Liespotting_Proven Techniques to Detect Deception

by Pamela Meyer

  Wade took a sip from his glass and put it down carefully before answering. Holding Jeff’s gaze, he said, “I know. I sent her an apology, and I called her, too. Not that that will make much of a difference. It was just a rotten day, I guess. I got a late start. I printed out some proposals at home, and that set me back. And then…well, then I shouldn’t have bothered with the drive-through at Starbucks; it always takes too long. I was so frustrated I just grabbed my coffee and drove off without the muffin I’d ordered. I was really worried that I’d be late for the presentation, but I made it by nine. It went great. They seemed mostly interested in the features on the Canon, but they asked a few questions about the Toshiba, too. Once I pull some numbers together for them, I think they’ll see the Canon is a perfect fit for what they need.”

  Jeff said, “Good, good. Now, what about the meeting?”

  Wade shook his head. “Oh, sorry. Well, so then I was really hungry because I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I decided to stop for a sandwich before heading over to Fischer’s office. When I came out, my car wouldn’t start. I do not know what happened, but, uh, the battery was just dead. And on top of that, I’d left my charger at home and my cell phone was out of juice, too. Sounds crazy, I know, but I swear it’s true. I was banging my hands on the car and yelling at people to see if they’d let me use their phone, but I must have looked like a maniac—no one would help me.

  “Finally I got the manager at the sandwich shop to jump-start me. But by then I was so late that it didn’t seem worth it to drive across town to the meeting with Fischer—I figured the woman was pissed at me anyway by then. So I just went home. I know that was a stupid thing to do. I’m really, really sorry, and it will not happen again. It will not. You have my word.”

  Wade looked earnestly at Jeff, who nodded. He wasn’t ready to say that he knew Wade wasn’t telling the truth. The two men finished their lunch pleasantly enough. But when they got back to the office, Jeff told Maxine, the head of HR, that he needed to draft a warning letter informing Wade that he was in danger of being terminated. “Keep that file close,” he told Maxine.

  Within a few months, Wade missed another appointment, and Jeff fired him. He found out shortly thereafter that Wade had checked himself into drug rehab.

  Humans excel at adapting language to suit their needs. We hear a clever phrase and make it our own; we pick up slang; we order “soda” until we move to another part of the country and start ordering “pop.” Each of us has developed a singular style of verbal communication that is heavily influenced by our geographic location, our life experience, and our social, ethnic, and economic demographic.

  Yet trained deception detectors know that though everyone has a unique way of expressing himself, there are some near-universal ways in which liars reveal themselves when they speak.

  THE VERBAL HABITS OF DECEPTIVE PEOPLE

  Everything about Wade’s story made sense, so how did Jeff know that his salesman didn’t miss his meeting thanks to a perfect storm of poor planning and unreliable technology? Because as convincing as he was, Wade dropped a cluster of verbal clues to deceit. Liars usually work very hard at constructing a convincing narrative, making sure that each part of their story is plausible and logical. But just as unconsciously leaked facial micro-expressions and body language can betray a liar’s true emotions, unconsciously leaked verbal slips can betray one’s underlying train of thought. For the liespotter who knows how to listen well, the random words, sounds, and phrases in a person’s speech are never as random as they seem. They offer a clear sight line into the liar’s psyche.

  After all, lying is hard work. As the Swedish researcher Aldert Vrij observed, liars “have to think of plausible answers, avoid contradicting themselves, and tell a lie that is consistent with everything the observer knows or might find out”—and they have to do all this while reminding themselves not to make any mistakes. And remembering not to look nervous. And not to act differently from how they’d normally act in this situation. And—speaking of acting—to be sure to display the emotions they’d normally show.2 Is it any wonder that they can’t always pull it off?

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  LIESPOTTING TIP

  Watch for incongruencies in a person’s words, facial expressions, and body language. Liars often struggle to keep them all in sync, whereas truth-tellers will broadcast the same message consistently across all channels.

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  To spot verbal indicators of lying, deception detectors pay close attention to four characteristics of speech—statement structure, verbal leaks, vocal quality, and attitude.

  Statement Structure

  A person’s statement structure—his choice of words and phrases—is a rich source for any liespotter to mine for possible deception indicators. As always, it’s important to remember that any number of physiological and psychological factors—fatigue, stress, hunger, concern about getting home on time—can affect how someone expresses himself.

  Truth-tellers who expect others to believe them tend to speak naturally and unself-consciously. But if they don’t expect to be believed, they may try too hard to seem honest. Unfortunately, the result makes them sound less believable.3

  Obviously, then, not every oddly phrased statement is a lie. Still, there are tactical turns of phrase that should raise a liespotter’s eyebrows—not because of what the suspect says, but instead due to what these tactics help him avoid saying.

  There are several types of statements liars often use to evade questions or deflect suspicion. You’ll learn how to respond to them in the next chapter. For now, just focus on familiarizing yourself with them.

