How Do You Spot A Liar?
If you're anything like me then you've never told a lie in your life either and often wonder why people make claims that they know are untrue, including the one you just read. Most of the time we don't really mean any harm when misrepresenting a fact; they're just little white lies to make your life slightly more convenient, like 'it's lovely to see you again' or 'we're just 5 minutes away' or 'of course I'm a qualified gynecologist.'
When he lies, his nose gets bigger, making the fact that he has no nostrils even more pronounced
Of course some lies can be more pernicious and have far reaching consequences. These can range from solemn oaths pronounced when one's hand is held over a book that claims the Earth is 6000 years old, to very simple utterances like 'I do.' But what drives us to lie? And are there reliable ways to spot lies? Well, as someone with a PhD in behavior psychology and 40 years of professional experience, I feel I'm qualified to shed some light on this topic.
Why Do We Lie?
Studies have shown that in a typical conversation with a stranger, the average person will lie over 3 times in the first 10 minutes, although that average drops down to a little below 1 if you discount Donald Trump. This level of ubiquitous pathological lying in our species would seem to suggest there may exists an evolutionary reason for it.
Researchers postulate that as social beings, we humans have undergone an evolutionary arms race between lying and spotting lies. This is because historically, the art of deception and the ability to detect it both yield survival and reproductive advantages. The long running contest between 'of course you don't look fat in that' and suspecting he's probably sleeping with your skinny ass sister, is to blame for us all being expert prevaricators.
There is evidence that other primates are also capable of lying. Some of you may have heard of the story of Koko the gorilla, who, when confronted, famously used sign language to blame a broken steel sink in her enclosure on her tiny pet kitten. Of course the only first-hand account of this incident came from a maintenance worker whose sole job it was to keep all the sinks in the gorilla enclosure in good working condition. The point is that we can find the evolutionary roots of lying in other animals as well.
Even tastier than a banana
How Can You Spot Lies?
Sometimes you can spot a liar just by looking at them. For example, if they're male, Asian, write comedy on Steemit and have a 10 inch penis, they're probably a liar. But there are also a multitude of signals that people tend to unwittingly give off when they're telling a fib. For example, I have a propensity of scratching my hemorrhoids and sniffing my fingers involuntarily every time I'm being a little deceptive. I think it's just nervousness, we all do it. I also believe I'm one of the best poker players in the world because nobody ever dares play against me again, even when most of them get lucky and win my money the first time around.
Here are some other common symptoms exhibited by other people when they're lying, or me when I'm telling the truth:
- Non contracted sentence - In an effort to compensate for the lack of veracity in their claim, liars will often use more formal language. Eg: 'Trust me when I say I will not be using this same example twice in a row.'
- Conditional qualifiers - Similarly, when lying, people tend to over-qualify their statements. Eg: 'Trust me when I say I will not be using this same example twice in a row.' Certain qualifiers themselves are almost guaranteed to be lies. A popular one being 'I'm not racist but...'
- Distancing language - We tend to distance ourselves from the subject when we're not entirely truthful: Bill Clinton famously said 'I did not have sex with that woman which, thinking he was referring to Hillary, everyone initially believed until he added 'Miss Lewinsky.' Referring to her as 'that woman' was a subconscious attempt to distance himself from her.
There are also a number of common nonverbal cues, and I don't mean all the lies you've read so far in this article in writing, I mean body language signals as to when one might be lying:
Make sure the photographer is not behind you when you're reading your wedding vows
- Direct eye contact - The idea that liars have difficulty making eye contact is a common misconception. To the contrary, they're usually quite desperate to look unfazed as well wanting to see if you've bought their story. So be very skeptical when your spouse comes home late from work one day and all of a sudden starts staring you down like a champion boxer.
- Feet pointing towards exit - Liars instinctively wish to get out of what they deem to be a threatening interrogation and may unconsciously posture themselves to leave the room. Unless they're farting a lot, then they probably just need to go to the toilet really badly.
- Their mouth is moving - only works when they're politicians.
