AlexShalman.comPractical Personal Development

I am able to share these tips with you not because I live a life surrounded by liars (well maybe a couple of liars), but because my thirst for knowledge has led me to study this field of human psychology. Most of this content is really practical and easy to apply to any situation. Don’t worry, even if the liars out there see this information, it won’t exactly help them in eluding your new found skill. The fact that they’ll be thinking about how to react and trying to remember what not to do will serve as a warning to you. Just remember that some things are better left unanswered and that the truth may cause you severe discomfort.

Before you continue, ask yourself:

1. Is ignorance bliss or is truth the way to salvation?
2. Can you handle the truth?

Find out how to pick out a liar.

1. Body Cues. The key here is to look for deviations from the norm. Certain common cues to look out for are:

• Facing their body away from you or sideways
• Placing an object between the two of you
• Keeping arms close (i.e. crossed) to feel more secure
• Sweat forming around neck
• Touching face, neck, ears, nose and mouth
• Heart rate increases, causing blood to be withheld from hands, making them pale
• Hiding the palms of hands from your view (i.e. put in pockets)

2. Other Cues .

• A person uses sarcasm or humor to avoid the issue
• A good article about Visual Cues that I won’t recite.
• Upon changing the topic the guilty person will follow conversation while the innocent will revert back to get to the bottom of the accusations.

3. Intuition. The average person is not capable of consciously recognizing quick facial expressions and non-chalant body cues. If it was so easy than I wouldn’t bother writing this article because it would have already been absolete. Tests have been done by filming peoples reactions and using slow motion to expose these split second micro expressions. Do not be completely discouraged, you still have a great tool in your arsenal. Your mind will be able to pick up these visual/emotional cues subconsciously and bring them forth via a flash of intuition. Trust your gut for these situations.

4. Comfort test. This step is done before any accusations. You take the situation that you want to find truth about, and you present it to the liar in question as a story that happened to someone else. You say, “you know, my friend had this problem, the person she was dating lied to her about so and so situation and I think it’s a shame – I’m glad we don’t have such issues.”

This is where you pay attention, carefully. You watch for the body cues that I’ve mentioned and you listen to your intuition. Are they feeling uncomfortable about the topic? Are they over exagerrating in saying how awful that is? Are they exhibiting their normal nervous signals? Are they listening really quitely and not giving any feedback?

Use your best judgement, but do not jump to conclusions.

5. Accuse them. Before you go around accusing people, it is wise to have a good reason, or some evidence. Do not accuse someone by laying all your cards on the table and saying, so and so told me something. You save the goods for later.

The best way to accuse someone, after you had performed the comfort test, is directly. Look them in the eye and say something to the tone of:

1. Did you cheat on me?
2. Do you have something you want to come clean to me about?
3. I’m missing something, did you take it?

Watch the person here. Are they trying really hard to keep eye contact and are staring at you. Are they looking away too much? Anything that deviates from that persons “normal” behavior should be a red flag. This does require knowing the persons “normal” behavior.

There are obviously many situations that someone could be lieing about. Like I said, you should be careful in your approach to make sure you do not offend an innocent person and hurt your relationship with them.

On the other hand, if you know something, and you are just trying to get them to admit it, make sure you know what your intention is before you pursue this topic. Are you going to break up with your partner? Fire an employee? Discipline a child? Lose a friend? Consider if the topic is small enough that you could just let it go and not break ties, or if you are going to be teaching them a lesson. Consider, if your facts are really rock solid, to just break off ties without giving them closure.

A couple of references that I found useful.

• 5 Signs for Detecting a Liar by Tristan Loo
• How to Detect Lies by blifaloo.com