How to Spot a Liar

 
How can you tell when a job
applicant or employee is lying?
Workplace body language expert
and author of “The Truth About
Lies in the Workplace,” Carol
Kinsey Goman offers these tips
for spotting liars at work.


1. Establish a “truth baseline”
Spotting deception begins with
observing a person’s baseline
behavior under relaxed or generally
stress-free conditions so that you
can detect meaningful deviations.
One of the strategies that
experienced
interviewers use is to
ask a series of simple questions
while observing how the person
behaves when there is no reason to
lie. Then, when the more
difficult issues get addressed, the
interviewer can stay alert for
sudden changes in behavior that
may indicate deception around key
points.
2. Watch for stress signals
For the vast majority
of the
individuals you interview or work
with, the act of lying triggers a
heightened stress response. Blood
pressure, heart rate and breathing
rates all increase.
To relieve stress and anxiety, liars
may use pacifying gestures (rubbing
their hands together, bouncing their
heels, fidgeting with jewelry, etc.)
But our first response to stress
(before we ready ourselves to fight
or flee) is to freeze. So also pay
attention if your usually animated
colleague suddenly stops gesturing,
has a forced or frozen smile, and
locks her ankles.
3. Look at their eyes
The biggest myth around deception
is that liars can’t look you in the
eyes. In fact, some don’t (especially
small children), but polished liars
may actually give too much eye
contact.
There are two eye signals that are
more accurate signs of dishonesty:
1) Pupils dilate when someone is
lying, and 2) Blink rates change –
slowing down while someone
constructs and tells the lie, and then
speeding up (sometimes as much as
eight times) afterward.
4. Count to four
Nonverbal cues to all kinds of
unconscious giveaways tend to occur
in clusters – a group of movements,
postures and actions that
collectively point to a particular
state of mind.
This is crucially true of dishonesty,
where one specific cluster of
nonverbal signals has been proven
statistically to accompany
dishonesty. These are: hand
touching, face touching, crossed
arms, and leaning away. According
to research conducted at
Northeastern University by David
DeSterno, if you see these “Telltale
Four” being displayed together,
watch out!
5. Notice if they
aren’t really answering the
question
Because of the mental effort it
takes to tell a bald-faced lie (and
because it triggers negative
emotions), many deceivers prefer to
avoid the truth with quasi-denials
and selective wording. Notice how
the responses below (which may be
absolutely valid) never actually
answer the questions.
Question: Have you ever used
drugs?
Answer: I don’t take drugs.
Question: Did you steal a computer
from the supply room?
Answer: Do I look like the kind of
person who would steal a computer?
Question: Did you leave your last
place of employment on good
terms?
Answer: I left to pursue other
opportunities.
Question: Did you pad your expense
account?
Answer: How can you ask that? I’ve
been a loyal employee for over 10
years!
6. Listen for vocal stress
The primary paralinguistic (how you
say what you say) signal that often
indicates lying is a change in
someone’s baseline vocal pitch,
which usually rises with stress levels
as vocal chords constrict.
Under stress, people may also
experience an increased need to
drink water and to lick or moisten
lips, as the autonomic nervous
system downloads a rush of
adrenaline, causing a dry mouth.
7. Stay alert for “undercover”
emotions
Smiles are often used as a polite
response and to cover up other
emotions, but these faked smiles
involve the mouth only. Unless
someone is expressing genuine
pleasure or happiness, it’s hard to
produce a real smile – the kind that
crinkles the corners of the eyes and
lights up the entire face.
There is another way that real
emotions emerge, regardless of the
effort to suppress them. When
someone conceals any strong
emotion, chances are his face will
expose that information in a split-
second burst called a “micro
expression.” Difficult to spot
because of it happens so quickly, but
that instantaneous flash of anger,
dismay, joy, etc. is an indicator of
someone’s genuine emotional state.
Please remember that none of these
verbal or nonverbal cues are proof
of lying. Truthful people can show
signs of stress, have a naturally high
blink rate, or give round-about
answers. And both the liar and
truth-teller may exhibit fear — one
of being discovered, the other of not
being believed. Nevertheless, these
signals are strong indicators of
heightened
anxiety, possible deception, and
of “hot spots” — areas that you
should investigate further.