How To Spot A Liar: It's All In The Voice

One of the biggest myths about body language is the belief that eye contact, or lack of it, exposes a liar, says Michael Wheeler, a professor at Harvard Business School and an expert on negotiation tactics.

Even when presented with psychological evidence to the contrary, many of us still suspect that liars out themselves by averting their eyes. Says Wheeler, "It's very hard to surrender the belief that eye contact is a test of character."

Far more reliable than eye contact is tone of voice. With the exception of sociopaths, who are expert liars, most people sound tense, their voices highly pitched, when they fib.

However, don't confuse voice tone with verbal fumbling. People who are telling the truth tend to stumble over their words and have more imperfections in their speech. That comes from spontaneity, not nervous deceit. Studies show that liars tell less compelling accounts with fewer gestures than those who are telling the truth.

Comments

[Topfeeder]

Liars say "my friends" reflexively.

[Jonahson]

How to spot a liar? He would look and sound like Bush.

[naschkatze]

Oh I don't know, John McCain seems to be a good model too.

[loki]

Lets see how many methods are there now.... body language, the way someone holds themself or moves parts of their body, hands, feet, head, ect.... the way they position their eyes when lying. I think it goes when someone looks up and to the left, they are usually lying. vibrations in and pitch of the voice. and on and on. One day they will find out that we are being lied to about how to tell if someone is lying.
And considering this is coming from the king of the Ivy Greed education institutions. The place that teaches lying to help you get what your greedy heart desires, I find it very unbelievable. Harvard is a failed school that teaches greed and selfishness. They only help other Harvard types, and more harvard ivy greed graduates have caused the majority of the problems we now have in America and the world. From corporations to wall street, to congress and even the white house, its mostly harvard ivy greed education that is driving us into the toilet. The sooner people realize Haravard and others like it are a great part of the problem , that better off we will be. Start electing and placing state uni, or even community college grads in power positions , lessen the greed driven factor, and you might be amazed at the turn around you will see.

[recruitgal]

My job involves spotting people who are lying. I'd never use eye contact as a basis for assessing that, but I would use it to assess their levels of confidence and engagement.

[nickelking]

I remember learning long ago while studying acting that speakers look at the other person about 35% of the time and listeners 90%. Eye contact should be an indicator, if they're staring you down they're lying.

[dadw5boys]

YOU DON'T HAVE A TEENAGER I SEE.

[Eric8869]

Have your teenager show you how to turn the caps lock off

[LiberalBuzz]

HAH, that is just as an average, got news for you, I've seen the best liars and they are all currently in D.C. Got that eye thing and way of speaking down to a science.

I learned how to avoid the dangers of being caught when I had to lie and have YET to have anyone figure it out. It is more than anything sincerity and taking advantage of the belief by everyone that we WANT to believe the person we are talking to is telling us the truth.

I don't lie for evil reasons but for what I call "social engineering". Lying to people who then WANT to help you for whatever reason you want them too. Kevin Mitnick (look him up) perfected this method.

I'd give you a great couple of for instances, but this danged word limit just sucks sometimes.

But it works.

[pc51]

Obama... is that you?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

LOL

[Eric8869]

No it's Karl Rove

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

There's also the direction the person looks after you've posed a question......not foolproof, but at least interesting:

Looking up and to the left: typically means the person is fabricating the answer (left brain activity).

Looking up and to the right: typically means the person is actually remembering something and accessing via right brain activity.

Also, liars are more apt not to use contractions. "I did not do that" vs. "I didn't do that"......

[GOP4MoreTears]

Well that clear it up for me, I was wondering why I felt uncomfortable when Senator John McCourage was looking me straight in the eye and stumbling over his words.

I now have my answer, he's not the straight talk express after all.

[SneathLane]

Great article - much more fact-based than most discussions of non-verbal communication.

For people you know, though - it's best to pay attention to their specific ways of speaking and acting when you know from other sources whether they're being honest or lying, and remember how they sounded and acted in that situation.

People will follow the same pattern - but their personal pattern may not be the same as other people's. So if they always shuffle their feet when they lie, but don't shuffle their feet at any other time - hey, watch out for those shuffles.

And unless it's completely unambiguous, whatever you THINK their non-verbal stuff is saying - verify it some other way too before you act on it. Just to be safe.