Conclusion
While it would be awfully convenient to be able to detect liars by their abnormally long nose or their wearing pants that are inexplicably engulfed in flames all the time, spotting lies in the real world is, unfortunately, an unreliable science and none of the above signals on their own would constitute conclusive proof that someone is lying. However, given the context, they can help to inform you of the likelihood that someone isn't being entirely truthful.
I suppose the lesson here is if you have to lie, a good memory never hurts as you'll need to keep track of all your individual fabrications so as to not give yourself away. Also, try to do it over the phone or email so they won't get a read on your sweaty little face. Finally, a good memory never hurts as you'll need to keep track of all your individual fabrications so as to not give yourself away.
What are some of the dumbest lies you've heard or told over the years? Let me know in the comments below!
References
Why Do We Lie
Former CIA Officer Will Teach You How to Spot a Lie l Digiday
The Science of Lying
If you enjoyed this post please Upvote, Resteem and Follow me @trafalgar for more funny articles
By his nose of course.
haha I guess you shouldn't lie too much if your'e allergic to pollen :)
I'm delighted with your work. Excellent raise the mood. Not everyone is able to express their thoughts like this and bring them to the reader. Thank you very much for your work. At the moment you are in the first place. And I always read your work. Good luck.
thanks a lot for reading my articles
i'm flattered
A history of lies is the best indicator.
I just got introduced to this site and I have to agree with you! I was reading the first 3 posts all made by him and am loving them! I'm also really impressed by this site in general and so many awesome people! <3
Same, just joined and is pretty interesting
In my case, I caught their text messages and saw the cheating first hand. Never understood what it was like to be cheated on. Spotting a liar after 13 years is devastating and eye opening.
i am very weak in spoting a liar, i trust people on their words but most of the time people do not turned out the way they talk or the way they look...
I am very strong in spotting liars cause they act fake and because of that i spot it almost every time,something feels off....I have ADD and my gut feeling is also very strong and was always right in the end...and a lot of people with ADHD or ADD have that...and usually they touch their nose or other parts of their face is one the most important sign.
woah, that's a pretty heavy one for the first reponse
i've not been cheated on either so I can't imagine how it feels
sorry to hear
Well... I don't think I ever lie. Or maybe I do? Not sure...
It's a good thing you haven't. BUT if you have the right attitude, pray, seek comfort or therapy you will see a door close and a new one open. Depression is exactly the word.. going DOWN. The strongest people lift themselves up, and if they reach out for help it doesn't mean they are weak. It gives other people a chanc to do good, and it creates hope for the person down. I found my solemate after that fiasco, and I could never be happier with my spouse (although not or perfect.. but who is)
Dude, you always write about topics that deserves a lot of discussion, so I just wanted to commend you for that. It's an underrated ability that definitely deserves praise. So, kudos.
I agree with the points you discussed, and yeah, it's hard to spot a lie because of all the intricacies involved with it. What's a lie anyway? Is there even a solid definition for it? I mean, what if a person convinces himself that something is true even though it isn't, does that count?
There are so many variables involved, so I don't think that humans would be able to accurately tell every time. Sure, there are some who read cues that come close, but I don't think they have a 100% accuracy. Too many points to discuss with this topic, what with all the lie detectors we have in the community haha!
thanks a lot for checking out my post again jedau
it's true that a very formal definition isn't easy, as there's self deception and delusion and cognitive dissonance involved
as well as just genuine mistake
No thanks necessary, man. Your topics really make it easy to comment. I just wish I had that same skill to pick discussion-worthy topics. Yeah, "cognitive dissonance" was what I initially wanted to use as an example, but the concept slipped my mind.
I can tell 7 lies in a sentence consisting of 6 words.
impressive, you must be surrounded by lawyers
Oh, there were so many ... maybe one of the biggest was when one politician claimed to make his country "great again", just to get elected. :) But ok, maybe actually he believed in what he was saying, so it may not be a good example ...
The most recent lie I just experienced in 'Steemit Chat'. One user claimed to upvote nearly everybody to get some 'upps' in return ... but it seems he didn't know there is https://steemdb.com/ ...
