HOW TO DETECT A LIE

All people have intuition, some to a greater extent, and someone doesn’t listen to her at all. Often it is the internal “feeling” that gives signals that the interlocutor is deceiving. Is intuition really that mystical, or is it just a reaction to signals that are cut off by logical consciousness?

It turns out that a person perceives only 7% of the information that he receives from words. The remaining 93% of the information remains undeciphered and unused.

Main channels of information:

1. Body language - 55%
2. Voice, intonation - 38%
3. Words - 7%

To detect lies, it is important to use not only the ears, but also the eyes. And learn to carefully perceive and process incoming signals.

Why does the psyche miss lies? But because it is often more convenient for the victim of deception. As in the joke:

The wife attacks her husband who came home in the morning:

Where have you been hanging around all night?

Darling, are you ready to hear the truth?

The process of deception involves at least 2 people, and an important component of lying is the presence of a MOTIVE. That is, you need to ask yourself: “Will it be beneficial for this person to deceive me? What benefits will he receive if he succeeds? If there is a motive, you need to pay more attention to the dialogue.

The most difficult thing to determine is the lies of family and friends, for two reasons:

1. When communicating with them, emotions are activated and adequate reactions are blocked. In this way, the psyche protects the body from unnecessary shocks.
2. Those close to you know better the leverage, so they act with confidence.

In this case, I will give 2 pieces of advice:

1. Practice identifying lies in strangers
2. Turn off emotions if they appear. For example, counting to 10.

There are 2 ways to lie:

1. Silence is a less energy-consuming form of deception. Therefore, a liar will try to use this method first. You can counter this by asking clear questions that leave no chance of hiding the truth.
2. Distortion is a more complex method of deception, which a liar will resort to under pressure from circumstances that are important to him. In this case, the individual will have to work hard on his deception: come up with a logical idea, taking into account all the subtleties, tell it beautifully, remember all the nuances and little things.

If you need to detect lies during important conversation, first you need to relax your interlocutor. There are many psychological techniques for this; there is no point in going into them in this article. You can use a neutral conversation to give a friendly message so that the person calms down. A signal that your communication partner is relaxed will be open gestures that will begin to appear more and more often during your dialogue.

An important indicator of lying is fear. Deception is stressful primarily for the one who deceives. And this is just the key for someone who wants to find out the truth. The higher the stress level, the greater the likelihood that the deceiver will screw up in something.

LIES ALWAYS STRESS. BUT STRESS IS NOT ALWAYS A LIE.

It is important to note that there is no one 100% sign of lying. Therefore, conclusions can only be drawn after comparing several signals.

Human behavior is built on 3 modules:

1. Bodily
2. Emotional, at the level of instincts
3. Speech, logical

You can often recognize a lie by the disorganization of these modules - speech shows one thing, emotions another, and the body does not have time to adequately adapt to a certain model of behavior.

When communicating, it is important to watch for signs of fear. During the preliminary dialogue, it is important to monitor how the person answers questions in a neutral state. Gradually moving on to the subject of suspicion.

It is important to ask the most important questions as if by chance, in a series of general loyal questions. Question - they waited for the answer, without focusing attention, they continued the dialogue. After some time, you need to ask the same question, but with a different wording. Again we waited for an answer. You need to ask yourself the question: “Did I receive an answer to my question?”

Our whole life is permeated by lies: we are deceived, we lie ourselves. We know so little about lying. How to recognize it so as not to be deceived, and how to lie yourself so as not to get caught. We reveal the secrets of the psychology of lying.

Paul Ekman is the world's foremost authority on the psychology of lying. author of many books, as well as the famous series called “Lie to Me.” He began studying this phenomenon back in 1963 and came to the conclusion that lying is an action by which a person misleads another, and does this deliberately, without warning about his goals, and the victim accordingly does not ask not to reveal the truth.

Paul Ekman identifies two forms of lying: distortion and omission. By default, a person hides true information, but does not report false information. Distortion differs in that the liar takes additional actions, hiding the truth and replacing it with incorrect information, passing it off as truthful.

Not everyone considers silence to be a lie. Silence is usually easier for a liar, since for this you do not need to do anything, but simply remain silent. And when distorted, a true legend is necessary, otherwise there is a chance of being caught. Many people prefer silence because it is less reprehensible.

