16: How to Spot a Liar

But that's not what he said. He distinctly said to blave. And as we all know, to blave means to bluff. So you're probably playing cards. And he cheated. Liar.

Liar. Liar.

Get back, witch.

I'm not a witch. I'm your wife. No matter how many times I've seen or heard that clip from the movie the Princess Bride, I laugh. And no one in my family laughs along with me because, well, for one, I am the only Gen Xer in the house. And two, whenever I get the sense that some someone is being not so honest with me, I yell at them, liar. They're very sick of it. However, I find it humorous. So thank you Billy Crystal and Carol Caine, for giving me one of my favorite lie lines. But let's get serious, because lying is serious business. So this week on the Confident Communications podcast, How to Spot a Liar. The title alone is a grabber, isn't it? I've mentioned on this podcast before that I give presentations and workshops and I discuss nonverbal communication and cues that give away what your mind is really thinking. I tie this into a public relations crisis communication scenario. Or have I that's not a lie. I have a number of times. But is there any better skill to possess than spotting the moment someone is lying to you? Whether it's in your work or in your day to day life, spotting a liar? Well, that's pretty important. People do lie all the time. Everyone does it. From the white lie you tell your friend to get out of dinner on Friday night, to the stories we tell our kids, to the things we say on job interviews. Some lies are innocent. Some are kind hearted lies that are told with the intent of making another person look or feel better, or to spare them from embarrassment, punishment or blame, or for getting their feelings hurt. Other lies, however, are much more hurtful and impactful. Studies say over 50% of people cannot spot a lie. I guess this means this podcast is for those of you who fall into that 50%. But it's okay to be in the group because that's how humans are wired to believe each other. We all have a truth bias, which means we assume that when people speak to us, they're telling the truth. And the more truth bias you may have, the less you can spot a lie. It means you live a fairly natural honest life, and that's not a bad thing. But knowing that we all lie, how do you spot the moment when someone really isn't being honest to you and it matters that they aren't? This episode is valuable for Parents, spouses, colleagues or disliked colleagues, or leaders or spokespeople or even customers buying a car. Anyone, no matter the person or situation. Being a human lie detector can come in handy. So in this week's episode, we discuss deception by definition. We're not focusing here on that white lie. The sorry I'm late, I was caught traffic lie. Sometimes those white lies, frankly, are a necessary evil. I'm focusing on the dangerous lies, the lies that hurt, the lies that cause people to lose trust and faith in others. At home, at work, in negotiations, or when planning a luxury music festival in the Bahamas. I'm gonna sidetrack here for a moment. Are you watching the documentaries on the Fyre Festival? Netflix, Fire, the Greatest Party that Never Happened and Hulu's Fire Fraud. And as another aside, there is a lesson in title writing here. I didn't even know there was a documentary on Hulu until I read the buzz about the Netflix documentary. Better title, better visibility. But these documentaries offer firsthand examples at the art of lying. You can see it over and over again when you watch these group of guys try to make this Fyre Festival work. But now that you know the outcome, that it was all a big lie, you can watch that and spot a lot of lies. Some intentional, some unintentional, but they are all over that documentary. Lying is a part of our culture. You hear about it more nowadays because people are called out more online. Why? Social media, of course. You know, people can suss out liars nowadays much easier when there is a digital trail. People may also lie more online or on paper because it removes that personal element. Looking someone in the eye to lie to them is not as easy to do it in person if you're doing it on paper. Right, because the eyes don't lie. Did you know that one in three Americans believe it's okay to lie on an insurance form? I lied just there. It's one in four. Could you spot that lie? Likely not, because the lie had absolutely no bearing on your life whatsoever. But many lies from the people that we know or who we do business with will impact your life. So looking at this episode and looking at lying and how we can spot them, I'm going to use very, very broad strokes. I don't want to turn this into a long thesis or diatribe about citing every single source about lying and naming every study. I will include the sources in the show notes, but I wanted to give you information that could stick. So if you're walk your dog or listening on the treadmill or driving the car. I want this information to land and stick with your brain because it really is valuable. It was a lot of fun researching it. First, let's start with the statistics online. By the age of four, 90% of children will have learned the concept of lying. Aww. Based on studies performed in the past, it is estimated that 60% of adults cannot have a 10 minute conversation without lying at least once. Once. And within those 10 minutes, an average of three lies were told. Now, when I say this, I, you know, I'm thinking to myself, okay, when was the last 10 minute conversation I had and did I lie? And I'm laughing because it was earlier tonight and I was out at a, at a high school game. So I was with a lot of people, a lot of friends, and there was a friend who came in and mentioned, oh my gosh, I look horrible tonight. I can't believe I'm out in