Deception

When people observe the nonverbals of discomfort, all too often, they assume that someone is lying. This is particularly true in interview settings, where people have a habit of playing out their fantasy of being a special investigator interrogating a suspect about their involvement in a crime. While this might be entertaining for you, it is torture for your victim, who is most likely only trying to represent themselves in the best possible light. Interviews are a chance for you to get to know the interviewee, not a form of fraternal hazing or a demonstration of dominance.

An additional reason why interviews should not be treated as interrogations is that we humans are absolutely abysmal lie detectors. Study after study shows that - at best - we are typically 50% accurate at detecting when someone is lying, which is to say, we can't tell if people are lying at all. The only way to tell if someone is lying is to compare what is being said with available proof, a process that is best left up to the justice system and should not be something that people dabble in any time they feel they have an opportunity to catch someone in a lie.

While we can't tell if someone is lying, we can tell if something is causing someone to be uncomfortable. A methodical strategy of asking a question and then pausing to carefully observe any nonverbal reactions before asking another question can separate questions where someone remains comfortable from questions that make someone uncomfortable. As none of us are human lie detectors, that is the best we can do.

Even electronic lie detectors being administered by experienced professionals are only around 90% accurate for most people, but may still be fooled by the best liars, which are people who lie all the time, such that there is hardly any difference between when they lie and when they speak normally.

Just as with any attempt to interpret nonverbals, a baseline of someone's neutral body language must be established. After which, sudden deviations that occur in multiple parts of the body should be noted as indicative of an emotional reaction. Leaning forward doesn't tell us much. Leaning forward, while the hands are folded across the stomach, with eyes closed, with lips hidden, with head hung, with the neck disappearing into the shoulders, with the legs drawn under the chair; tells us that something that was said is causing the person a lot of discomfort, and possibly some shame, embarrassment, or sadness. Precisely what, we don't know. This is not lie detection - this is noting nonverbal changes in response to stimuli.

While we can never know for sure if someone is lying, there are behaviors that are found more often in people who have been proven to be lying versus those that have been proven to have been telling the truth. These are by no means dead giveaways or smoking guns but can be combined with the whole-body changes in nonverbals in direct response to specific questions.

People who are lying tend to not accentuate or emphasize any particular word or phrase they are saying and instead speak with a consistent monotone, possibly because they are relaying a rehearsed story from memory. They also tend to not move much, perhaps in an attempt to not reveal anything in their nonverbal communication.

People who are telling the truth tend to be more emphatic as they speak and move around more, as they want people to believe them and therefore provide as much verbal and nonverbal communication as they can.

When someone who is telling the truth is asked a simple question, they will tend to answer quickly, as simple questions have simple answers. Someone who is being deceptive, however, may have to think long and hard about the answer to a simple question, to avoid incriminating themselves.

As a conversation progresses, truth-tellers tend to become more relaxed, whereas liars tend to become more anxious, as if truth-tellers are relieved at being able to speak the truth, whereas liars become more tense as they feel the chances of them being found out increasing minute by minute.

It is important to remember that speaking emphatically or in a monotone, moving or not moving, answering questions quickly or slowly, or becoming more relaxed or anxious, does not prove someone is lying, as there are always alternative explanations.

Perhaps someone has a cold, and the cold medication is making them drowsy and, therefore, less emphatic and animated. Perhaps someone has to pick up their children from school, and the longer the conversation goes, the later and therefore more anxious they will be.

All these behaviors do is help to paint a more complete picture when used in combination with observing someone's immediate nonverbal reactions to direct questions. They are not a substitute for hard evidence and concrete proof and therefore do not help you determine truth infallibly.

To help improve your odds of detecting an honest nonverbal reaction, make sure you can see the entirety of the person's body, from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet, and remember people have less practice masking their nonverbals the lower down the body we go. We have endless practice lying with our mouths, faking a smile on demand whenever we are asked, but have very little practice lying with our feet, resulting in behaviors such as our feet pointing away from someone whenever we want to end a conversation.

It is estimated that we all lie around 3-5 times an hour, as lying can be thought of as a necessity if someone wishes to properly integrate into polite society. How many times have you been asked how you were doing and then replied with complete honesty? The unfortunate fact is, many times, we are asked insincere questions - such as when a polite coworker asks a question that pretends to actually care how we are when, in fact, they do not - which in turn elicit insincere answers. These lies don't make us bad people, just people who want to operate within the rules of the society in which we live.

As a general rule, don't try to judge whether someone is lying using nothing but nonverbals. If you do see patterns that seem to indicate deception, you should seek evidence that confirms or contradicts what you are being told. In the absence of hard evidence, your odds of accurately judging if someone is lying based on nothing but nonverbals will most likely be no better than a coin flip.