Psychology of lying - exposing a liar

Often a liar can give himself away by saying one thing at the beginning and then saying something completely different. His behavior can also give him away. After all, it can be quite difficult to hide sudden emotions: it is much more difficult to hide anger than annoyance or horror than anxiety. However, the manifestation strong emotions is not yet an indicator of guilt, since it is absolutely honest man may panic.

The best way hide your emotions - wear a mask. And the best mask is a fake emotion. Often a smile is used as a mask, which is the opposite of negative emotions. Also, this facial expression is the most natural, which is why it is easier to deceive. However, an unnatural, prolonged smile indicates fakeness.

The psychology of lying - why lying fails

Psychology of lies - how to detect or hide deception

Typically, liars carefully hide and control their behavior, but it is impossible to hide everything, so only those aspects of behavior that they think will be noticed are hidden.

A person who lies chooses his words especially carefully. With their help it is much easier to convey messages than with gestures or facial expressions.

It is easiest to deceive with words, since the speech can be easily composed in advance and memorized.

The psychology of lying - liars are usually given away by the words:

• Careless statements because they couldn't find the right words.
• Language caveats. However, not every slip of the tongue is a sign of a lie.
• Tirades - it is not individual words that are a miss, but phrases. Due to emotions, a liar may not even immediately notice that he said too much. Without unnecessary emotions, he would not have allowed this to happen.

No less attention is paid to the face, since it primarily reflects all our emotions. Usually it reflects two information at once - about what the person wanted to say and what he wants to hide.

Psychology of lies - emotions give away lies:

• Microexpressions. This is what gives an accurate picture of hidden emotions, but usually people simply do not have time to notice them, since they appear for about a quarter of a second. In order to learn to notice them, training is necessary. Blurred expressions are more common when a person manages to realize them and tries to eliminate them, hiding behind someone else.
• Asymmetry. If asymmetrical expressions appear on a person's face during a conversation, most likely he is not sincere.
• Expressions that last longer than 10 seconds except for the highest intensity of passions. For example, sincere surprise arises and usually lasts no more than a second. Also, a person can first express his emotions in words, and only then show them, in which case the emotions are fake.
• Smile. Paul Ekman classified more than 50 types of smiles. Of these, only 18 turned out to be sincere.

Psychology of lying - what else should you pay attention to?

When a person lies, some changes occur in his body caused by the autonomic nervous system. It’s not for nothing that the theory of lies is an entire “branch of psychology.” For example, the depth and frequency of breathing becomes more frequent, the frequency of swallowing and sweating increases, the pupils dilate, and the complexion changes. This occurs involuntarily and is difficult to suppress, therefore it is sure sign lies.

Do you remember how your parents said that you should not lie? All children try to adhere to this rule at first, but then they understand that lying can be very useful and appropriate... Until they get caught in it.

If you really need to lie for some reason, then do it correctly, so that no one suspects you of it.

We will talk about what needs to be done in order to give a high-quality and plausible lie in this article.

The more you defend your own lies, the angrier you become. Mitch Albom. For the sake of a new day

What you need to know if you want to lie

Please note that in the process of lying, certain changes occur in several areas at once:

1. verbal;
2. non-verbal;
3. psychophysiological.

Knowing all of these reactions can help you master the skill of persuasive deception.

What reveals our lies

So, the first thing that gives us away is facial expressions, gestures and postures, because for most people it is not so easy to tell lies, so we often change postures and literally cannot sit in one place.
We may well be suspected of lying if:

• We nervously rub our palms together and fiddle with our fingers;
• We constantly scratch our neck and face;
• we often touch our earlobes;
• deceiving, we scratch our nose;
• during a conversation we fiddle with items of our clothing;
• we bite our lips and bite our nails;
• we hold our hands in the groin area, subconsciously trying to protect ourselves;
• do not look the interlocutor in the eyes, or do not look away at all;
• We smile asymmetrically;
• unconsciously trying to grab onto some object.

In fact, this is only part of our actions that can make our interlocutors doubt our sincerity, but this is the most basic thing that is most often paid attention to.

