Scientists have decoded the 4 most common psychological patterns that liars do when telling a lie.
We used to look for physiological changes to determine when someone is lying. But what if we were looking in the wrong place all along?
There is something even the greatest liars cannot fool and that’s their consciousness. When a lie is being told there are psychological errors and holes that can alert if someone is telling a lie. Communication science has revealed 4 key things that liars do when telling a lie:
Follow these patterns and you’ll know when anyone is trying to fool you:
1. Liars reference themselves less when making deceptive statements. They use third person to distance and disassociate themselves from their life.
2. Liars tend to be more negative because, on a subconscious level, they feel guilty about lying.
3. Liars typically explain events in simple terms. Judgment and evaluation are complex things for our brains to compute and imagine.
4. Liars tend to use longer and more convoluted sentence structure, inserting unnecessary words and irrelevant but factual-sounding details in order to pad the lie.
Look out for these 4 elements: lack of self reference, negative talk, shallow description, unnecessary words.
Always ask personal questions when you suspect that someone is lying to you. Most people will be unable to get personal if they lie about a situation.
Ask them what that meant for them, what they wore, how they felt, what they ate, what were they thinking… and you’ll know when someone is trying to deceive you.
