I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been in a situation where we felt like someone might be lying to us. It’s in those frustrating moments that we desperately wish we knew what to look for in order to figure out whether they are telling the truth or not. If you know what type of behavior to look for and of course consistently devote enough time towards learning this skill, you’ll be able to detect deceit in an instant and become your own lie detector. Before I get into the specifics, it’s important for you to know that you should never decide that someone is lying or trying to con you based on one signal alone. Before you reach a conclusion, make sure you’ve done a thorough job of collecting evidence that leads one way or the other, using a cluster of cues rather than just one. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets get to the fun part!
One gesture you might be aware of that is often used when lying is touching the nose. Often times when someone is telling a fib or fabricating the truth, they’ll touch their nose far more frequently than they usually do. However, the interesting part about this is the reason that lies behind this phenomena. When people lie, often times their nose will actually swell. Now before you start staring at other peoples nose when you suspect lying, you should note that it’s too discrete to notice with the naked eye. However, when this happens it creates a tingling sensation or a slight itch that leads to their frequent nose touching.
Another revealing tell to keep your eye out for is hands around the mouth and eyes. This is the same type of behavior seen in children, just in a more subtle fashion. When a child says something they know they’re not supposed to say, they cup their hand over their mouth as if to prevent the words that have already been said from leaving their mouth. Adults do the same thing, it’s just not as obvious. When adults lie, it’s not uncommon to see them take a position in which their hand is covering up their mouth or part of it. People do this subconsciously for the same reason they did when they were kids, but due to the increased subtlety of their behavior it can easily be missed by the untrained eye.
Hands to the eyes have a similar meaning as hands to the mouth. This gesture is also a more subtle version of the rather obvious hands completely covering the eyes that children do when they don’t want to see something. In this situation, the liar doesn’t want to look at the person that they’re lying to, which leads to eye rubbing/itching. Again this behavior is carried out subconsciously by the liar, but means the same thing it meant when they were young. Sometimes the liar will simply look away more than usual when they’re lying to avoid looking at the other person.
To increase your accuracy, observe the behavior of those you tend to interact with on a daily basis, and take note of how they usually behave. Whenever you’ve established a norm for someone, it will be much easier to tell when they’re not being honest with you or if something is bothering them. Some people have little idiosyncrasies that could be misinterpreted as a lying gesture if no norm has been established. Knowing what someones “usual” behavior is like, becomes extremely useful when you want to really make sure someone is being honest, and combined with other universal tells like the ones previously mentioned, can turn your mind into a human lie detector.