In addition to gestures, it is also worth paying attention to verbal aspects. After all, when we deceive, we make mistakes in conversation that can alarm even the most gullible person.
So let's define the points that will allow us to lie convincingly:

• When you tell the truth, you speak only on the essence of the issue, without decorating your speech with unnecessary details and events.
• If you answer a question directly, then you are telling the truth; if you are evasive, then it means lying.
• If the information we provide is true, then we speak quickly, but it takes time to come up with something, so we pause.
• A liar, as a rule, speaks quite quietly, fragmentarily, and may get confused and leave sentences unfinished.
• If we tell the truth, then we do not swear under any circumstances - there is simply no need to do this.
• In the process of lying, we may become too resentful of not being trusted.

Lying can be quite difficult, so we often try to distract the interlocutor with unnecessary questions or facts, and when asked repeatedly, we get confused and can give a completely opposite answer.

How we feel on a psychophysiological level during the process of lying

• we blink frequently;
• our voice trembles;
• the mouth becomes dry;
• heart rate increases;
• cough nervously;
• complexion changes;
• sweat appears on the forehead;
• breathing becomes difficult;
• the tone and timbre of the voice changes.

Therefore, it is extremely important for all novice liars to know such manifestations and carefully monitor them. It goes without saying that it is the psychophysiological reactions that are most difficult to control, but their manifestations can also be reduced if you just think through your behavior and prepare for deception in advance. Moreover, you need to think through your speech to the smallest detail in order to supplement your story with them, because the stories of liars are often too generalized.

If you need to lie to several people, then lie to everyone the same way. Since lies tend to appear from time to time, protect yourself by introducing at least part of the truth into it, and then you can say that you were actually misunderstood.

Also read:

Conclusion

Remember that you cannot use lies all the time; it should act only as a means of protection that can save you from too heavy information, help reconcile friends, or give a person confidence in his own strength. Otherwise, you can undermine other people's self-confidence and lose them forever.

Unfortunately, in modern business, what is commonly called “scams” ​​is very common. People often find themselves duped by various types of scammers. Most often, this happens because we naively believe that the person with whom we enter into commodity-money relations will certainly act as honestly as we ourselves would act in his place. And we are wrong.

That is why today it is so important to be able to understand and distinguish between the lies of your business partners. As V.V. writes Signs, Understanding deception requires answering at least two questions:

2) what are the true attitudes and goals of the person conveying this message?

During a business conversation, it is very important to obtain information that answers these questions. This is where the psychology of lies comes to our aid.

Psychologists say that a liar, no matter how hard he tries to hide his lies, can be recognized because he is betrayed by the inconsistency between microsignals of the subconscious in facial expressions, gestures, posture and what he says. The subconscious is always honest and sincere. Only consciousness can deceive. That is why it is so important to be able to “read” those actions and actions that are not controlled by consciousness. Unconscious gestures and body movements can give away a deceiver. During deception, our subconscious throws out true information, which manifests itself in various micro-movements that contradict the spoken words.

In the business world around us, there are businessmen different types. Personally, it has always been easy for me to communicate with “cool” businessmen who correspond to the popular character in numerous jokes about the “new Russian”.

Writer Viktor Pelevin in one of his books described this type simply and tastefully: “a monkey in a jeep.” Amazing impudence combined with infallible self-confidence leads to the fact that they are not too concerned about disguising their true intentions. In addition, such businessmen are usually not tormented by education.

Taken together, these qualities make the task of detecting lies much easier. It happens that such an uncle pats you condescendingly on the shoulder and says with friendly intonations in his voice, “Bro! Yes, we’ll make them all together, and then we’ll divide the profits among ourselves,” but his eyes and pose say quite the opposite. Like, that's it, you pedal sucker, now you're in my teeth...

This type of businessman recent years is rapidly degenerating, giving way to a new generation of business people. Which I sometimes regret, because those who replace them are much more dangerous. The new generation of business scammers is much more cultured and educated. In addition, today employees and managers of large companies often undergo special psychological training and have knowledge of the psychology of lies. They are trained to monitor their behavior and speech. Their gestures are clearer and more thoughtful. And not only gestures, but also facial expressions, posture, and speech. In this way, they are very similar to the third category of businessmen - representatives of the “old guard”.

The latter includes former “red directors”, party and Komsomol bosses - those who, after the collapse of the Soviet of Deputies, managed to safely move to the chairs of presidents of corporations and bank managers.

