Did you know? The average person tells three lies per ten minutes of conversation.
So a few days ago, I started watching this TV show “Lie To Me”. So good! I binge watched the first season and was hooked.
The show throws out random facts throughout each episode, but I wasn’t sure if they were actually true so I thought I’d do a bit of fact-checking before applying them.
So to start out, there are 43 muscles in the face with over 10,000 possible facial expressions.
As part of these 10,000 possible facial expressions, there are microexpressions. They last less than 1/25th of a second and are hardly recognizable to the untrained eye. These microexpressions can give away the true feelings of a person.
If someone appears surprised for more than a second, then their surprise isn’t genuine.
Often people make MORE eye contact when lying in order to cover up the fact that they’re actually lying.
Maybe if I stare them down, they will be so creeped out that they won't even notice I'm lying.
Distancing language is very commonly used by liars.
Distancing language pretty much speaks for itself. It’s used when someone is trying to distance themselves from a statement. It can be used as self-deception, but when used orally it can be used to tell whether a person is lying.
One very famous use of distancing language, is the classic Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair. Bill was absolutely certain that he didn’t have sexual relations with “that woman”, Monica Lewinsky.
Next time you think someone is lying, ask them to tell you the story of what happened backwards. This method is called cognitive workload. As the suspect struggles to recover their lie, it becomes more apparent and therefore easier to spot that the person is lying. It’s one helluva task for a liar.
After telling a lie, a gestural retreat is common. In order to finalize their point in the lie and end the conversation, the suspect may take a step backwards.
If you notice activity in someone’s forehead when expressing an emotion it is more likely to be true. If someone is lying, their facial expressions are forced and therefore there is not activity in the forehead.
Is the potential liar-in-question grabbing their neck while talking? They could feel uncomfortable about telling their lie and are creating a distraction. However, this could also mean that the person is doubting or disagreeing with what has been said.
When trying to spot a liar, it’s important to remember the absence of emotion is just as important as the presence of emotion.
There’s even a name for how people feel when they successfully deceive someone else: duper’s delight. It is a similar pleasure to the way people feel when they are in power.
Side note….. I am in no way, shape, or form an expert in spotting liars or in psychology at all for that matter.
