Trust is vital for the growth of a given community or society, whether its your neighbours or work colleagues. And for family relationships, it's a must--without trust, there's no safety, and where there's no safety, there's no relationship, no cohesion, no togetherness.
What if a person was lying to you: could you tell? Would you know the signs? While there's no quick answer, and given that human communication can be convoluted at the best of times, here are a few tips that may help you navigate the sargasso sea of everyday communication.
1. Inconsistencies: If during a conversation you notice inconsistencies in the persons story, you can infer that they're at the very least fibbing. Such inconsistencies can be time and location issues, or simply about reactions to a given experience. Fiction writers are notorious for telling far-fetched tales, and one of the most important thing about editing a story over and over again is to iron out the inconsistencies of the narrative. Listen deeply, ask questions, and if there's a tall tale in there, you'll catch it.
2. Change in behaviour: When you are talking to the person and they are acting stranger than usual, chances are they're either telling you a lie or omitting something important. One strange behaviour pattern when one is telling a whopper is rubbing the nose and/or covering the mouth, which may be a result of adrenaline rushing to the capillaries. Eye contact can be another sign--though not guaranteed--of someone lying: if they usual maintain strong eye contact, but suddenly can't, there may be a trust issue going on.
3. Insincere emotions: If a person is smiling to hide stress or deception, you can typically tell after a while. Smiling is a devilish way of hiding other emotions, but the mask can't be maintained for long; you'll be able to see cracks of anger or aggravation forming in the smile. You will see this a lot, for example, when celebrities or politicians are placed in the hot-seat and have to answer hard questions. Smiling and joking can also portray a kind of truth, whether awkwardness or guilt. Sigmund Freud was brilliant at noticing how jokes were used to cover truths. It's also a way to gain approval and attention: how often do you hear or watch a speaker who begins with a joke or two?
4. Contradictions: In between appearance and reality falls the shadow. There's a lot of appearance/reality stuff that we see in the news, on TV, and simply hanging around other people. If someone is making a claim and there's a report or set of reports that invalidate the claim, then you know there's an issue of truth. If someone is telling you a story and they contradict themselves, or what someone else had to say about it, you know there's an issue of truth. Finding those contradictions, however, can be the difficult part--it takes some digging, as well as gut instinct. Often if you sense you're being lied to it's likely you are.
5. Benevolence: In cases of benevolence, people will lie to defend another person, or not believe the truth when told to them. Think of the mom who won't believe her son committed a heinous offence, or will try to cover it up--a definite motive for lying.
6. Skin in the game: If someone's trying to hold up a personal profile that is of great ambition or importance, there is a high chance of lying to maintain it. How many stories have you heard of the high and mighty falling as a result of a scandal? When there's skin in the game, people will go to great lengths to hold power, which often consists of lying. Some go so far with their lying that truth and falsity blend into one.
Sometimes the deceived can empower the liar by simply covering for them, legitimizing the behaviour, or just disbelieving they would lie in the first place. The latter often takes place with people in positions of power--we'll simply believe them because of the charisma we've placed on them--and that in turn fuels more and greater instances of lying.
As Francis Fukuyama wrote in his book Trust: The Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity, we need to be trustworthy and able to rely those around us. One way of using these tips is to foster dialogue and enhance communication. If you sense someone is lying to you, you can either dig a bit deeper, or call the person on it. If done in a sincere way to foster trust, in a context of safety and relationship, you can have more genuine dialogue with the other. If, however, you're using these tips to incessantly expose lies, you may wind up with more trouble on your hands than you really want. As well, if you're interested in these tips and the ways in which people try to hide their lies, I encourage you to commit yourself to further research; for while these tips may hold in certain contexts, human behaviour is much more complex and complicated to fully detect.
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