These are all seasoned and beaten wolves. Possessing colossal experience in hardware intrigues, during a business conversation they easily give the “face” the necessary expression and introduce the necessary modulations into their voice. When dealing with this type of businessman, I noticed that it is not so easy to detect their lies, and in many cases it is even impossible. But still, they also have some random, arbitrary micro-movements that reveal deception.

The fact is that no person can consciously control every behavioral act. The only exceptions are brilliant actors who know how to completely “get into character” and pathological psychopathic liars who sincerely believe their lies.

Let's start with the basics of the psychology of lying, with the most obvious signs of deception.
Remember that the tongue can hide the truth, but the eyes never can! They ask you a question, you don’t even flinch, in one second you control yourself and know what needs to be said in order to hide the truth, and you speak with great conviction, and not a single wrinkle on your face moves, but, alas, the truth is alarmed by the question from the bottom the soul jumps into the eye for a moment, and it's all over. She's spotted and you're caught. M. Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita”

Bulgakov, of course, was not professional psychologist. It’s just that he, like any talented writer, had exceptional powers of observation and described well what he saw. If sophisticated interlocutors are able to restrain their emotions with the help of gestures and body movements, then no one is able to control the behavior of their pupils. They involuntarily expand or contract and thereby signal a reaction to what they hear.

Therefore, if your business partner says, for example, that your conditions do not suit him, but at the same time his pupils have dilated two or three times compared to the normal state, rest assured that he is “driving the wave” and is simply selling himself. When a person experiences joy, gets what he wants, or is satisfied with the price of a product, his pupils dilate. Many experienced sellers know this. On the contrary, when negative emotions When a person is dissatisfied with something, his pupils narrow.

There is also a typical movement pattern eyeballs, which psychologists call a “lie detector”: in response to an uncomfortable question, the eyes quickly move diagonally, first up to the right, then down to the left. (For left-handers, the pattern is mirrored - left up, right down.) Psychologically, this corresponds to the following sequence: first a person imagines, constructs something that actually does not exist in reality, and then says only what corresponds to this invention, nothing superfluous. This eye movement always indicates a readiness to lie.

In the process of detecting deception, gestures associated with bringing your hands closer to your face are very informative. They should always alert you: apparently your interlocutor has something bad on his mind. Most often this is a clear exaggeration of the actual fact or an obvious untruth. Psychologist V. Sheinov, in his book “Hidden Human Control,” describes such gestures as follows.

When we observe or hear others telling lies or lying ourselves, we try to cover our mouth, eyes or ears with our hands. Protecting your mouth with your hand is one of the few overt gestures that clearly indicates a lie. The hand covers the mouth and the thumb is pressed to the cheek, as it sends a signal to restrain the words spoken. Some people try to fake cough to disguise the gesture.

If such a gesture is used by the interlocutor at the time of speech, this indicates that he is telling a lie. However, if he covers his mouth when you speak and he listens, it means he thinks you are lying.

Touching your nose is a subtle, disguised version of the previous gesture. It can be expressed in several light touches to the dimple under the nose or in one quick, almost imperceptible touch to the nose. The explanation for this gesture may be that during a lie, ticklish urges appear on the nerve endings of the nose and you really want to scratch it.

Rubbing the eyelid is caused by the desire to hide from deception or suspicion and to avoid looking into the eyes of the interlocutor who is being told a lie. Men usually rub their eyelid very vigorously, and if the lie is serious, they look away or, more often, look at the floor. The woman makes this movement very delicately, running her finger under her eye.

Lying usually causes an itchy sensation in the muscle tissues of not only the face, but also the neck. Therefore, some interlocutors pull back their collar when they are lying or suspect that their deception has been discovered.

Gestures that convey insincerity are largely associated with the left hand. This is explained by the fact that right hand as the more developed in most people is more controlled by consciousness and does it “as it should.” The left one is less developed and is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain. She more often does what the subconscious wants - thereby revealing the person’s secret thoughts. If the interlocutor is gesturing with his left hand, then this should alert you: it is very likely that he is deceiving or taking an unfriendly position.

The same principle can be used when analyzing human facial expressions. Basic rule: always look at the left side of your face. Artists and photographers are well aware that the human face is asymmetrical, causing the left and right sides to reflect emotions differently. The fact is that the left and right halves of the face are under the control of different hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere controls speech and intellectual activity, the right hemisphere controls emotions, imagination and sensory activities. Since the work of the right hemisphere of the brain is reflected on the left side of the face, it is more difficult to hide feelings on this side. It was found that positive emotions are reflected evenly on both sides, negative emotions are more clearly expressed on the left.