public, you know, wearing this. And I said, oh my gosh, no, you look great. Well, which is funny because I guess really that was a lie. And I mean, if looking great is wearing, you know, boots and sweatpants, which I thought was kind of cute, but I guess in a way it kind of was a lie, wasn't it? So here are some of the common reasons for lying. One, we lie to save face. Two, we lie to shift blame. Three, we lie to avoid confrontation. Four, we lie to get one's way. Five, we lie to be nice. And six, we lie to make ourselves feel better. Now, who lies more, men or women? Or shall I phrase it? Which gender is more likely to lie? So there are a lot of statistics and books and articles out there, but let me try and distill it for you in some of the research that I found. So according to a study by Brandon Gayle, and I don't want to lie, I don't know how to pronounce his names. I tried to find it, but I believe it's Gail. Six, lies are told daily by men to their partner, boss, or colleague. Three, lies are told daily by women to their partner, boss, or colleagues. So in his study, he's saying that men are twice as likely to lie. Now, the kind hearted lies that I mentioned earlier, the ones told with the intent of making the other person look better or feel better, or to spare them from embarrassment or punishment or blame or for getting their feelings hurt, you know, you look great. You know, what a great dinner. I love these Brussels sprouts. I know just how you feel. Now, care to guess who uses kind hearted lies more? Men lying to Men or men lying to women, women lying to men or women lying to women? If you said for women lying to women, you are correct. And it just so happened to be the example that I gave earlier. Women tend to use lies to minimize. They pretend that they are younger, which I don't know how women get away with that. Maybe I'm not at the age yet where I feel like I have to lie and I will probably get there soon. But then again, in this digital world, I don't know how you lie. Like, how do you lie on LinkedIn when you said you graduated from college a certain year. But whatever. But women will also lie about their weight. But I think if you look at anyone's driver's license, everybody lies about their weight. Women also lie about not dating around as much or not sleeping around as much. Women are also more likely to fake positive feelings. They want to show that they're feeling up or happy. They might say, I'm having so much fun at this baby shower. This is the best baby shower I've ever been to. Which is one of the reasons that women also smile more than men. It's because of the types of lies women. While smiling can be powerful and positive nonverbal cue, especially for signaling likability and friendliness. Women do that. Women should be aware that when they smile excessively or inappropriately, smiling could also be confusing and downright deceptive. Now, are you a fake smiler? I will admit that I do it and I'm trying to do it more. And the reason why I'm doing it is not to be deceptive. It's because I'm mindful of my resting bitch face. And as you age, you don't want to have one. So I'm trying to smile a lot more. But think about a genuine smile and compare it to a fake smile. Now, how can you tell the difference? A genuine smile literally, you know, lights up your face. You know, you hear that term, wow, his face just lit up. It's because you're smiling not just with your facial muscles, but you're also smiling with your eyes. You know, the, the muscles that you use up at the top of your head, in your forehead are being used to smile because you're, there's so much emotion behind it. Now, when you fake a smile, think about it. Where is it coming from? It's coming from, like your chest and your throat area, and you're just using the, the muscles around your mouth and you're just tilting it up yet the top of your face where all the Emotion is. It's kind of flat. So that's another way to spot a not so honest smile. Now, numerous research papers contend that women become more comfortable telling lies than men do. However, when they tell more serious lies, women describe themselves as having more guilt and more anxiety and being more fearful about it than men. So are men bigger liars than women because they tell bigger lies? The real answer is this. It really depends on the destructive effect of the lie being told. The upshot? A lot of people lie. And in this culture that we're in right now, we have inherited a culture of mistrust. I speak a lot about truth and transparency, and I now notice more than ever before that customers get itchy and irritable when they don't trust an organization or the business or the person running the business. That's why we see such volatile divisions, especially online, on social media, people will call people out immediately. They won't think anything of it, especially if they don't believe you. I recently read the book Lie Proven Techniques to Detect Deception by Pamela Meyer. Now, I have to admit here, it could be Meyer, and I could not find video evidence or audio evidence of how she pronounces it. So I'm just gonna go with Mayer. Now, it is a very, very interesting read. I read it in one soccer practice. It was an indoor soccer practice. And I took the book out and I went cover to cover. Now, mayor is a TED Talk speaker with one of the most watched talks of all time, how to spot a liar. It's quite good. And, you know, as an aside, how many times have you heard a TED Talk speaker lay claim to having the most watched talks of all time? Perhaps true, but perhaps it's a lie. Anyway, Pamela got into this field after having firsthand experience being lied to. So someone embezzled money from her. It was borderline identity theft. And that's how she. It brought her on this road to lie spotting. Now, one big lie made