by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, VI, 21.
Anyone who has read my work here or known me for any length of time has heard me use this quote before. It is more than just a pithy quote from one of the great Stoic minds of antiquity, it is a summation of one of my personal ethics. Earlier this week, Professor Turley posted an item about former President Bill Clinton entitled “Clinton: We Don’t Need A President Who Will Not Tell You The Truth“. The gist of the article was that a President who lied under oath as Clinton did most certainly didn’t need to be critical of other politicians lying as it was simple hypocrisy even if the point former President Clinton made was valid. This brings us to a prime and necessary component of the propaganda scenario, the liar. Lying is a commonality in our species. Everyone lies about something some time. “No, that dress doesn’t make you look fat, honey.” “I was ambushed by baboons on the way to work this morning.” “I can’t go out tonight because I have to stay home and wax my dog.” Or the classic . . .
These are not the lies that are of primary importance in propaganda. White lies, while not necessarily ethically the best thing in the world, are a social lubricant that helps keep society cohesive. If everyone told the truth about everything all the time, the homicide and suicide rates would probably sky-rocket. We are going to focus on the truly bad actors. The liars in propaganda who are looking to get you to do something they want that is usually not in your best interests and/or harmful to others. Since many dangerous liars are sociopaths or psychopaths, the question becomes how do you spot a liar, a sociopath or a psychopath? First we start with how to spot a generic liar before considering how to spot socio- and psychopaths at a later date.
We have discussed previously the language behind lies extensively in discussing the use of logical fallacies in speech to give untruths the veneer of truth. This is a great skill set for detecting lies in written materials and to a degree in the spoken word but the tool set is not all inclusive for dealing with the spoken. What about in person or through visual media where you can see the speaker? You need a different skill set to supplement the other so to that end, I bring you a TED presentation by Pamela Meyer. Some background on Mrs. Meyer:
Pamela Meyer is founder and CEO of Calibrate, a leading deception detection training company based in Washington DC. Before writing the bestselling book , Liespotting, she spent years with a team of researchers surveying all of the research findings on deception, and underwent extensive training in facial micro-expression identification, interrogation skills and statement analysis. Prior to that she was an Internet and media executive, as founder of Simpatico Networks, a leading social media company. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner, has an MBA from Harvard, a Masters in Public Policy.” (Huffington Post).
The talk she presented at TED only glanced off the topic of verbal lies, but what she offered on body language is very important as are many of the ancillary points she makes about the value of detecting lies in the search for the truth – a thread underlying the Propaganda Series (pardon the pun).
Meyer’s list of tells in this speech is probably not as comprehensive as what is offered in her book Liespotting. The following list is a bit more inclusive than that in the speech.
Verbal cues:
- Verbal cues such as changing to a noticeably higher or lower pitch, rambling, selective wording, avoidance of answering questions or attempting to change the subject, stammering, distancing language, loaded words, and the use of qualifiers (although much like Freud’s advice about cigars, sometimes a qualifier is just a qualifier). Studies have also shown that liars use less contractions.
- Unusual response time – shorter or longer. Planned (and rehearsed) lies and the liars who tell them tend to start their answers more quickly than truth-tellers. If taken by surprise, however, a liar takes longer to respond as on the fly fabrication takes time.
Physical cues:
- A fake smile. Real smiles crinkle the corners of the eyes and change the entire face while faked smiles involve the mouth only.
- Under or over production of saliva.
- Pupil dilation. This nonverbal signal is almost impossible to fake. Larger pupil size that most people experience when telling a lie can be attributed to an increased amount of tension and concentration although some drugs or medical conditions can cause pupil irregularity.
- Change in blink rate – A liar’s blink rate decreases before and during the lie and then it increases rapidly after the lie.
- Fidgeting foot movements. ‘Nuff said.
- Face touching. A person’s nose may not grow when he tells a lie, but watch closely and you’ll notice that when someone is about to lie or make an outrageous statement, he’ll often unconsciously rub his nose. (This is most likely because a rush of adrenaline opens the capillaries and makes his nose itch.) Mouth covering is another common gesture of people who are being untruthful, as is covering the eyes.
- Unusual changes in gestures – Either unusual stillness or an increase in placatory gestures.
- Microexpressions can be difficult to catch, but if you ever spot a fleeting expression that contradicts a verbal statement, believe what you see and not what you hear. Psychology Today has an excellent article on distinguishing microexpressions from other body language.
