12 Detecting Lies
“I’m hopeless at telling lies. I can attempt strategic ones in order not to hurt people’s feelings, but then I’ll blow it 10 minutes later.”
Nicholas Haslam
Here’s the story: your boss/client tells you that despite the economy/merger/sales figures, your job is safe. While you’d like to believe what you hear, something in the delivery sets off alarms in your head.
Previously held beliefs that you could tell someone was lying simply by
- lack of eye contact
- fidgeting
- sweating
no longer hold true. Firstly, before making a judgement, you have to observe a cluster of behaviours. Secondly, rather than looking for signs of nervousness, research tells us to look for signs of thinking. Why is that?
Lying takes time and effort. Someone ...
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