How often does someone respond to the question “How are you?” with “Good!” even though you can tell that’s not how they’re actually feeling? This is one example of a lie that you may hear daily.
Did you know that you hear anywhere from 10 to 200 lies a day? That’s a lot of unnecessary energy spent questioning others’ words and motives.
Detecting a Liar
Lies can be extremely hard to detect sometimes. Throughout history, humans have tried to find ways to detect a liar and decipher the truth. Rather than leaving the lie-detecting up to heavy machinery, you can learn how to analyze others’ words through communications science. It’s easiest to detect a lie simply through word structure… and you’re about to learn how.
There are a few common patterns that liars use in their speech that you can easily spot.
Liars will typically not reference themselves much when they make these deceptive statements. You can spot this by noticing when someone talks in third-person language. They typically do this to distance themselves from the lie.
Liars may seem more negative. This happens because they subconsciously experience guilt from their lie. This may result in them becoming easily angered when you question them.
Liars will also have simple explanations or stories. This is because the human brain struggles to come up with complicated lies, so they may only have a few points to back up their lie.
Liars may be extremely wordy to cover up their lies as well. This may include adding irrelevant details or stretching out the story in odd ways.
Many lies that you encounter day-to-day are harmless, but it is important to spot the higher risk lies that may affect you. Now you have the skills you need to detect when those lies come your way.