Concerning animals, they are also lying a lot: have you heard of that beaver which always hit his tail loudly on the water surface when it found some good food? Normally this behavior is used as alert signal when predators are approaching. So the beaver told its colleagues to hide while he could consume the food alone. :)
(I will write an article about lying animals as soon as time allows.)
I spot a trafaliar :) I didn't know the stats were so bad, 3 times in 10 mins.
haha in my case it's more 10 in 3 mins
but yes, I think the research does show those numbers i'm afraid
A good memory never hurts as you'll need to keep track of all your individual fabrications so as to not give yourself away.
That's entirely my own take on your pretty darn good article.
BTW, nice to meet you.
No, really, you can trust me when I say that.
First of all thank God that Pinocchio doesn't have nostrils! Do you know how gross that would look? Would anything stay in them as they grew or would gravity have its way with him?
Ask your cat why he thinks the kitten broke the sink. I'm curious.
Will other players actually touch the chips you lose to them or do they just fold every time to avoid that? It is an excellent strategy by the way.
Worst lie: "Branson Missouri is as much fun as Las Vegas".
maybe he has a lot of nostril hair to hold on to the contents, you never know
that gorilla's still a better liar than trump :p
Hands are bigger too. But Trump would tell you his are much, much bigger. They are amazing!!!
I used to lie all the time and get away with it but then I noticed that when you lie you have so much more fake information to remember.
And I don't have fantastic memory so I slipped up once or twice.
Then I stopped, saw no benefit in what I was doing and started being a better person.
Now I'm a great person.
Don't lie.
:)
hmm i can't relate, i've never lied
My legs are rather long, about half my body size. Lol
That's why you left the dark side of the lies! :D
The only thing you need to do is follow your instincts.
Honestly they never lie. We must all follow our emotions as they are part of us.. If something is bothering you on an emotional level, then a certain factor in your life is cousing it.
Great post and much love from me friend💕💖💘.
Cheers and all the best
thanks for having a look
glad you enjoyed it
Interesting read, I truly believe that the human race was born to lie and destroy. Maybe that is our calling, to destroy ourselves. But I'm probably just too ripped haha.
haha we are evolved to be pretty good at deception
I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.
SE Hinton
When i was but a small boy, i went to my mother store room which had some tubers of yam there. I scratched and peeled some of them. I was caught and asked what happened to the yam. By the time i knew it, i had told a stupid lie saying a human goat came to eat the yam.
Love the post! Really good work. Thought you might like my lost recent rant. Take a look?
https://steemit.com/funny/@jhermanbeans/orange-is-the-new-black-and-getting-dumped-a-definitely-drunken-rant
Had a quick read, nice work, upvoted
thanks for having a look at my piece
Really appreciate it. Big fan of yours!
They wear red "plus" signs with yellow arrows attached to them on their lapels.
hahaha I get a few angry replies for making trump jokes now and then
I try to spread my contempt for politicians around equally; but this guy is just bat-shit crazy.
BTW, thank you for spending your upvotes, you've done it quite a bit in this post and deserve some recognition for it.
Please accept my 0.01.
Ain't it the truth though?
great content , body language is very important. lairs also say too much. they provide unnesesary details. test it for yourself
yes that too
and they're very focused on the chornological order of things
@money-reflection that is true ! Im bad at lying lol
I'd be #lying if I said this was the #best #article I have ever read.
But it was pretty good :D
haha thank you
The best liar in the entire universe.
(
)
lol
This is a good post!
Answering to your question, I use to do small lies. It is in the human nature.
For example... if I spend 100 I will say 120... it is silly but it is a lie! If I will see a friend of mine that is girl...I will not say that to my gf as she could be jealous. Other lie.
I just started the new job and I am receiving so many duties that I would like to explode and say f..k off to everyone but I say its all good.
Lies are part of our daily life. Big lies are a problem but the small ones I am saying I think they are acceptable!
haha ya you can't get through life without telling a few little white lies
thanks for having a look
not a problem @trafalgar ;) keep posting good contents ;)
I think lies is essential for human . Sometimes if you want to tell bad news to anouther, you may make a lie to make them feel better. And people always tell lies for their advantages. It is essential for human, but people can also recognise the lie is truth or not. So that make people interesting:)
You look them in the eye for what would be an uncomfortable amount of time. Very, very few liars can resist this inspection without giving some obvious clues to their discomfort.
haha but then you look like a weirdo :p
You are probably grossly overestimating the amount of time I am suggesting you look into their eyes. It takes just a fraction of a second.
