by Pamela Meyer
Say you’re in a book group with one member who should have quit years ago. She comes to every meeting but pays no attention to anything anyone says. Every two minutes, she either drops her notes or asks you, “What page are we on?”
You know you should be patient. This woman may be annoying, but she still loves to read. At the same time, you can hardly keep from yelling at her. And as you tell her the right page for the nine millionth time, the smile you f-f-f-force onto your face is much closer to a grimace.
When someone who is trying to hide the truth senses that a “dangerous” expression—one that might reveal his true emotions—threatens to become visible, he will actively work to cover it up with another expression. Most often, the concealing expression is a smile. Professional liespotters pay a lot of attention to smiles. A smile is the easiest voluntary facial expression a human can make, and it’s often used to camouflage negative feelings.23 Smiles are highly resonant and powerful—even a very brief smile can be seen from three hundred feet away.24
People start using fake smiles early in life. Studies have shown that ten-month-old babies will offer insincere smiles when approached by strangers, but will smile naturally as soon as Mom arrives.25 Most likely, evolution has taught us that it’s in our best interest to make people think we’re happy to see them even when we’re ambivalent. You might want to think about that the next time you decide to drop in unexpectedly at a coworker’s office.
3. Reliable Muscle Patterns
When you’re trying to determine whether an expression is real or false, you should pay attention to the third facial indicator of deception, reliable muscle patterns. Many facial muscles are easily controlled—eyebrows, for example, or the muscle that governs the lip corners and lower cheeks to produce a fake smile. Reliable muscles are not so easy to control. The orbicularis oculi—the eye-orbiting muscle, which narrows the eyelids and produces crow’s-feet at the outer corners of the eye—is extremely difficult to move deliberately into an accurate “smile position.” As a rule, only genuine happiness can produce a genuine smile.26
The classic expression of a fake smile: we all have had that feeling of being the teenager who’s a wallflower at a dance. Of course, that hideous experience is years behind us, but don’t you remember the way you tried to keep looking cheerful? Because you knew that if you allowed yourself to look as lonely as you felt, the other kids would pay even less attention to you? It’s a good thing we only go through adolescence once.
A subject’s entire face should be engaged when she smiles. If you’re assessing a smile’s sincerity, look at the combination of pulled-in lips, pulled-up lip corners, and tensed cheek muscles. If you don’t see crow’s-feet around the eyes as well, chances are the smile is fake.
Similarly, if you doubt the extent of another person’s sadness, keep in mind the fact that only 10 percent of people can deliberately pull down the corners of their lips without letting their chin muscles move. Yet the reliable muscle pattern of pulled-down lips and motionless chin is almost always made unconsciously when someone feels grief or sorrow.27
True sadness is revealed through reliable muscles in the chin, yet many true emotions reveal themselves on the upper half of the face—forehead, brows, and eyes—when they are leaked. Most people focus on the lower half of the face when they’re observing others, perhaps because this helps in comprehending speech.28 Careful scrutiny of the entire face is crucial in spotting deceit.
4. Blink Rates
The fourth, fifth, and sixth reliable indicators all bring our focus to the eyes. And despite popular belief about lying eyes, none of them is related to how well a subject makes eye contact.
It’s a myth that liars can’t look directly into the eyes of another person whom they’re trying to deceive. Actually, the normal level of eye contact in conversation is only 30 to 60 percent. Some people simply don’t feel comfortable staring at their listeners; some are from cultures in which direct eye contact is considered rude; some find that it’s easier to focus their thoughts when they stare into the middle distance.29
Psychologist Ralph Exline is famous for an experiment on truth-telling in which students were paired up and told that they were going to be tested on how well they made decisions. Actually, though, one of the students was a “plant” working along with the experimenter. Halfway through the experiment, the tester would leave the room; the confederate student would then encourage his partner to cheat on the test.
Not every student cheated, but a lot of them did. When the experimenter returned and resumed the test, he pretended to become more and more concerned about how well the two students were doing on the test. Finally, he told them that their success rate was too good to be true and flat-out accused them of cheating.
Students who had earlier rated themselves as “low Machiavellians”—straightforward, truthful, and considerate of others—were found to look away from the experimenter when they lied. But students who had rated themselves as “high Machiavellians”—cunning, opportunist, and devious—had no trouble making eye contact with the experimenter. In fact, they increased their eye contact as the confrontation went on.30
In other words, good liars are often skilled at staring into their questioners’ eyes. Blink rates are a far more useful indicator of truthfulness than eye contact. Blinking can, of course, be either voluntary or involuntary, but people telling a lie will often involuntarily blink more than they do when they’re telling the truth.
5. Pupil Dilation
Pupil dilation is also a reliable indicator of emotion. An unusually large (dilated) pupil indicates that the subject is aroused. Since virtually no one can control the size of his pupils, a person with unusually dilated pupils may be feeling fear or other emotions that he cannot conceal.
6. Tears
Tears are obvious indicators of emotions such as distress, sadness, and—in some cases—hilarity or happiness. Unfortunately, neither tears nor the other two indicators that involve eyes reveal which specific emotion a person is feeling. They merely show that one is feeling strongly about something.
