In life, there are a few skills nearly as useful as knowing whether someone is telling you the truth. For a man or woman who is unsure of their partner's fidelity, truth detecting can go a long way toward uncovering a wayward affair. For parents, it can help to keep children in line. And for everyone else, it makes interactions with strangers far easier. But, how many ways to tell if a person is lying actually work?
1. Fidgeting and Eye Contact
If someone cannot look you in the eye and sit still, something is up. If you have children, you probably learned this one very early in their lives, and it doesn't go away as we get older. For some people it may become more subtle and harder to detect, but very few people can sit with a straight face and look you in the eye as they lie.
2. Over Compensating
When they know their story is a lie, some people will over compensate and toss out a tremendous amount of extra information to try and sell it. Most people will only answer your questions, not volunteer extra details. Look for overeager story telling.
3. Pausing and Lack of Details
If someone pauses, waits on a sentence or simply doesn't have many details to fill in the gaps when you ask, they're at a loss for words. They are not only lying, they're bad at it and they're hoping you don't figure that out.
4. Being Unsure or Inconsistent
When trying to reconcile lies, people will grow unsure in their recollections. Sure, some people forget, but you can often tell when it's a matter of inconsistency instead. Look for your subject to grow confused easily and start backtracking to make sure they tell it straight, almost as though the story has been rehearsed.
5. Changing Subjects or Shifting the Focus
When someone changes the subject quickly, they want you to move on. They may simply be uncomfortable with the topic, or they may be trying to push the conversation into a more comfortable arena so they don't shoot themselves in the foot.
6. Giving Too Much Information
This comes back to the over compensation point. Imagine if someone got pulled over by a police officer for speeding and promptly told the cop that nothing was in the trunk. Of course, the cop now has just cause to look in the trunk because it was clearly a lie - way too much information and for no good reason. Look for similar hiccups in their story.
7. Formality or Stuttering
If someone talks to you too formally, the odds are that they've rehearsed the speech to some degree and are trying to remember it. If they stutter, they clearly forgot. Look for clues that the information they spent so much time preparing is unraveling.
A lot of people are horrible liars - far more than you'd expect. Create an outline of cues to look for and test yourself by having a conversation with someone you think may be lying. When you suspect that your spouse may be cheating on you, having this kind of information on hand can make lie detection far easier. Just be sure to gather additional information. Simply knowing that someone is lying doesn't mean you have caught them cheating. It just means they're lying to you. Now, it's time to figure out about what.
1. Fidgeting and Eye Contact
If someone cannot look you in the eye and sit still, something is up. If you have children, you probably learned this one very early in their lives, and it doesn't go away as we get older. For some people it may become more subtle and harder to detect, but very few people can sit with a straight face and look you in the eye as they lie.
2. Over Compensating
When they know their story is a lie, some people will over compensate and toss out a tremendous amount of extra information to try and sell it. Most people will only answer your questions, not volunteer extra details. Look for overeager story telling.
3. Pausing and Lack of Details
If someone pauses, waits on a sentence or simply doesn't have many details to fill in the gaps when you ask, they're at a loss for words. They are not only lying, they're bad at it and they're hoping you don't figure that out.
4. Being Unsure or Inconsistent
When trying to reconcile lies, people will grow unsure in their recollections. Sure, some people forget, but you can often tell when it's a matter of inconsistency instead. Look for your subject to grow confused easily and start backtracking to make sure they tell it straight, almost as though the story has been rehearsed.
5. Changing Subjects or Shifting the Focus
When someone changes the subject quickly, they want you to move on. They may simply be uncomfortable with the topic, or they may be trying to push the conversation into a more comfortable arena so they don't shoot themselves in the foot.
6. Giving Too Much Information
This comes back to the over compensation point. Imagine if someone got pulled over by a police officer for speeding and promptly told the cop that nothing was in the trunk. Of course, the cop now has just cause to look in the trunk because it was clearly a lie - way too much information and for no good reason. Look for similar hiccups in their story.
7. Formality or Stuttering
If someone talks to you too formally, the odds are that they've rehearsed the speech to some degree and are trying to remember it. If they stutter, they clearly forgot. Look for clues that the information they spent so much time preparing is unraveling.
A lot of people are horrible liars - far more than you'd expect. Create an outline of cues to look for and test yourself by having a conversation with someone you think may be lying. When you suspect that your spouse may be cheating on you, having this kind of information on hand can make lie detection far easier. Just be sure to gather additional information. Simply knowing that someone is lying doesn't mean you have caught them cheating. It just means they're lying to you. Now, it's time to figure out about what.
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