That might also cause discomfort in someone who's telling the truth.
Sure, but if you are keen, wise , and experienced, you can nearly always tell the difference. Practice with it, and you will get better at reading people. Not to the point where thy think you are weird, just gaze slighly longer than usual, or at least look people in the eye when you speak to them.
Besides, that is the point. If you need to know whether someone is telling the truth or not, that would be an instance where the risk of making a truth teller slightlyuncomfortable is worth the reward of finding out if they are indeed telling the truth. This is a technique for only infrequent, important situations.
I sleep with one eye open ;)
hahaha we're all despicable liars
except me, i never lie :)
Was that a lie in itself?
You know someone is lying because their mouth is moving plain and simple even if they are not trying too, people will try to do whatever it takes to not make someone mad or hurt someones feelings.
i think little white lies make the world go around
I really love your humor but I love even more how smart you weave it into your articles - or the other way round. I spotted that lie in the first sentence right away but I fell for the double "good memory" at the very end 😂
haha well that makes us 1:1
thank you for enjoying my articles
A quote
"It is easier to deceive people than to convince them that they have been deceived." -by Mark Twain
very wise quote indeed
Thank you and I'm glad you like it @trafalgar
Love the humor. Little white lies keep this orb spinning. Why hurt someone's feelings when you don't have to. In many cases, pure honesty is downright hurtful.
yeah i agree, little white lies keep the world going around :)
LOL, i always get tones of laugh reading your posts!... love it! :*
thank you very much =)
From personal experience: people who lie can't properly look you in the eye. It's all in the eyes.
As the autistic person that i am i can't look anyone in the eyes it makes me uncomfortable..
however i am autistically incapable of lying, i have the urge to correct myself when i accidentally flap out an untruth.
Or when i say something that might be misinterpreted i keep adding to that making things more confusing and in the end i'll say whaehajkhds i can't explain it, which is what i'm going to do here. :P
True, a lot of people in the autism spectrum can't look others in the eyes. And at the same time they can be painfully honest. But somehow I can mostly spot the person that doesn't look others in the eye, because of reasons you mentioned, or because they are big liars.
nah i think that's a myth
they stare you down more than anyone i think
People often think it's a myth but I've had more succes spotting a liar by inspecting their eyes than anything else.
this reminds of one of my fave films :)
ya hilarious movie and probably his best performance ever
ace ventura and the mask are faves as well, nobody creates characters quite like he does! really gives it his all lol
ya he really gives it his all
one of the best physical/slapstick comedians
yeah, but seems to be losing his mojo lately
interesting article, pretty nice job..I tend to not lie to much because it close your energy, if you heard about chakras, it closes the throat chakra..so if you lie often over time it expand and you become master on it...also the energy on your body will not flow as it should.
haha i have, dammit, no wonder i've always got a sore throat :)
That may be from other activities, though.
Amazing what a number of lies we can produce. I suppose we do not want to be ourself, we want to be something better when talking with a stranger. I know when at work and in business, I produce lies for sure and sometimes even big lies (but always those that I can make happen). In personal life I tend to think I lie less, but yeh, it happens that I lie for various reasons.
Best lie I ever made was when I was a teenager at school. Every year my parents took me on ski vacation and one of the weeks did not coincide with school vacation. On Monday morning I was always called in sick. When returning to school, I would also state the same answer that I was sick when I was asked the question; Full hearted with my sunburned face and white spots around the eyes.
hahaha
silly teachers never caught on eh?
thanks for having a look at the article
Well, after a second or third year they knew, but fortunately they let it happen :)
Do "little white lies" count? :)
haha I think they do you naughty boy
Haha! ;)
As far as being lied to, I'll just say this: If I had to write a book on lies, it would be - A Lie That Changed The Course of My Life. It led to pain and struggle.
