How to recognize and expose a liar? Former FBI Agent Proven Tips: Calm Down, Understand Your Discomfort, and Ask Many Questions
Are you often deceived? Many of us every day are faced with situations when it is unclear whether a person is telling the whole truth, coming up with some details or openly lying. How to understand this? Lie detector skills will not hurt. In the end, understanding that something is being hidden from you will save time, money, negative emotions, and in some cases it will save your life.
Only a professional will help you figure this out - so we turned to Joe Navarro, a former FBI officer with 25 years of experience. As a special agent and head of counterintelligence and counterterrorism, he pioneered the bureau's elite behavioral analysis unit and wrote the international bestseller I See What You Think.
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There is not a single example of specific behavior that indicates deception - the so-called "Pinocchio effect" does not exist (for example, shifting eyes are not always a sign of deception). There are behaviors that indicate psychological discomfort, anxiety, or stress, but this may be due to the environment (testimony), the interlocutor (antipathy), or perhaps overly intrusive questions. But sometimes this is a sign that a person is lying or his conscience is unclean.
In any case, the most we can do is observe the behavior of a person when he is asked a question.
And if he shows discomfort, you can think about why this is happening.
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Here are six basic behaviors that indicate the discomfort of the other person and should make you wary.
1. Compress lips
Pursed lips mean that a person is experiencing negative emotions. We often see this when people are testifying.
2. Argue violently
You ask a question, and the person enters into a heated discussion already during the question or answering it. This is a proven indicator of psychological discomfort.
3. Touching the neck
When we touch the neck, especially the jugular fossa, it means that we are either worried, or nervous, or afraid of something. Men mask this gesture by touching their tie.
4. Turn away with the whole body
Animal denial is a term that I coined. People behave this way when it becomes difficult for them to talk about something or the topic is controversial. This is the distancing behavior. People will do this imperceptibly, as if they are just fidgeting in place, but in fact they gradually turn away from you, even throwing one leg over the other, creating a kind of barrier, while continuing to look you in the eye. This should be especially noticeable if the person behaves this way immediately after being asked a question.
5. Touch your eyes
Often we touch our eyes when we are asked about something or we are worried about something. This action clearly conveys that the issue is complex. You will often see this behavior during board meetings, when someone disagrees with the speakers, or when what is being said is intentionally inaccurate. As I said, the "Pinocchio effect" does not exist, but the above behavior can often be seen when a person is worried about something. When I studied the behavior of children born blind, I noticed that they cover their eyes with their hands when they hear what they don't like.
6. Lowering or hiding thumbs
Usually nobody notices this gesture. But it is he who most accurately conveys the state of discomfort. When a person starts to lower or hide their thumbs, I read the lack of confidence or lack of seriousness about the topic of conversation. This is another sign that there is some kind of problem, because, on the one hand, we are persistent in words, but on the other, our body says otherwise.
If a person tells something persistently and sincerely, we see his thumbs. For example, fingers wide apart on the hands. The greater the distance, the more convincing and accurate this observation is.
Follow the speech
In addition to body language, it is also worth analyzing the features of speech.
Usually we know well the personal qualities and behavior of loved ones, so it is not difficult to replace changes in their behavior and speech. But if in front of you a stranger or unfamiliar person, you need to work on his basic behavior, as is done in the FBI.
We first calm people down to understand how they behave in ordinary, minimally stressful situations. Thus, by finding out what their basic behavior is, we can track changes in behavior in relation to a specific question.
Some people begin to speak faster, their voice may become higher, or they begin to make more mistakes in conversation, forced interjections appear, they begin to cough, etc.
Liars want to convince you more than just get the message across.
Therefore, sometimes they will repeat the same thing several times - just to be believed. Their words become weak at the beginning or end of the statement.
You need to be mindful of strategic delays, such as when someone answers a question by beginning with "This is a good question." This beginning is used to "forge" the answer. It just so happens that this tactic is used by both honest and dishonest people, so by itself it does not indicate deception. Some people are very careful in their answers, so a lawyer like Bill Clinton will be very careful about his proposals, carefully choosing his words.
That's the question
What questions do you need to ask in order to catch a person in a lie?
First of all, based on emotions, for example: "When you found the body, what did you feel?" The liar knows how to lie about how he found the body, but not about the emotions he experienced, so his story will be "mechanical." After thinking a little, he will say something like, "Well, that was terrible." An innocent person himself will tell about the emotions he experienced, and a liar who has just committed a crime is happy with what he has done, so an emotional conflict will arise in his behavior.
And here is an example of a question that is easier to imagine in a business environment: "When you found mold in a building, how did you feel?"
Is it possible to open the cards and at some point, realizing that the questions cause a person discomfort, say that you doubt him? In no case is this a mistake of inexperienced beginners.
You should never tell people that you are watching them.
You just change the topic of the conversation, and then return to the question that caused the stress, ask it in a different form, and if this time it causes discomfort, you understand that it is not the situation or the person asking the question, but the question itself.
The best way to bring out a liar is to ask more questions and be specific. If you ask someone if they have tax obligations, and they start talking about it, there is reason to start to doubt. The only way to figure it out is to ask even more specific questions. I would ask: “In the first quarter of 2012, were there any problems related to taxes, with arrears on their payments? And in the second quarter?"
For some, this method may seem overly harsh. Perhaps, if you use it too often with the same people, they will understand the tactics and learn how to get around difficult questions. And of course, if you are honest and you are being asked such questions, the safest way to behave is to just be yourself. Once at the airport, I was stopped by a policeman, and I was frightened for a moment. And the policeman just wanted to thank me for the books I wrote. It's amazing that the uniformed man was able to cause stress even for me, a former FBI agent.
Ziegler Mazina