When I think of lie detection I think of the movie Meet the Parents when the dad hooks the daughter's boyfriend up to the lie detection test in his secret room in the den. However, everyone knows that lie detection tests are not always accurate, and there are some ways of tricking the test to make it appear like you are telling the truth. This got me thinking about other ways, besides a test, that people give off the impression that they are lying. I came upon a website that lays out four different categories in which Police and other people such as managers and employer go about determining if someone is lying. The four categories include deception, emotional gestures, interactions/reactions, and verbal. Each of these categories provided many interesting tests that give away that a person is most likely lying. However there were a couple that stood out. For example; people that are lying are more likely to not use contractions. If someone accuses you of stealing money out of his wallet, if the person is telling the trust they are more likely to respond by saying "I didn't steal money out of your wallet" vs. "I did not steal money out of your wallet." Also, another way in which you can test to see if someone is lying is to change the subject. Ironically if you are the person lying and your confronter changes the subject you most likely think you got a way with the lie; however, this is the catch. If you are telling the truth you would be thrown off by this subject change and want to revisit the discussion on lying because you want to make sure the person realizes that you were telling the truth. There are many more examples of how you can tell people are lying so if you are interested I would check out the website!
Liar Liar!!
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This is a super cool site and it incorporates many ways in which a person may be caught in a lie. With that said, many of these ways could be done by anyone at any time regardless of truth or lie telling. This is why at the end of the article it emphasizes the need to compare each of these tells to the person's base interactions. This leads me to believe that the person writing this article has found these tells to work on somewhere around 30% of people encountered. These are, in all honesty, good guidelines to follow for spotting a lie, however they should not be utilized very intensely, as they will, more often than not, lead you astray.