less accustomed to looking for lies in everyday conversation. In the twenty-first century, it is advantageous in personal, business, and general human interactions to have the psychological skills to assess degrees of truthfulness in others. You are well on your way.

While this book is focused upon increasing personal lie-detection skills, I don’t suggest you keep your “Liedar” turned on at all times. It is my view that people are generally good, and that while we lie frequently as we make our way through life, most lies are harmless. I believe it is neither healthy nor desirable for a person to take a constant doubting and suspicious stance toward everyone. To do so would have two adverse effects: First, it would foster a more cynical outlook on life and make it difficult to find intimacy and enjoy trusting relationships; and second, accuracy in lie detection would also falter. Studies have shown one of the primary factors inhibiting investigators from making accurate assessments of deceit is that they commonly approach suspects with the view that the suspect is guilty, and they just need to find proof. This bias clouds their objective assessment, and they miss vital nonverbal clues. On the other hand, a more accurate lie detector will approach each person from a purely objective viewpoint and assess both verbal and nonverbal behaviors for clues of deception in a measured and unclouded way.

Additionally, I believe you will be far more focused and effective when you do turn on your “Liedar” if you are not looking for lies all the time. While I don’t believe you need to have your “Liedar” on at all times, it can be an extremely vital tool (when required) to protect yourself or others you care about in business and personal relationships. Judgement just needs to be shown as to when you want to hit the “on” switch.

We have established that “naturally,” we are not very good at detecting lies; certainly not as good as we think we are. Perhaps this is understandable for the layperson, but what about the people in our society—such as police, judges, lawyers, and psychiatrists—who have a vested interest in having a high lie-detection rate? Surprisingly, two reliable and independent studies of these specific categories revealed that these professionals were only able to detect lies 50 percent of the time.10 In fact, a comprehensive study conducted by Kraut and Poe found that US Customs Officers were no more accurate in detecting deceit than college students.11

The study by Professors Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan found that after testing secret service agents, federal polygraphers, investigators, judges, psychiatrists, and college students, there was one group that outperformed all the others.12 The majority of those tested achieved between 40–60 percent accuracy. As was discussed earlier, this is approximately the accuracy expected of a person “naturally.” However, more than half of the US Secret Service officers tested achieved above 70 percent accuracy.

One of the explanations as to why this group outperformed all others was that they were involved in close personal protection (bodyguard) duties, protecting important government officials. In this role, these guards are constantly scanning crowds in an effort to identify suspicious behavior that may lead to a threat against the person they’re protecting. By constantly observing the behavior of others and focusing their minds upon detecting threat clues, it appears as though they have developed an ability to detect nonverbal deceit. In short, they have developed an ability to identify guilt or at least deceptive behavior through observation skills. I have had the opportunity to undertake similar roles and can attest from my first-hand experience that after a period of constantly assessing people, there is a noticeable increase in the capacity to rapidly make an assessment of a person’s intention based on observation of his or her nonverbal behavior.

The ability to assess nonverbal behavior can greatly increase the accuracy of lie detection. Studies have shown that people who are trained in detecting lies use different tactics to do so than people who are less accurate in detecting lies. The primary difference is that accurate lie detectors observe a combination of verbal and nonverbal behavior to make their assessment. Inaccurate lie detectors place a greater emphasis on verbal information alone; they rely on what they are told to establish whether someone is lying. Accurate lie detectors rely on a combination of what they’re told and what they observe.13

There have been a multitude of books written on body language, some by well-credentialed academics and professionals, and some by others less qualified. Regardless, one common thread that ties most of these publications together is that they all believe that nonverbal behavior (what is done) has more influence on communication than verbal (what is said). There have been a variety of different studies conducted to estimate the proportion of verbal versus nonverbal percentages during human communication. Some have placed nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent, though I find this questionable. A more realistic result, which has subsequently been supported by other studies, was found when Albert Mehrabian was conducting extensive research into body language. Mehrabian found that 55 percent of communication was nonverbal (how the body moves), 38 percent was vocal (how things are said), and only 7 percent was purely verbal (what is said).14 Based on this and other research it is clear that people rely more on nonverbal behavior (55 percent) than on verbal behavior (45 percent) in respect to communication. Does the same hold true in respect to lie detection?

As mentioned before, the US Secret Service personnel rated above all others tested in respect to lie-detection accuracy, and one of the reasons for this was their well-practiced and accurate interpretation of nonverbal behavior. Reinforcing this concept was a study that compared people suffering from Aphasia with healthy individuals. Aphasia is a condition caused by damage to the left hemisphere of the brain that results in the total or partial loss of ability to understand spoken or written language. This study pitted the Aphasic group, who have no understanding of what words in a sentence mean, and therefore must rely totally on voice tone and nonverbal behavior, against a group who have normally functioning brains.

The healthy group in their assessment would logically listen to what was said and how it was said and also observe nonverbal behavior. The Aphasics could only perform the latter two tasks, as they simply could not understand what was said. Surprisingly, the research found that the Aphasics outperformed the other group significantly in detecting lies.15 The Aphasics clearly relied upon what they saw in the person’s behavior and how the words were said to identify who was lying. This removes any doubt that, while logically what is said is important, it is not as important as how it is said, nor is it as important as observing the person’s nonverbal behavior as the person speaks.