one big impact in her life. And I find for me, I'm. I'm the same. I do not like when someone lies to me at all. I can tolerate a lot of things. I'm pretty resilient. But when someone lies to me, I have a lot of difficulty regaining the trust in that person. I really, really do. So that's why I found this book so fascinating. So let's dive right in how to detect a liar and how to avoid getting lied to in the first place. Now, the reason why I wanted to cite this particular book as well is that I swiped a Technique that she mention for one of my talks, I used it recently. So I mentioned I use it. I speak a lot about trustworthiness and transparency. So I added an adjacent thesis to her exercise to tie it into like a media training exercise so you can play along. Now, careful. If you're driving, you're going to be using one of your hands. So if you are driving, keep your dominant hand on the steering wheel. What I want you to do is draw a capital Q on your forehead. Don't think about it, just do it. Okay? Now, did you draw the cue with the tail coming over your right eye or your left eye? Does that make sense? So you're drawing the cue on your forehead. Where did the tail come down? Your right eye or your left eye? Now, if you drew the cue, you can determine if you are a low self monitor or high self monitor based on where you put the tail and that monitoring piece. What that means is how aware you are and concerned you are with the way the world perceives you. Now if you drew the tail of the cue over your right eye, then you are considered to have low self monitoring skills. And this means that you want the world to easily read you. So this may indicate that you may have a hard time viewing yourself from any other perspective but your own. So in other words, you drew the cue to face yourself. It was the cue. You drew a cue for yourself. Now someone conversely who drew the cue with the tail facing left so the person in front of them could easily read it. It. Now that person may have the natural ability to view the world from another's vantage point. So this may indicate that you are skilled at adapting behavior to suit a situation and therefore manipulating the way other people see you. In other words, a very good skill for a liar to have. Now, if you drew the high monitor on your forehead, so the cue with the tail coming down to the left, does this mean you can't be trusted? No, not at all. In fact, how I use the cue for my line of work was this. So I built the thesis around the idea of a spokesperson. So I said that if you were a high self monitor, you may be better about speaking about a dicey or not so awesome event that happened at your business. So of course not to lie, but to keep the emotions at bay. So in other words, if you were dealing with a crisis, let's say you wouldn't want the world to see your panic. So the high monitor cue would be a better face of a crisis. As to a person who wears their emotions more on their Sleeves, if that makes sense. Now we learned who lies and why. So let's get into spotting the lie. Let's start with the face. The first rule of deception in everything that I read in research is to watch the face, because the face does not lie. So here's a lie spotting tip. Practice looking for micro expressions. These are brief split second flashes of emotion you see on a person's face. You likely won't see them when you're expecting it, but if you are asking a question that you know could lead to a lie, look for that micro flash, that expression, to provide you the clue to how they are really feeling. Feeling. Now in another book I used for research on another course I did on feedback, the book was called thanks for the the Science and Art of Receiving Feedback. Well, they call this term leaky face. So it's next to impossible to truly hide your feelings if it somehow leaks out. Now here's another lie spotting tip. Watch for asymmetry in a person's gestures and expressions. Smiles, frowns and shrugs that are one sided could mask what a person is really feeling. So natural, truthful gestures that typically occur when you're telling the truth are going to occur evenly on both sides. Now I read some interesting facts on what criminal investigators say about how to spot a lie when they're in an interrogation as well. So I know that we're talking about criminals or alleged criminals, but take it for what it's worth. So let's talk about the eyes. You know, it's a myth that liars can't look directly into the eyes of another person. They're trying to deceive. Now, with the normal level of eye contact, which is 30 to 60%, think about it, that some people just aren't staring into someone's eyes. So it is kind of a myth when someone's telling a story and you're looking for that lie and you're telling them you're not looking me straight in the eye. Keep in mind that you know half the time when someone's speaking with you, they're not even looking at you. So think about it when you're in a normal truthful conversation. Now, from a study, people who are more comfortable lying are more likely to hold a gaze compared to people who struggle with lying. They're the ones that look away. Now think about it. If you have a kid who is truthful for the most part, you know they're an honest and honest child. When they tell a doozy of a lie, they will likely not look you in the eye because they're typically truthful. And the one time they. They dive into lying, they can't look you in the eye. That's what liars do. Now, next is the timing. A true emotional indication is when an expression is simultaneous. So in other words, when someone who is pretending to be outraged, they may cross their arms first and then they'll scowl. Whereas if someone were to be truthfully angry, the two would happen simultaneously. So the timing is more like acting. If someone is