Why Do We Lie?
Most people lie to protect themselves from being judged or rejected, or to avoid getting caught doing something wrong.
Typically, little white lies are harmless, but they can get bigger, more frequent and more serious with time. A Nature Neuroscience study found that lying evolves: The more you lie, the easier it gets to lie and the bigger the lies get. As people tell small lies, their brains become desensitized to feeling guilty about lying.
Can We Detect Lies?
With so much deception around us, it’s a wonder anyone can tell when someone is lying. But sometimes we can.
Humans have pre-set instincts for detecting lies. However, our natural abilities are often quashed by our conscious biases, leading to a mere 54% accuracy in lie detection. Yet, we can improve those odds.
People may lie, but their bodies don’t, according to the experts. People focus so much on speaking a lie that they fail to control what their bodies are doing.
The key is to watch rather than listen. You can spot a liar by paying attention to their body language.
Below is a science-backed list of the top 10 signs that someone is lying. These clues are red flags only when people act differently than they normally do when telling the truth.
- Mismatch: saying “No” while shaking head “Yes”
- Change in eye contact: no eye contact or staring
- Micro expressions: brief, involuntary facial expressions that give away people’s true emotions
- Open mouth
- White of eyes show
- Raised upper eyelids
- Eyebrows raised and drawn together
- Wrinkles on center of forehead
- Covering the mouth or pursing the lips
- Sudden head movement: tilting, bowing or jerking back the head
- Signs of stress: fidgeting, crossing arms or legs, perspiration, foot tapping, touching the face, blinking too fast or too slow, changes in breathing
- Distancing: person suddenly moves further away
- Fake smile: smiles using the lips but not the eyes
- Verbal cues: unusual rise or fall in vocal tone, lack of contractions, lack of personal pronouns, pauses 5 seconds or more before answering questions, not remembering facts, saying too much or not enough
- Gut feeling
There’s no crystal ball to know for sure when someone is lying, but by watching for these signs you can get better at detecting lies.