Your writing is very engaging and this is no exception.
thanks for the recommendation
I'll check it out if i have time
Well... there is no such book. I meant to say that would be the title - if I had to write a book on lies based on my experience. :)
Should watch TV series Lie to Me to better understand the body language of a liar.
I think after the first 3 episodes they ran out of things to say and just started making shit up lol
I'll shave my Head if I get 100 votes on this comments.
P.S. Not Lying I'll upload a photo or a video.
MANNN @trafalgar .... you write the best stuff on STEEMIT. When you're in Las Vegas... I got you bro. We can do a STEEMIT Colab! :)
haha thank you very much for say
sounds awesome
Nothing better than friends and family to teach you everything you need to know about Lying 101!
Biggest lie I make is to tell myself, that my life's path is special! Biggest lie I have been told, is the motivation I receive from family to keep going on it.
haha i think if you're lucky life works itself out, that's probably the best I can say about it without lying :) and I never lie
I didn't join steemit for money ;)
oh send them over to poor little @trafalgar over here
i have to support my wife and 142 cats
haha
You can usually tell by their eyes, the truth is always within the eyes.
I cross my eyes every time I speak to cover my tracks
We are all lairs, we ain't living a great life, that is from my perspective anyways.......am a lair, because my life isnt as i want it to be right now and i keep telling people am fine!
haha so true, except me
i've never lied :)
Really?.....i just met a saint😂😄😆......saint trafalgar
@oluwoleaide
U not far from the truth...admire your honesty..
Thank you @kenhudoy, i like it that you encourage me😊
I think Lying can be so very destructive. Sam Harris has a good book on this. Even the simple white lies can destroy trust which takes years to build. I don't mind conflict so sometimes I get in trouble saying what I think instead of what someone else might want to hear. In the long run, if it's a relationship that will be mutually beneficial, I think people respect the truth.
Yes, I've read this essay, it's very good
I actually slightly disagree (like 10%) that it's as destructive or as clear cut as he makes it out to be though
I think it can be useful for comedy (as you've done well here) or when it's a known, acceptable kindness that both agree to such as "I'm doing okay" if you both know you're hurting but you don't want to burden someone with it. But then, I don't even really consider that a lie if it's known by both people. It's not an attempt to defraud or falsify. But even then... I just view reputation and trust as really import (more on that here) so any lie, to me, seems not worth the risk of damage it can cause.
ya, i think it's sort of nuanced and there a gradations of misrepresentations
I guess sam harris probably woulnd't disagree there
he's a good thinker, his podcast is interesting depending on the quality of the guests
Yeah, I've read a number of his books and enjoy his podcast also. Good stuff.
lie to me
haha microexpressions
pretty hard to read unless you're an expert
Useful information and well thought out. I do agree on all points. :-) Truth is lying has become such a social norm that we as humans do it without even thinking about it. Good to keep in mind what to look out for. I do agree with bearbear613. Nothing worse then finding out someone has been lying to you especially for the stupidest reasons sometimes.
being cheat on must suck big time
but yeah, lying is more in vogue than ever!
Uhmmm interesting....
thank you
liars often say i am ( just ) doing this or that --key word is just ..anyway i like your article and am already following you and upvoted too-glad to see you know how to spot the liars
thank you very much :)
I think it's often a sign that the person feels himself to be under pressure, but not necessarily a tell that it's a lie.
Another signs showing the person is lying is that they are going to touch their mouth,or nose but their hand will be infront of their mouth. It is like they are trying to not let go the lie out of their mouths.
Another sign that someone is lying to you is right there in their eyes. When they try to think of the lie, their eyes tend to move up and to the right in their eye sockets. When a person is trying to remember something his eyes move up and to the left, when they lie they go to the right.
ah yes, putting a barrier between yourself and someone else is another tell
there are many and I couldn't cover them all, nor do I know them, but nice catch
Not from their noses ?
sry, think that's a myth
and their pants aren't using aflame either
Liars!!!
Best way to Spot a Liar is watch the American TV series: Lie to me.
You'll be a master in spotting a Liar.
haha i think 3 episodes in they ran out of techniques and just started making up stuff lol