acting mad, that's another way of lying. Now, what about the body? Again, actions do speak louder than words. I know I've said that before on this podcast. And here's the reason why. Liars tend to rehearse their words, but not their gestures. No. Did you hear that? Think about it. So when someone is lying and they're telling you a story, it could be even a whopper of a story. They're going to spend all their prep time on the story and the words, but they're never going to think about the gestures that accompany the words. Okay, so a liar will only rehearse the story, not what their movement is doing while they're telling a story. Okay, so picture this. People are in an office. A meeting is being held. The boss comes in. Everyone has to go into the boardroom. Now, sit down at the table. Those of you that don't have a chair, you can stand around. Now, someone leaked a story to the press, and I know it was someone in this room. Now, what you would want to do at that point is you would want to look for the person who says, who could do that? Who would do that? Who would ever leak that story? Because the defense isn't in the lie, but it's what they do after they spoke. So the person that said, who would do that? Now look at their hands. What are they doing with them? Are they moving things around? Are they looking away? Are they kind of scratching. Scratching their neck or cracking their knuckles. That's why people can look guilty, because they don't know what to do with their gestures. Now, here's a visual case in point. If you were to watch the video of Chris Watts during a search of his home that was captured on video. Now, Chris Watts, he was the man who tragically killed his wife and two kids in Colorado. So this was just this past November. And if you remember, in the. In the news coverage, there was a lot of video of him. And so we can use him as an example of someone who lies. Now, this story is. Was so very tragic. And I don't want to make any light of it. But I, but I think it just offers almost, you know, the best evidence of what it looks like when someone truly is lying. Now if you were to watch the news footage of his interview, this was the first interview he did after his wife and kids, his young kids went missing. And if you remember, he was standing on his porch, he was wearing shorts and he was wearing flip flops and he had on a T shirt, I think it was a tar heels T shirt. Now if you watch that footage, you could see the gestures that he was self soothing. He was, he was holding himself and he was kind of swaying back and forth. And there's a lot of videos out there from lie experts that could talk about what he said, how you knew that he was lying. There was another video of Watts when the police came to his house is when Watts was coming into his driveway after just disposing the bodies. And because the police were wearing body cam videos, they captured him walking into his house. And you can see the look of a guilty man. There's another video taken from next door. Again, the police are wearing the cams on their bodies. And his next door neighbor had a security footage that showed Christopher Watts leaving his house, taking the bodies with them. And if you were to watch the footage of Christopher Watts when he is watching the footage where he puts his hands on his head and he looks around, that is the moment that he knew he was busted. That chilling video of Watts as his story is starting to unravel is textbook lie spotting. Now another piece that they mentioned that when they were interviewing him in that news story, there were no displays of sadness or grief or empathy. And you can see how he's always holding his arms to his chest and he stutters when he sees speaks and his eyes are blinking rapidly. So that is another way to spot a liar because a sign of stress means that you blink a lot more. Now also, what are some of the verbal habits of deceptive people? Now, you heard me mention that you want to spot incongruencies so with within the body. So here again you want to spot them, but this time you want to listen for them. So pay close attention to four characteristics of speech when you're trying to spot a liar. Now in the book, Meyer writes to look for four of them. One, statement structure, two, verbal leaks, three, vocal quality. And four is attitude. Now first is the statement structure, the choice of words or phrases. So truth tellers will always speak naturally and unselfconsciously. They don't expect you to not believe them. But if a liar doesn't expect to be believed, then you'll notice the turns of phrases that will help you spot the lie. For example, there's the parrot statement. So if someone were to ask, let's go back into our office setting. Which email account did you use for billing? Which email account did I use for billing? So pay attention. Did they repeat the entire sentence? If they did, it's usually to buy some time or suggest the person doesn't want to answer. The next statement is the dodgeball statement. If you want to find out who hacked into the company's social media account and you knew it was an inside job, you would ask someone, where did you find the passwords for the Twitter account? And the response would be, are you interviewing everyone in the social media department? So that's called the dodgeball statement. A next type of statement is called a bolstering statement. So liars want to sound convincing and earnest, so they'll often add these emphatic phrases to reinforce credibility. I swear to God, I was home last night. Honestly, I'm telling you the truth. To be honest, I paid the bill earlier than the due date. Now, here is an audio example of a lot of bolstering. This is Alex Rodriguez, former New York Yankee boo and now current boyfriend of J. Lo, answering a question about his use of steroids.