- The quick-check glance – the classic of liars immediately looking down and away and then back at you again in a brief glimpse to see if you bought the lie.
Blended cues:
- Incongruence not only in words but in gestures – Using logic and evidence as a guide you can spot both explicit and implicit incongruous statements. That is not the only kind of incongruous behavior though. When a speaker believes what they say, gestures and expressions are in alignment with her words, e.g. you nod up and down when you say “yes”. When gestures contradict words – such as a side-to-side head shake while saying “yes’, it’s a sign of deceit or at least an inner conflict between what that person is thinking and saying.
All of these skills, detection of false logics and loaded language, the art of reading body language and tone of voice, all of these skills have something in common. They are all a sort of pattern recognition. Just so when we later consider a more holistic application of pattern recognition in recognizing both sociopathic and psychopathic speakers. these are guidelines. People are people and one or two this these behaviors may be caused by different things such as medical conditions, medications and/or other stressors. For example, I once had to take a lie detector test and do an interview where I worked because a bunch of hard drives had been stolen. I didn’t take them. I wasn’t worried about that. I was, however, very tense because of an ongoing fight with my then girlfriend over something totally unrelated to work. The examiner told me at the end of the interview, “You’re obviously under some kind of stress, but I don’t think you’re our hard drive thief.” So keep in mind that unless you have a preponderance of pattern evidence, your suspected liar may not always be one. Another important thing to keep in mind is all of this pattern recognition goes right out the window when dealing with a pathological liar, but we’ll address that topic with socio- and psychopaths.
Armed with these skills, how many liars do you think you can spot in the next week? Either at work or in the news?
Remember the Stoic’s advice, seek the truth. That is always a key in combating propaganda. It also doesn’t harm the Aristotelian effort to lead an examined life and it is a civic duty to keep government honest and operating off of the real instead of the illusory.
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Source(s): TED, Huffington Post, Psychology Today
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The Propaganda Series;
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Sound of Silence
Propaganda 104: Magica Verba Est Scientia Et Ars Es
Propaganda 103: The Word Changes, The Word Remains The Same
Propaganda 102 Supplemental: Holly Would “Zero Dark Thirty”
Propaganda 102: Holly Would and the Power of Images
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Child’s Play
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Build It And They Will Come (Around)
Propaganda 101: What You Need to Know and Why or . . .
Related articles of interest;
Mythology and the New Feudalism by Mike Spindell
How about Some Government Propaganda for the People Paid for by the People Being Propagandized? by Elaine Magliaro
@Artie – That’s the American way. That’s while you’ll see someone blown up, before you see a set of ta-ta’s on TV – Geez, I can’t even say breasts, that’s how repressed I am…
BTW – Thanks for your service to all the Vets on this list, and to all of those who waited, or waited in vain, for theirs to return home. Amen.
OS,
Like any expensive new tech, the price will eventually come down, but because of nature of how the machine works (detecting changes in magnetization between oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood), it’s not a technology I see being easily deployed into the field any time soon because of noise issues. You can’t just lug one around and set it up most anywhere like you can the voice stress and polygraph machines. I also understand that both fMRI and PET machines rely on rare earth magnets that no matter what are likely to remain a cost issue for some time. Which leads to the next question, because of their general efficacy, can you see a situation where a court would order such a test despite the limitations of cost and access?
You are making sex worse than killing.That’s screwed up thinking. Why can’t you be like Jesus is judging yourself? Love whoever as yourself=f. Do that, and people will be better by beholding that in you. You make Hitler kind of Genocide better than sex. That is crazy thinking. You like Hitler You are friends with Hitler in your head.
Let me let you in on a little secret: I often ask OS questions I know the answer to because I want his particular input to play off of for Socratic purposes. Your cooperation on these matters is greatly appreciated. Thanks for not answering a question not directed at you though. At least you got a free lunch out of it.
Gene, I do not know of any studies using the fMRI. That does not mean there have been none, but if there have I have not heard of it. One of the problems with that, as well as the PET scan, is the machines are multimillion dollar gadgets and in use almost constantly for medical work. Any researcher would need some serious money just to book some time with one of those high end machines.
Wootsy, Based on what you said this book will make a lot of sense to you.
