A 2002 study by psychologist Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts found that 60% of people lie during a 10-minute conversation.
Fortunately, lies are pretty easy to spot. As the Spanish saying goes, a liar is caught sooner than someone with a limp: you just need to know the signs that someone is lying to you.
Lillian Glass, a behaviour and body language analyst who has worked with the FBI on the signs that unmask deception, writes in her book The Body Language of Liars that when it comes to working out whether someone is lying, you first have to understand how that person normally behaves. Then you should pay special attention to their facial expressions, body language and speech patterns.
These are 10 signs that someone is lying to you, according to Lillian Glass.
See also: An FBI agent’s 4 life lessons that apply to business
1. Quickly changing head position
If you ask someone a direct question and they suddenly move their head quickly, they may be lying to you about something.
Glass writes that the head pulls back or tilts backwards, downwards or to one side. This often happens just before the person answers a question.
2. Changes in breathing
When someone is lying to you, they may start breathing heavily, Glass says. It’s a reflex.
When you lie, your breathing changes, your shoulders rise and your voice may sound shallow. You’re out of breath because of a change in your heart rate and blood flow. The body usually goes through these kinds of changes when you’re nervous and feel tense.
3. They often stand as still as statues
Almost everyone knows that when someone is very fidgety, it’s because they’re nervous. But Glass says that today’s liar stands out by trying not to move a single muscle, to the point of seeming cold.
As she explains, it’s perfectly normal to move your hands and even your feet when you talk, along with all sorts of unconscious movements. So if you see someone stiff as a board, in a posture with no movement at all, it’s usually a warning sign that something is wrong.
4. They repeat words or phrases
This happens because they’re trying to convince both you and themselves, Glass says: they’re trying to validate the lie in their own mind. For example, they may say “I didn’t… I didn’t…” over and over again.
Repetition is also a way for them to buy time to put their thoughts in order.
5. They cover vulnerable parts of the body
According to Glass, this is another natural instinct she has observed many times in courtrooms and interrogation rooms. The chest, neck and abdomen are critical areas for the liar, she says, and she adds that she always knows they have hit a nerve with a suspect when the person brings a hand to the front of their throat.
6. They touch or cover their mouth
Another very common natural instinct when we lie is to bring our hands up to our mouth. Our brain literally sends our hands to cut off communication, although this gesture is really more typical of someone who doesn’t want to answer a particular question, or in other words, doesn’t want to tell the truth about the matter at hand.
7. They move their feet a lot
For Glass, this is one of the keys to spotting a liar: just by looking at someone’s feet you can find out a lot.
Moving the feet a lot shows that the liar is uncomfortable and nervous. It also shows that they want to get out of the situation and move away.
8. They give you a lot of information
When you ask someone a simple question and they give you far too much information you didn’t ask for, with all kinds of details, there’s a high chance they’re lying to you. Liars think that if they give you every kind of detail, their story will seem more believable.
9. They find it hard to speak
Glass writes that if you’ve ever watched a videotaped interrogation of a guilty suspect, you’ll often notice that as the interrogation goes on, they find it harder and harder to speak. That’s because the nervous system automatically reduces the flow of saliva in moments of stress, which of course dries out the mucous membranes of the mouth.
Other signs to look out for include suddenly biting the lip or pursing the lips.
10. They barely blink
Everybody knows that liars don’t look you in the eye, so today’s liar doesn’t want to break eye contact, and usually makes an extra effort that leads to much less blinking than usual. If you don’t know the person well, the way they look at you, in an attempt at manipulation, is usually enough to tell you something is off and that they aren’t being sincere.
Glass says that Bernie Madoff, like most of history’s greatest con artists, used to overcompensate with his gaze, often blinking at regular intervals. When most people tell the truth, she notes, they move their eyes and look away from time to time, because they have nothing to hide.
Further reading
- 8 body language secrets of highly successful people
- 7 body language techniques that will help you in business
Featured image: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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