Listen, Alex, this weekend Sports Illustrated reported that in 2003, you tested positive for testosterone and an anabolic steroid known as Primo Bolan. What's the truth? When I arrived In Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform and perform at a high level every day. Back then, it was different culture, it was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naive. And I wanted to prove to everyone that, you know, I was worth.

You.

Know, and being one of the greatest players of all time. And I did take a band substance.

Can't expect much from a Yankee, right? Go Red Sox. You can hear the stream of statements. He is going on and on and on. Listen to how long it took for Rodriguez to admit to taking a banned substance. A rod was using another tactics that liars use. It's called the distancing statement. No one wants to think of themselves as a cheat or a liar, even if they're a rod. So they make statements that remove themselves from the guilt. That's exactly what a rod did in that entire statement. And by the way, it goes on and on. And on and on, on. Now let's listen to another statement called a non contracted denial. That's an example of someone trying to hide guilt with formal grammar to sound more emphatic. And this example is going to be mixed with distancing language. Take a listen.

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again.

Again.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.

Thank you. It gets a lot easier when you know what to look for. We all know that Bill Clinton statement, President Bill Clinton statement was a lie. We all know that now. But isn't it interesting to listen exactly to what he did? He's distancing himself from that woman, Monica Lewinsky. All right, so we spoke about statement structure and verbal leaks. Now let's talk about vocal quality. Now, this is one of the most, least reliable indicators of a liar. But some clues that suggest deception would be this. A voice talking in a higher pitch. Long pauses after speaking. And this often occurs in the high stakes situations. Speaking at an overall slower rate with more errors and hesitations. You'll hear the ums and the ahs or the voice taking on a strained or a tense quality. So all of these clues rely on extremely subjective criteria. Okay, so just because someone does one of those four things, you, you can't label them liar. But when someone sounds strained or tense, to one person, that could sound perfectly normal. But to another, it could be an indicator or simple fact that someone is being questioned may cause them to speak in an unnatural way. Lie spotters should therefore consider vocal quality only in conjunction when you're looking at their face or their body language or verbal indicators. Because again, this one is very, very difficult to spot and it is the most subjective. Now, the next one is attitude. How do you spot a liar when it comes to attitudes? Now, if you listen closely to the details of someone's speech, take a mental step back and consider the combination of the facial expressions, the body language and verbal clues say about the attitude of the person being questioned. Attitude is a critical and crucial indicator. Now, is the person that you're questioning, are they interested in helping you solve a problem or answer a question? Are they forthright or are they evasive? How confidently do they speak? Now, a deceptive person, someone who's lying to you, might be more guarded and hesitant when they speak and they don't want to firmly acknowledge or deny anything because that could tie them into a certain behavior. Now, a truthful person, on the other hand, they'll cooperate right from the start and they'll give you the signal that I'm on your side, I want to help you. Now, it's getting way too serious here. So let's back up and get to an area where we may see more day to day lies or myth truths online. Now, where are most liars seen online? 40% would be on resumes, 90% would be on dating sites. Now, does that surprise you? Now, on dating sites, what they say is liars tend to use the word I as much as possible. They use negation. For example, they say I am not sad, okay? Rather than saying they're happy. And then they use a lot of filler phrases to be honest if I'm being honest. So they're trying too hard to preface how they feel now, putting it all together. So we are living in a culture now of distrust. No one trusts anyone. The president doesn't trust the media. The media doesn't trust the president. Customers no longer Trust owners or CEOs. I see it all the time in my business that this level of distrust is just out there and it's really hard to spot it and how to find a way to get out of it. But if you use any of the lie spotting techniques that I talked about today, you can also use it for truth spotting because there is a reward in knowing how to spot a lie. It's just the relief of knowing and then you can rid this deception from the environment where you live and work. In a community based on trust, people who are honest and have integrity are drawn to other honest people with integrity. And isn't life much easier when it's authentic and it's truthful? And what to do if you're with someone who happens to be with a liar? You have a liar in your midst. Figure out if it's worth it. Switch your jobs, switch relationships or keep the relationships, but build a stronger relationship and have it built around honesty and truth. Be a family free of deception. It's easier and more relaxing for everyone. You want to build your brain trust with real trust and you'll be happy in life and in work. So that's all for this week. Thank you for joining me on the Confident Communications podcast. I hope to see you again next week. Bye bye boys.

Have fun storming the castle.

Think it'll work?

It would take a miracle. Bye bye.

Sat.