I’ve attended a couple seminars @ Stanford as part of their free program to introduce people to their STS[Science, Technology, Society] program. They offer a major in this but have ~4-6 seminars a year for anyone to attrend. I went to one that was about using MRI’s and other technologies to detect lies. The focus of the seminar was not so much the science, it was made clear it is quite effective, but the societal ramifications. The group attending were all over the map from some intelligence people, attorneys, security people, etc. The consensus was this is coming so we better create some guidelines, fast! This was ~4 years ago. You can get on the email list. They even have free lunches, @ least they did when I went.
OS,
Since the topic of machinery has come up, have you seen any studies on psychopaths using fMRI testing? I knew they can defeat classic stress tests, but the fMRI is a totally different creature.
Also, fear is a great impetus for projection…..
nick spinelli
1, November 11, 2012 at 7:16 pm
I have said to many parents when I was a teacher and just folks I know that a must read for teenage girls about to go out on their own is, The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.
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this sounds like a necessary read….I have always ‘respected’ my fear….it has never failed me in discerning the situation around me……getting out of those situations is a different story…..I don’t buy into all the facial tics and body language stuff….I suspect it is only half true and in that light may give some info, but every person is unique and one mans unconscious lying itch is anothers socially ackward shyness and spotlight discomfort. How could you tell the difference? For a lie to be criminal mustn’t it also be conscious????
Back a long time ago, when I was first learning the business of lie detection, the first thing I learned was that psychopaths can lie and beat almost any machine. That is because they tend to have no anticipatory anxiety. What a “lie detector” machine does, is to measure stress, a term psychology has borrowed from physics. Both the polygraph and voice stress analysis devices measure stress and do it rather well. The problem comes when it comes to translating measured stress into something meaningful. Remember, the machines are measuring stress, not lies.
Another thing I learned early on, was that almost any question about sex will trigger a stress reaction in western culture.
I ran Richard Nixon’s speech where he declared he was “not a crook” through a voice stress analysis machine. Those three words put the needle into full stress mode. On the other hand, you should see the stress levels in a Naval aviator’s radio transmissions while making a carrier night landing. That exceeds the stress level of any “lie” I have ever seen. On the other hand, a professional con artist will beat the machine almost every time.
The devil smiles when people even want to kill. Jesus cries when a person kills or hates. Who do we want to put a smile on the face of, the devil or Jesus?
lies with hate being unfriendly are abominable. Asking if a person had sex or not drilling them to get them to say no when they did is the kind of thing people did to Jesus.like who spit on you, prophesy. If he got it wrong they would have said he lied. People have sex. let it be. The people being unfriendly being abominable are the people against Clinton.
OS, You’re correct, it’s more craft than science. And like any craft, the more you do it the better you get. Smart attorneys are good @ detecting liars, as are good docs, salespeople bartenders, waiters, etc. My ability to read people has literally saved my life.
I have said to many parents when I was a teacher and just folks I know that a must read for teenage girls about to go out on their own is, The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Blouise, de Becker speaks much about gut and how it saves lives. Malcolm Galdwell in Blink does also, but de Becker’s focus is on keeping people, particularly women, safe.
Blouise,
I’ll take that as a recommend on my to read list.
OS,
A very valid and valuable point. I seem to recall this cross-cultural difference became an issue at checkpoints in Iraq as holding out an open palm face out is a Western gesture for stop, but in the Arabic and Persian world it meant come forward.
http://gunrunnerhell.tumblr.com/post/33150500017
Gene,
I’ve read Liespotting several times and have found it very helpful but some of the methods aren’t all that easy to employ in a casual setting.
However, I think my subconscious has absorbed more during each reading and thus I have come to more readily trust my “gut” reaction to liars. Also, I am less inclined to be involved in the co-operative act and thus am lied to less frequently.
Dr. Ray Birdwhistell made the study of non-verbal communication his life work. He called what he did the study of “kinesics.” He was an anthropologist who became interested in communication and how people communicate. When discussing body language, Birdwhistell cautioned that there are no “universal” gestures. How a gesture or movement is conducted may have different meanings in different cultures. This compounds the problem of the interrogator. In fact, gestures may have different meanings in different parts of this country. Also, even in the same part of the country, a gesture might have one meaning from one ethnic group to another.
And while Tony was worrying about a pen, i was backing up the truck…
Kelly was Sapir’s sidekick when I took Productive Interrogation Course at Ft. Meade in ’86, courtesy of the Mossad. Sapir’s favorite saying at the time was something about relying on the fundamental principle of working off a person’s guilt; and if he couldn’t make you feel guilty, he’d call his grandmother to have a chat with you.