How to tell when someone is lying

People lie all the time, but, when it comes to identifying liars, most of what you’ve been told about eye contact and body language is wrong. European airport security officials have found that when it comes to identifying liars, normal conversation is a much more effective way to pinpoint one.
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Ask 100 people, and at least 80 of them would say they’re adept at spotting someone who’s deceitful. After all, we know the tell-tale signs: A lack of eye-contact (or too much eye-contact), giggling, fidgeting, blushing and a closed-off posture. That’s a pretty easy checklist, and it would probably be a useful one if it weren’t for the small detail that it’s utterly, completely wrong. Instead, as airport security officials across Europe have found, you have a much higher chance of identifying a liar simply by having a conversation with them.
The problem with our traditional understanding of deceit is that it doesn’t account for how weird and awkward real human beings can be. You might be able to tell when a mate is lying about drinking the last beer – but that’s because you know him, and you know his mannerisms. But when it comes to strangers, most people would be better off flipping a coin to determine deceit rather than actively looking for clues.
In fact, as airport security official Thomas Ormerod found, using traditional techniques leaves the door wide open for cultural bias – not an option when you’re tasked with keeping travellers safe.

Read also: How to communicate so your child will listen

Instead, Ormerod and his team have found that simple conversation is the best way to trip someone up. Instead of using yes/no questions and looking for physical clues, security officers should ask open-ended questions. That requires a fibber to invent more details for their story, making it harder to keep it straight. Surprise questions are also effective – when you ask someone to discuss something they hadn’t considered, it’s difficult to invent new lies on the fly. Gauging someone’s confidence is also useful – most liars are confident and verbose when they can stick to their rehearsed story, but become noticeably less-so when forced to go off-script.
Overall, security officers trained in these conversational interviewing techniques were able to correctly identify planted liars about 70% of the time. That sounds less than ideal, but it’s actually 20 times more often than average.
Other, smaller studies of similar techniques with investigators found even more success – in one instance, an agent was able to correctly identify 100% of the liars in the study.
Of course, most of us don’t make a point to expose our friends and family members as liars. But that time you had to confront your girlfriend about the night she didn’t come home till 5am or ask your roommate why that £10 isn’t on your desk anymore? Keep them talking, and you’ll get to the truth quicker than if you’d asked just the basics.
– Askmen.com

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