Better Not to Know:

Lie Detection and

its Effect on
Relationships

CX
Junior Seminar
Fall 2012

1
 Better Not to Know: Lie detection and its effect on
relationships
To your boss: “Good morning, boss- you talentless slob.”
Man to a female customer:” Thanks for your business, Susan, and may I
say what wonderful firm breasts you have.”
Woman to a male neighbor:” Thanks for helping me with my groceries.
You’ve got a nice tight butt, but who the hell cuts your hair?”
To your mother-in-law: “It’s nice to see you again-you interfering,
negative old bat” (Barbara 142).

These are examples of what people may think when they are talking to others.

Usually we choose to lie rather than say exactly what we think or feel to each other.

Lying is normal. It happens everyday. One study suggests that during ten-minute

conversations with people we’ve never met before, 60 percent of us will lie at least once

(Reiman 244). The University of Massachusetts found out that speakers would average

two to three lies every ten minutes (Barbara 143). Research pointed out that 92 percent

of high school students admitted to lying at least once in the past year, and one-third

stated they would lie to obtain a good job (Orr 1). From this evidence, it is not surprising

that we all have lied before, whatever reasons we have.

Although lying is a common and natural part of human life, it does cause trouble

in our relationships and society. For this reason, the field of lying detection was created

by psychologists and used by experts to solve crimes. You can always tell when people

are lying to you (through body language, etc.) Many would say that you should use these

techniques because it’s powerful to know when people are lying. But, in fact, it’s better

for you and your relationships in the long run if you don’t use these tricks to know when

2
others are lying to you. For example, if you have a roommate who is going to live with

you for a year, it’s better for you to avoid detecting lies from her because it will make

you unhappy living with her.

So what exactly is lying? Orr Tamara, the author of the article "What is your truth

quotient?” mentioned, “If you are trying to do something you know you are not supposed

to do, you may well find yourself lying”. Have you ever told your teacher you forgot the

homework to get excused from not doing homework? Have you ever hid the score you

earned at school from your parents and told them you lost it? Have you ever told a friend

you were sick instead of hanging out with him? All these are types of lies.

Can you imagine that basically people start to lie from 2-4 years old? Children

start to lie because they can. “They reach a point developmentally where they realize that

they can say something that is not true” (Fink 2). Another reason why children lie is to

keep their parents happy. The kid, who tells you he didn’t break the vase, even in the

presence of a broken vase, is literally telling you what you want to hear (Fink 2). He

knows you would be upset about the vase, so he lies to make you happy. In Marjorie

Sharmat’s book for children titled The Big Fat Enormous Lie, a boy tells a lie. It then

grows up and becomes a character. After that, the boy repeats the lie again and again; the

character soon becomes much bigger than the boy. The only solution for him was to be

honest. The boy starts to tell the truth and the lie becomes smaller and smaller, and finally

it disappears. This book shows us the negative effect of lying and how important it is to

be honest.

People lie because of various reasons, both negative and positive reasons. A

negative reason is to cover up a fact that they don’t want to face or even to hurt someone

3
else. For example, If you lie on a test, you are trying to cover up the fact that you think

you have not enough abilities on your subject. The fact is, if you lie once, you will have

to continue lying all the time. In addition, once you have lied, it might become a habit.

Also, a lie usually ends up hurting the person who told it more than anyone else. If you

lie on a test, the teacher may be upset, but it is your grade that is injured. If you lie to a

friend or your family, your relationship with them is damaged, and the trust they had in

you disappears and is extremely difficult to get back again. (Orr 2)

Another common reason why people lie is to make themselves look better. For

instance, an experiment involved reading a scenario to a subject, telling them they had

paid more than a coworker for the same new car. When the coworker, in the scenario,

mentioned what they had paid, from $200 to $2,000 more in different versions of the

experiment, the subject was asked to report how they would respond. In the results, the

subjects were more willing to lie when the price difference was small and when they

were talking to a coworker rather than to a stranger. This points out that people want to

look good when they are in the company of people they know. (Robin 1)

In the contrast, people also lie for positive reasons, such as telling white lies.