Or not! For some people, tears aren’t hard to fake. In the first century AD, Publilius Siyrus wrote, “Women have learned to shed tears in order that they might lie the better.” A century later, fellow Roman Cato said, “When a woman weeps, she is constructing a snare with her tears.”31 It hardly bears pointing out that men are also aware of how powerful tears are as an aid to lying.
In other words, take note of tears, but don’t let yourself be swayed by them.
7. Asymmetrical Expressions
Genuine emotion, with the exception of contempt, usually presents itself quite symmetrically. But when people make an expression deliberately, it’s often lopsided. When we attempt to express an emotion that we don’t actually feel, we tend to override our facial muscles’ natural movements. Consequently, an asymmetrical expression emerges—a crooked smile, or one slightly raised nostril. These can be signs of deceit.32 Unlike micro-expressions, asymmetrical expressions are relatively easy for a novice to spot.
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WATCH FOR ONE KEY INDICATOR
Many facial expressions are fairly easy to recognize and interpret, but there is one you want to watch for in particular because it is especially loaded with meaning. This is the expression of contempt.
As we’ve discussed, contempt is the only asymmetrical expression; the other six all appear “bilaterally,” or equally on both halves of the face. A contemptuous expression may mean that a companion feels morally superior to you or that she believes you’re degrading yourself in some way.
The renowned psychologist John M. Gottman has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to predict, with 90 percent accuracy, which newlyweds will stay married and which will divorce. One of Gottman’s tenets is that couples who express anger toward each other aren’t necessarily at risk of splitting up—but those who express contempt are definitely in the danger zone.33 The mere action of rolling one’s eyes at a partner is a dis
mayingly accurate predictor of marital problems.34 When we feel contemptuous of someone, we’ve decided we’re morally superior. On some level, we have dismissed them. Contempt can be deadly to personal relationships, and it’s deadly in business relationships as well.
If a conflict arises at work, and you spot contempt on your opponent’s face—a wrinkle in the nose, eye rolling, or a raised nostril combined with a curled upper lip—you’re on dangerous ground. And if you express contempt for those around you, they’ll sense it. Contempt poisons relationships.
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8. Timing
The eighth and ninth indicators are both temporal. The timing of a facial expression in relation to other bodily or vocal expressions can be telling. True emotional indicators are usually expressed simultaneously; feigned indicators occur in quick succession.35 For example, a subject who is pretending to be outraged may cross his arms and then scowl. If he had actually been angry, the arm movement and scowl would have taken place at the same time.
9. Duration
Similarly, the duration of an expression is relevant. Genuine expressions of emotion rarely persist longer than five seconds, and almost never longer than ten. A fixed smile is likely to conceal anger, anxiety, or some other negative emotion; a pasted-on frown may indicate that the subject is trying to figure out what to say.
THE TENTH INDICATOR: INTUITION
There’s one more indicator, and it doesn’t emerge from clues on a subject’s face. As reliable as the nine facial indicators are, common sense tells us that one crooked smile doesn’t automatically peg a person a liar. Nor does a series of rapid blinks. Maybe your companion is just having trouble with a contact lens. Liespotters need to consider many more factors in addition to physical cues.
For example, what is an individual’s baseline behavior? How does he act when he’s truthful? We’ll discuss how to quickly and accurately take note of someone’s baseline behavior in Chapter 6. But even without knowing how to baseline an individual, you can still rely on your intuition.
Many experts on intuition suggest that what we call intuition is actually an unconscious response to external stimuli and messages. Our eyes or our ears may not immediately recognize when we’re being lied to, but our brains certainly do. For example, one Northwestern University study showed that even when people did not realize they had seen a micro-expression, their brain activity was affected by its fleeting appearance on someone’s face. This altered their perception of and their behavior toward the person with whom they were interacting.36 In other words, just because we don’t recognize a micro-expression doesn’t mean we don’t unconsciously sense and respond to the emotion that caused it.
Trust yourself! Lie detection and intuition have a reciprocal relationship. Most of our decisions, both large and small, are informed by intuition. This is as true in the workplace as in the rest of our daily lives. Our actions as businesspeople—hiring and firing, avoiding and confronting conflict, scheduling or canceling meetings, deleting or forwarding e-mails—all of these actions rely on intuition as much as on conscious thought. The same is true with detecting deceit: the better we become at detecting deceit, the better our intuition; the stronger our intuition, the more evolved our lie-detection skills become.
If your instinct tells you that someone isn’t being entirely truthful, and you notice that he’s blinking a lot, and he’s giving you an asymmetrical smile, pay attention: you’ve got good reason to pursue the matter.
The cardinal rule in liespotting is to watch the face—but not only the face. Our bodies speak volumes, even if we don’t say a word. In the next chapter, we’ll learn more about detecting deceit through body language.
FOUR
READING THE BODY
Deafness has left me acutely aware of both the duplicity that language is capable of and the many expressions the body cannot hide.
