Best Ways to Detect a Liar

A good way to spot a liar is to evaluate their overall demeanor and determine if it is an affectation designed to cover the lie. You may spot excesses in behavior that will point to a carefully posed attitude. Look for overdone, insincere or forced friendliness (too gregarious) , coldness (too emotionally distant), or calmness (excessively deadpan). Evaluate whether the person is acting overly confident or if they are being too vague with roundabout, misleading answers.

Look for a preponderance of the following verbal signals: hesitations or repeating the question to gain time to think; false starts or ums and ers; answers that are either too short or way too long and detailed; and speaking with a higher vocal pitch or much softer than usual. Liars are busy thinking about their lie and the truth at once while speaking and tend to mispronounce words, slip up and use a wrong word or trip over their tongues.

Examine body language for further signals. Shrugging the hands, palms up, indicates uncertainty and frequent blinking indicates the higher mental activity associated with lying. Dilated pupils, which indicate arousal, may also indicate lying due to the liar’s higher level of interest during a deceptive conversation or that they are enjoying their deception. Touching one’s own hands, nose, mouth or eyes may indicate a liar’s anxiety, as these gestures are for self-encouragement.

Most of all, look for inconsistencies like a smiling mouth with angry eyes, calm facial features betrayed by a jittery foot, or giving an agreeable answer while shaking the head no. Learn to spot split-second facial expressions that may pop out unconsciously and are immediately replaced by the liar’s desired look. A liar makes changes in the story because a lie is hard to remember and will spend all day defending it, rather then getting angry with not being believed. Knowing how a person behaves normally will also help to spot changes in their behavior when they lie.