How to Tell If Someone is Lying

Lying, everyone struggles and deals with it at some point in their lives, whether it be with telling lies or in determining fact from fiction. The latter seems to come up continually in our personal and professional lives, and while distinguishing fact from fiction isn't easy, there are signs you can look for to tip you off to a fib.

Don't get me wrong, there is no sure way to tell is someone is fibbing or telling the truth. Even trained personnel such as law enforcement officials and psychologists have trouble determining one from the other. One UC Santa Barbara Professor of Psychology explained it like this: "Lying is not a distinct psychological process with its own unique behavioral indicators. It does matter how a liar feels and how they think." (Eaves, 2006). I'm sure you've seen the crime shows where the murderer is straight-faced and normal while being interrogated. He gives his alibi and his plans the night of the murder with the sort of lackadaisical manner that anyone would use when telling a friend about what they did the night before. Of course, you probably aren't going to be dealing with criminals, however, the concept is the same. Your lying employee might be able to look you right in the eyes, and with a collected and normal voice, tell you one story when the opposite is true.

Paul Ekman, a retired psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco instead uses other signs to signal a fib. "There are signs of strong emotional or cognitive loads - which means that at a particular moment a person is feeling very strong emotions that are not being expressed in words." (Shea, 2005). It is these strong emotional and cognitive loads that end up betraying the liar in the end. Cognitive clues can include hesitations in speech, slips of the tongue (Associated Press, 2006), giving too much or too little detail. Pay close attention to the story and any inconsistencies in it. The story should remain the same after repeated tellings. Are they answering questions you didn't ask? Are they being vague?