—POET/ACTRESS TERRY GALLOWAY
Remember Steve Marks, that venture capitalist in Chapter 1? He’s the guy who visited the computer animation company in San Francisco, hoping to invest. Impressed by his tour and his conversation with the CEO, Marks didn’t suspect that something was wrong until, on his way out, he stopped to speak to one young woman who was typing away in her cubicle. What he saw and heard prompted him to return to the CEO’s office for a confrontation.
The CEO broke down and confessed: the woman and most of the other people in their cubicles were actors, hired to hide the fact that the CEO had let most of his real employees go because, in fact, the company was near bankruptcy.
What was the tip-off? How did Marks know that the employee was not who she seemed?
The clue wasn’t in what she said. True, Marks thought her initial reply to his greeting was a little flat and oddly unenthusiastic for someone who, minutes earlier, had seemed completely engrossed in her work on the computer. Still, she’d given him a reasonable answer, and someone taken off guard by a stranger hovering over her cubicle might be expected to respond cautiously.
What tipped Marks off was the woman’s behavior. In the few minutes that they spoke, Marks spotted three signs that told him she might be trying to deceive him.
First, he noticed her hands. As the woman looked up from her desk, she took her hands off the keyboard and placed them on the desk. Marks would have expected someone focused on her work to keep her hands on the keyboard while she addressed him, and maybe even to look slightly annoyed or distracted when he pulled her attention away from what she was doing.
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LIESPOTTING TIP
Look for clusters of behaviors that could indicate deception. A single gesture or slip of the tongue may mean nothing, but observing several deceptive indicators in a cluster should put you on alert.
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Marks was also surprised that while she was speaking to him, the woman leaned back in her chair, angled her body toward the cubicle entrance, and froze. When asked an unthreatening question, most people would have leaned slightly forward over their desk or, perhaps, against their armrest. This woman’s body language told him she wished she could be anywhere except where she was.
The third clue? As the woman spoke, she moved her purse away from the cubicle entrance. Why? She wasn’t making preparations to leave her desk, and Marks certainly hadn’t made any move toward her purse. He knew that when people are nervous, they sometimes create “barrier objects” from what ever they can get their hands on—purses, backpacks, even chairs or tables. They place them between themselves and a perceived threat. That’s why professional interrogators who are sure of their subject’s guilt will often see to it that there is nothing but empty space between them and the person they’re questioning. When a deceptive subject feels exposed, he has trouble concentrating on the fabrication he might plan to put forth. Sometimes the interrogator will leave the room a few times, only to pull his chair a bit closer to the suspect each time he returns. This violates the subject’s sense of personal space. He starts to feel more and more transparent, though he can’t figure out why. Often the ever-increasing physical closeness increases the subject’s tension so much that he decides that the interrogator must already know the truth, and he might as well come clean.1
Marks had lost a bundle during the Internet bubble when he invested in companies that falsely represented aspects of their business. To arm himself against the exaggeration and outright lies that had cost him so much money, he trained in deception detection. That’s how he knew that 65 percent of nonverbal human communication is conveyed through body language.2 It was the woman’s body language—her posture, in particular—that caught his eye and suggested that something wasn’t right. When he approached her at her desk, he was certainly interested in what the woman would say, but he knew that her body language would tell him far more about what he wanted to know.
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THE NOSE KNOWS
If 80 percent of communication is nonverbal and 65 percent of that behavior is body language, what makes up the other 15 percent of our nonverbal
communication tools? Body odor, pheromones, and other hormonal and chemical signals.3
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MAN’S UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Awareness of the symbolic power of body language to communicate is not new, and has been exploited for centuries. Wealthy Greek citizens in the fourth century B.C. made it their habit to hold themselves straight and walk with long strides and a relaxed gait. This demonstrated that, unlike slaves and workers, they had no required tasks to carry out. The same cohort of men in ancient Rome strove to keep their gestures small and calm-looking to show that they could maintain self-control.4
In 1644, John Bulwer, a British physician, published Chirologia, a study of the meanings conveyed by our gestures. The hand, he said, “speaks all languages, and as universal character of Reason is generally understood and known by all Nations, among the formal differences of their Tongue. And being the only speech that is natural to Man, it may well be called the Tongue and General language of Human Nature, which, without teaching, men in all regions of the habitable world doe at the first sight most easily understand.”5
Not surprisingly, Shakespeare also weighed in on the topic in Troilus and Cressida, when Ulysses exclaims, “There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out at every joint and motive of her body.”
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LIESPOTTING TIP
Be on the alert for head nodding that moves in the opposite direction from what a person is saying. A client who says, “I thought your proposal was great,” while shaking her head side to side may secretly be harboring doubts.
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As we’ve seen, Charles Darwin’s book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals examined a broad range of facial expression. The work also treated human and animal gestures in some detail. “So strongly are our intentions and movements associated together,” wrote Darwin,
that if we eagerly wish an object to move in any direction, we can hardly avoid moving our bodies in the same direction…. A man or child in a passion, if he tells any one in a loud voice to be-gone, generally moves his arm as if to push him away, although the offender may not be standing near, and although there may be not the least need to explain by a gesture what is meant. On the other hand, if we eagerly desire some one to approach us closely, we act as if pulling him towards us; and so in innumerable other instances.6