Research shows that different parts of the brain are responsible for voluntary and involuntary facial expressions. Therefore, a face usually carries two messages at once - what the liar wants to show you, and what he would like to hide. Some facial expressions support lies, trying to give the interlocutor incorrect information, while others involuntarily give away the truth because they look false, and true feelings seep through all attempts to hide them. At some point, a face, being deceitful, may look quite convincing, but within a moment hidden thoughts may appear on it. And it also happens that true and ostentatious emotions are transmitted by different parts of the face at the same time. As already mentioned, it is on the left side of the face that it is more difficult to hide true feelings. ( Useful advice: when your interlocutor expresses sympathy for you about something, do not be lazy and carefully look at the left half of his face to see if hidden triumph or gloating appears there.)

Knowing the body movements that indicate he is pretending also helps to understand the interlocutor. There is a whole series of false (“acting”) movements designed to demonstrate emotions that a person does not actually experience. For example, love is shown by pressing a hand to the heart, rolling your eyes, biting your lips, sugary sentimentality, etc. Excitement - walking back and forth, shaking hands. Boredom - yawning, stretching. Joy - clapping hands, rolling laughter, noisiness. Grief - shaking your head, blowing your nose, wiping your eyes. Illness - cough, trembling, etc.

It is necessary to understand that all feigned movements: a) exaggerate real emotions, so to speak, “grab over the edge”, b) suppress true emotions and demonstrate false ones instead. In the first case, there is increased movement of the arms, impulsive jerking of the body and head. In the second, on the contrary, the mobility of the arms, torso, and head is limited. Pretend movements start from the limbs and end on the face. That is, a person first makes the appropriate movement, and then depicts the desired emotion on his face. In the case of true emotions, facial expressions and limb movements occur synchronously.

Poses that fix only the position of the body are very expressive. They can also be used to judge a person’s sincerity. If a person says what he thinks, his body sends signals that psychologists call unambiguous. In such cases, the body, as a rule, is held straight, without any special bends. It can be described by a straight line connecting the head to the feet. When the correspondence between thoughts and words is broken, the body begins to send double signals, and the line that follows its contour becomes broken.

Psychologists have also noticed that when concluding a false deal, deception can manifest itself in the following details of your partners' behavior:
1. “Fingering” with small objects in the hands, buttons on clothes, etc.
2. Frequently lighting cigarettes.
3. Intermittent and confused speech, breaking off phrases mid-sentence.
4. Frequent blinking while answering an “uncomfortable” question.
5. Avoiding eye contact with the interlocutor.

However, one should be very careful when interpreting these behavioral patterns, since they do not necessarily indicate lying, but may simply be a sign of lack of self-confidence.

Paul Ekman, a leading expert on the psychology of lying, advises taking a number of precautions when interpreting the signs of deception. They will help reduce the likelihood of error.

1. Remember that the absence of signs of deception is not yet proof of the truth; some liars don't make any mistakes. But the presence of signs of deception does not yet indicate a lie - these signs can only be the individual characteristics of a person, his typical behavior. Therefore, judgments must be made based on changes in the behavior of the person suspected of lying. You should definitely compare the person's usual behavior and his behavior, for example, during the negotiation of an important business contract.

People are often deceived at the first meeting precisely because they do not have the opportunity to compare and thus notice changes in the behavior of the other. For example: he gestures so much with his left hand, which means he is probably lying. But in fact, a person may simply be left-handed and his left is his leading hand. It’s another matter when a person is right-handed, but at a critical moment in business negotiations suddenly begins to perform a lot of manipulations with his left hand - this is a clear sign of deception.

2. Consider carefully whether you have any prejudices about the person suspected of lying, and if any, how they might interfere with making a correct judgment. Don't try to judge whether a person is lying or not if you are overcome with jealousy or anger. Avoid the temptation to suspect lies just because you have no other plausible explanation for the same behavior.

3. It would be wrong to say that a lie can be determined by any one gesture or facial expression. Keep in mind that many signs of deception are based on more than one body movement, and it is always worth thinking carefully before making judgments, especially if one movement indicates that the person is lying, and another indicates that he is telling the truth. Analysis should always be carried out on a set of data.