Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

"Traditional police practices in deception detection stem from early theories on lying that assume liars will exhibit stress-based cues because they fear being caught and feel guilty about lying. This theory led researchers to search for reliable behavioral indicators of deception. They examined behaviors such as posture shifts, gaze aversion, and foot and hand movements, without much success.

"There really is no Pinocchio's nose," says Judee Burgoon, PhD, a professor of communication at the University of Arizona

American Psychological Association

 

"People tell white lies when telling the truth would be overly complicated, uncomfortable, or tedious." 

"[These types of fibs allow people to] reframe harmful truths and reframe socially awkward facts [we tell white lies to avoid hurting others and save ourselves from embarrassment]."

Dr. Christian Hart, Psychology Today

Lies of that variety are harmless and they pass the social test of civility, They don't pop up from a wellspring of malice. They are quite ordinary social interactions in normal people with a sense of social conscience. Most of us would be surprised to read that a study found six of ten Americans are committed to telling the truth, always. Liars on the other hand fib roughly 17 times daily; it has become 'second nature' to them. Actually, lying is in and of itself a human characteristic. There are studies indicating that people begin to lie at an early age until we become quite skilled at it.

 

Trinity University in Texas undertook a study to clarify what distinguishes a real lie from a white lie. The latter to be shrugged off as inconsequential, the former having unsavoury origins and consequences in the deeper recesses of a primitive mind possibly lacking social conscience and how to distinguish one category from the other. 

• It is a serious lie if the intent is malicious;
• the consequence of the lie is serious;
• the liar is the one who benefits most from the lie;
• the lie is mostly untrue -- compare the 'bending of the truth' that tends to define a white lie; 
• the lie is considered unequivocally wrong.

There is a kind of urban myth that a lie can be revealed when the person lying moves their eyes to the left or the right, though no evidence exists to support this belief. A study done in 2012 examined the notion that people tend to look up and to the right when lying, and up and left while telling the truth; finding nothing supportive of the claim.

On the other hand, a 2015 study at University of Michigan took into account 120 videos of high-stakes court cases when they set out to construct a prototype of lie-detecting software. Part of the study was experiments that turned out 75 percent accurate in identifying liars. Close to 70 percent of liars tended to stare straight at their interrogator. 

 

Scowling or grimacing with the entire face was interpreted as an indicator of deception. Only 30 percent of liars scowled, but virtually none of the people telling the truth did. Another: close to 50 percent of truth tellers closed their yes during questioning, while merely 20 percent of liars tended to close their eyes. Head-shaking usually reflected someone telling the truth at about 50 percent, compared to only35 percent of people who lied.

People telling the truth often raised their eyebrows, while those lying had a tendency to wave their hands about during questioning. When someone's physical movements fail to match their statements; saying yes while shaking heads 'no'; almost like involuntary movements, may indicate deceit. And then, there are cultural differences to be considered. Voice pitch can reveal much.

The American Psychological Association found Chinese people had a tendency to raise the pitch of their voices when lying, whereas Hispanics spoke in lower tones when lying, compared to their normal voices while telling the truth. What research also tends to tell us is that humans generally are not very good at deciphering fact from fiction. 

People  tend to detect someone who is lying only about fifty percent of the time. According to some studies, emotionally intelligent people are more readily convinced by liars. Their personalities making them more trustful of other people.