  Parrot Statements. If you ask a question and someone repeats it back to you, she may be stalling to buy time to think about how she wants to reply. For example, if you ask “Which e-mail account do you use for business correspondence during non–work hours?” and you hear back, “Which e-mail account do I use for business correspondence during non–work hours? Well, I guess that would be my company account,” pay attention. Had you simply heard, “My business correspondence?” or “During non–work hours?” she could have been clarifying your question to make sure she told you what you wanted to know. But repeating the question in its entirety suggests that she doesn’t want to answer.

  Dodgeball Statements. Let’s say you ask, “What computer system do you mainly use when you’re in the office?” and someone replies, “Are you interviewing all of IT, too?” When people ignore or deflect your question, and lob a new one right back at you, it’s often an attempt to find out how much you know before volunteering an answer. In this example, the subject may be trying to determine whether you’ve noticed something suspicious about her e-mail activity. “Do I have to come up with an explanation for something?” she may be asking herself.

  Guilt-Trip Statements. A guilt-trip statement is an evasive tactic that tries to put you, the interrogator, on the defensive. Say you ask an employee which exit she generally uses when she’s leaving the building at the end of the day. If she’s trying to avoid the question, she may make a show of taking offense: “I’ll bet you’re not hounding any of the execs about their comings and goings. You guys in HR always think it’s the people on the ground who are on the take.” She’s hoping that you’ll abandon the question while defending yourself or getting caught up in proving that you’re not biased. Don’t take the bait.

  Protest Statements. Instead of trying to put you on the defensive, a liar using a protest statement will respond to questioning by reminding you that nothing about her track record indicates that she is someone capable of deceit.

  Q: “What exit do you generally use when you leave the building at the end of the day?”

  A: “It depends on the day. Look, I’m a mother, I go to church, I give blood. I don’t understand why you’re talking to me like a criminal!”

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  LIESPOTTING TIP

  Ask open-ended questions to collect facts, and yes/no questions to assess behavior.

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  Too Little/Too Much Statements. In the split second before someone prepares to answer a question, he will consciously or subconsciously evaluate what the best possible answer might be.4 For a truthful person, the best possible answer might omit some information. It might have a few extraneous details. But it will still offer the information requested.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know about the e-mail one of our clients received the other day?” you ask.

  An honest employee might say, “All I know is that Bill Patterson called on Friday saying that Jane sent him an e-mail calling him a drunk and a loser. Now she’s saying that I somehow hacked into her e-mail account and sent it. It’s no secret that Jane and I don’t get along, but I’m not dumb enough to risk my job just to mess with her.”

  For an employee who’s trying to deceive you, however—let’s call him Todd—the best possible answer is often the one that doesn’t make him repeat the ugly details of the accusation. “Not much,” he might answer evasively. “He says he got a rude e-mail from Jane, right? And she thinks I did it? I don’t know why she’d think I’d do such a thing.” Steering clear of the specific charges helps him to keep himself at a psychological distance from them.

  On the other hand, Todd’s reply might be unnecessarily wordy: “What do I know? I know Jane is trying to get me fired. Basically, she’s never liked me. This isn’t the first time she’s tried to get me into trouble. Ever since that mix-up last year, when her shipment went AWOL for a few days—she says I never put the order in, but I definitely did—I’ve told people we need to get a system upgrade to keep stuff like that from happening. Now someone is upset and Jane’s saying it’s my fault? She has a lot of nerve.”

  Two clues in this reply indicate guilt. The first is that Todd is using a lot of words to say very little. The second is that nowhere in the midst of all this verbiage does he actually answer the question.

  Bolstering Statements. Liars want to sound convincing and earnest, so they’ll often add emphatic phrases to their speech to reinforce their credibility:

  “I swear to God, I was home last night.”

  “To tell you the truth, I thought those numbers looked a little off myself.”

  “I don’t know how that showed up on your bill, to be honest.”

  You may be wondering why you can’t just dismiss these as meaningless “filler” phrases. After all, most people use them liberally. Yet psychologists have found that liars, in particular, do not choose them at random.

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  FILLERS AND OTHER WAYS TO SAY A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING

  When Alex Rodriguez was interviewed on ESPN about his steroid use while playing for the Texas Rangers, deception experts were pretty sure he revealed more than he’d intended about whether he was telling the truth.5

  “To be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using,” Rodriguez told interviewer Peter Gammons.

  Later in the interview, Rodriguez said: “To be quite honest with you, the first time that I knew I had failed a test one hundred percent was when the lady from Sports Illustrated [Selena Roberts] came into my gym just a few days ago and told me, ‘You have failed a test.’”

  And when Gammon asked, “How were you introduced to these substances? Was it at the gym? Was it from other players?” here’s what Rodriguez said:

  The culture, it was pretty prevalent. There were a lot of people doing a lot of things. There was a lot of gray area, too. You know, back then you could walk in [to] GNC and get four or five different products that today would probably trigger a positive test.

  It wasn’t a real dramatic day once I arrived in Texas that something monumental happened in my life. The point of the matter was that I started experimenting with things that today are not legal or today are not accepted and today you would get in a lot of trouble for.