Perhaps this also gives us a clue as to why judges performed averagely in the previously mentioned test. In court, evidence is provided in the form of photographs, written statements, forensic re-creations, and the oral testimonies of people who are sworn to tell the truth. In addition, from an evidentiary perspective, a court is primarily interested in what is said, not how things are said. How something is said is not evidence, nor is someone’s nonverbal behavior while giving evidence, although it may go against a person’s credibility to look guilty in the eyes of the jury (and judge) while giving the testimony. Therefore, it is perhaps understandable why judges pay particular attention to exhibits produced before them and also to exactly what is said before them rather than how something is said or the nonverbal behavior of the person while speaking. Despite what personal views a judge may form about a witness or a defendant, professionally, judges are predominantly concerned with facts, and this forms the focus of their assessment. This being the case, they are not well-practiced at assessing whether someone is telling the truth based upon nonverbal behavior. This provides a reasonable explanation as to why judges did not perform as well in the test as most would expect.

So, we have established that without specific lie-detection training, everyday citizens and professionals are not very good at detecting lies. However, there is one very small group within our community that is the exception to the rule—Lie Wizards.

Lie Wizards constitute a very small group in society and have the ability to detect lies with a high degree of accuracy. As previously discussed, the average person has the ability to detect lies with around 50 percent accuracy. With training and practice this accuracy level can be raised to about 80 percent accuracy. Lie Wizards, however, have a natural accuracy rate of 80 percent or better, with no training whatsoever. They are extremely rare though, as approximately only two in every one thousand people have this ability.16 Dr. O’Sullivan conducted an extensive study into lie-detection wizards and found that this group was made up equally of both men and women from varying educational backgrounds. This is encouraging, as it proves that gender and education levels are irrelevant to one’s ability to detect lies.17

There are a number of theories about why these people have such a naturally high degree of accuracy. These theories range from the Lie Wizard growing up in a dysfunctional or violent household where the identification of threats through nonverbal communication became highly developed as a child, to a skill developed from childhood by the constant study of people’s faces and reactions either by a natural inherent motivation or through some form of interest such as drawing or sketching portraits. Regardless of how this ability was attained, the findings in most studies show that the detection by these Lie Wizards is based primarily via nonverbal clues, most commonly facial. It appears as though members of this select group have a highly developed ability to detect micro-expressions and other very subtle signs that are lost on us mere mortals. Micro-expressions are expressions demonstrating an emotion that appears extremely briefly (1/25 of a second) on a person’s face. These are discussed in more detail in the following chapter on page 84.

There is no conclusive evidence identifying that Lie Wizards were born with this ability; rather, they learned and developed their skills over a long period of time. Dr. O’Sullivan found that Lie Wizards are motivated. They want to get things right, and they practice their skills constantly, like athletes.18 This should provide you with some encouragement, as it further validates that knowledge and practice do in fact increase the ability to detect lies.

If you are already a Lie Wizard, then this book won’t be of great benefit to you. However, if you want to become a Lie Wizard, then intensive study and practice over a period of time will set you on the correct path. Lie Wizards are extremely rare. I’m pretty confident, though, that all my schoolteachers have been, in fact, Lie Wizards. They just seemed to know every time I did something wrong. They blamed me for everything I did, which seemed grossly unfair at the time! If you are unlucky enough to have a Lie Wizard for a child, then you can probably drop the whole Santa and Easter Bunny ruse; though you may want to invite them to assist you at your next poker game!

Other-Focused Lies: Told with good intention—“Does my butt look big in this?”

Self-Focused Lies: Told to protect from embarrassment—“I’m having a great birthday party. Everyone’s here.”

Self-Focused Lies: Told to make a good impression—“My other car’s a Lamborghini.”

Self-Focused Lies: To gain advantage—“Yes I’ve had a lot of experience in this industry.”

Summary of Main Points

Naturally, we are far better at telling lies than detecting them. Without specific training, most people, including those from professions where detecting lies is crucial, achieve a lie-detection rate of about 50 percent.

With specific knowledge (provided by this book), and practice (provided by you), people may achieve a lie-detection rate of 80 percent.

The more you use your “Liedar” the more accurate your lie-detection skills will become. However, you don’t want it on constantly—knowing when to turn it on will make you more focused when you do use these skills.

There is a special category of Human Lie Detector (referred to as Lie Wizards) that has a natural talent in accurate lie detection without specific training, achieving starting percentages of 80 percent or better.

Most people believe that they can tell if their partner, child, or close friend lies to them. This is usually not the case, due to two primary factors: over-confidence (they know the person well and will therefore be able to see the telltale signs) and closeness (the natural default position for humans is to believe the people they are emotionally close to). These two factors lead to a loss of objectivity, which prevents a person in a close relationship from seeing otherwise obvious signs of deceit.

Studies have demonstrated that 55 percent of communication is nonverbal (how the body moves/reacts), 38 percent is vocal (how things are said) and only 7 percent is purely verbal (what is said). While what is said cannot be totally discounted in lie detection, how things are said and how a person’s body moves/reacts while communicating are far more important.

Relying solely on what is said is inherently unreliable. Accurate lie detectors rely on a combination of what they’re told and what they observe.