  Ever since that, that incident that happened to me in Arizona, surprise, I realized that, you know what, I don’t need any of it, and what I have is enough. I’ve played the best baseball of my career since. I’ve won two MVPs since, and I’ve never felt better in my career. Of that I’m very proud of.6

  Can you find an answer to the question anywhere in that quote? Probably not, because it isn’t there.7

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  Two types of phrases can be used to create a bolstering statement. First, let’s consider the qualifying phrase:

  “You’ll never believe this, but people have gotten as much as a ten to fifteen percent return on this investment.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, we’re the best dealer in town.”

  “You know, if you really think about it, I’m the wrong person to ask.”

  “As far as I recall, everything was where it was supposed to be when I came in.”

  People use qualifying statements to protect themselves from accusations of false promises or hyperbole, or to avoid being held accountable for what they say.8 But overall, when asked to relate an experience or an event that you have witnessed, you won’t need to qualify your answer. Either you did experience or see something, or you didn’t.

  So if a publisher asks an editor, “That was a fabulous idea you offered in the meeting. When did you come up with it?” and the editor replies, “To be honest, as far as I remember, it came to me somehow during the sales conference last month,” the publisher should press for more detail. Of course the fact that this editor prefaced his answer with qualifying phrases doesn’t necessarily mean he stole the idea from someone else. But it’s a signal that getting the whole story may take a little more digging.

  Another type of bolstering comes from religious phrases. “The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it,” said the American writer Minna Antrim.9 What she meant by the saint part is a tad controversial, but the hypocrite part is clear enough.

  “Honest to God, I didn’t do it!” “God only knows why Holly said that about me.” “I swear on a stack of Bibles the money was there when I left.” The more vociferously a person invokes religion, the more likely it is that she is not telling the truth. Honest people turn to their religious faith for personal support and comfort—not for public proof of their honesty. They usually don’t feel the need to remind you that they are religious, because your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

  Distancing Statements. No one likes to think of himself as a liar, a cheat, or a criminal—and we’ll perform all kinds of mental and linguistic gymnastics to avoid labeling ourselves as such. People who are intent on deceiving others often try to avoid referring to themselves in their lies, as if keeping themselves out of the statement means they’re not the ones who are lying.

  For example, a salesman who’s knowingly trying to sell an inferior sound system might say, “This is a terrific model. It sells out all the time.” Note that he avoids using the personal pronoun “I.” Actually, he avoids any possessive language at all—it’s as though he wants to take himself entirely out of the conversation. An honest vendor who’s enthusiastic about selling a great product would be more likely to say, “I think this is a terrific model. I sell out of it all the time.”

  Distancing statements are also found in language that minimizes the value of something or impersonalizes another person. Say an employee is hoping to deflect blame for her contentious relationship with a colleague: she may tell her supervisor, “You need to talk to that man about his attitude.” “That man”—not “Charlie.”

  Distancing language is a hallmark of deceptive speech. Avoiding first names is one way a liar can distance himself from the truth. When George Bush Sr. was president, he praised his son George in the following distanced way: “This guy’s smart, big, and strong. Makes the decisions.” Where’s George W. himself? Nowhere in the picture, it appears. In turn, he praised Jeb’s potential: “Awfully good as president.” This time, Jeb seemingly didn’t rate even a verb.

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  LIESPOTTING TIP

  Keep an ear out for generalizations and esti
mations (“I usually process orders in the morning…”) and respond with direct questions to clarify any ambiguities (“Did you process all the orders on Monday?”).

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  Euphemisms. Euphemisms are a form of distancing language. When people know their actions will be met with criticism, they’ll choose the words they use to describe that action very carefully. When confronted with a direct question such as, “Why did you steal the money?” an innocent person might shoot back, “I didn’t steal anything!”

  A guilty person, however, might reply, “I did not take anything.” Note the suspicious lack of emotion in this denial. In addition, the subject has replaced the word “steal” with the far gentler “take”—a red flag that this is a lie.

  Similarly, someone who has been unfairly accused of sexual harassment would probably have no qualms using words commonly associated with the topic. “Molested her? Are you kidding?” Or, “I don’t know where the porn came from—she just charged out of her office mad as hell when she found it on her desk.” Were that person trying to cover up his involvement, however, he might be more likely to use softer language: “I never touched her,” or “I do not know where those pictures came from.”10

  Verbal Leaks

  Verbal leaks are the mistakes people make when they expend so much cognitive energy on maintaining their lies that their brains have trouble keeping track of what they’re saying. “Ums” and “ahs,” inconsistent grammatical choices, and many other errors fall into this category.

  Slips of the Tongue. Thanks to Freud’s eminence in popular culture, you’re probably already acquainted with this term. A slip of the tongue is a mistake in speech that betrays an unconscious thought, feeling, or wish on the part of the speaker. A famously cringe-worthy example is Mayor Richard J. Daley’s utterance during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago: “The police are not here to create disorder; they’re here to preserve disorder.” An equally embarrassing slip occurred at the 1980 Democratic National Convention when Governor Jimmy Carter, upon accepting his party’s nomination, referred to the recently deceased Senator Hubert Humphrey as “Hubert Horatio Hornblower.”