Suppose your best friend is trying on a pair of pants that are less than flattering. You

know she is going to wear them for an important occasion, so what do you say when she

asks you how they look? There are altogether three choices; the first one is “Ugh! Take

them off now. They make you look terrible”! The second one is “I really liked those blue

ones you had on before. They looked great”. The third one is “Yeah, those pants look

great”. Can you answer without lying? If you reply honestly, you will totally hurt them.

At that time you choose to lie to them. (Orr 3)

4
 A lie usually ends up hurting the person who told it more than anyone else. If you

lie on a test, the teacher may be upset, but it is your grade that is injured. If you lie to a

friend or your family, your relationship with them is damaged, and the trust they had in

you disappears and is extremely difficult to get back again. (Orr 2) Because there are all

kinds of lies are told by people, some of them will hurt people’s relationship, property

even life. It is necessary to use a method to reveal lies.

How to tell if people are lying

Nowadays, there’s an increasing amount of new psychological and scientific

research about lying detection. Normally, people use this knowledge to detect criminals’

lies. In the past, the technology used was a lie detector machine. It used people’s

heartbeat to distinguish between lying and telling the truth. Nowadays, new discoveries

are being invented. From Lie to Me, a TV series about revealing lies from crimes,

introduces a lie detector from West Africa is a special egg. The suspects are asked to hold

the eggs. The egg will break if the person is lying. (Lie to Me 1) Dr. Paul Ekmon is a

psychologist who made a facial machine which is a devise that use people’s facial

expression to tell if they are lying. Another technology is eye movement machines

developed by the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors. The eye movement machine

detect if a person is being untruthful. Compared to the heart rate machine has a 65

percent success in lie detection, the eye movement machine has a successful rate at 82.5

percent. It is used to observe people’s eye movement’s direction like left and right.

However, not only guilt will cause the lie detector to work. As people express anger, fear,

excitement or craziness, their heart rate rises so that the machine cannot detect their lies

5
any more. Consequently, researchers in this field have started to develop methods used

by humans rather than machines because these methods are more accurate. There are 43

muscles in the human face which means a possibility of 10000 emotions. If you learn

them all, you no longer need lie detector device. (Lie to Me)

To reveal lying, we first observe people’s body language and facial expression. In

general, facial expressions reveal more than body language. Here are some common signs

of deceit offered by Tonya Reimnan, an American author, hypnotist and motivational

speaker. “Less eye contact or more eye contact; fewer body movements or more body

movements; sometimes more self-touching; sweating; hands to mouth, covering it or

wiping/rubbing it; fingernail biting; fake cough; nose rub; eye rubbing or pretending

something is in the eye; chewing of the inside of the mouth (Reiman 245). David

Matsumoto, an author and psychologist who is an expert of facial expressions, behavior

and micro expressions, adds that liars will often nod their heads up and down while

saying yes (Matsumoto 4). When people step backwards, it means they don’t believe

what they are saying. From these basic body clues, it is easier for anyone to detect lies.

Here is an example of children’s use of body language when lying. “If a children

tells a lie, he will often use hand-to-face cover his mouth with one or both hands in an

attempt to stop the deceitful words from coming out. If he doesn’t want to listen to a

reprimanding parent, he simply covers his ears with his hands to block out the noise.

When he sees something he doesn’t want to look at, he covers his eyes with his hands or

arms” (Barbara 145). Mouth, eyes and ears are three basic movements that people choose

to cover when they don’t want to talk, look or hear. As a result, this will help us to know

people better when we are in conversations.

6
 For people who learn about to detect lies specifically, they learn micro

expressions. Micro expressions are facial expression that lasts a fraction of a second. If

you have ever been accurately accused of cheating on a test, you may have given a micro

expression signaling your guilt or true emotions. Since micro expressions do not last

long, they go undetected in our every day lives. (Glossary 1)

Micro expressions are very specific and detailed. It has been proved that people’s

expressions often last no more than a fifth of a second (Lie to Me). Sometimes you

cannot catch people’s expressions because they pass really quickly. For example, “we

filmed a man discussing how well he got on with his mother-in-law. Each time he

mentioned her name the left side of his face rose in a momentary sneer that lasted only a

split second but told us volumes about how he really felt” (Barbara 146). Unless you are

trained in reading micro expressions, you probably would never notice these brief facial

movements.

So if you want to learn more, it’s better to train yourself to observe lies quickly.

Here are some suggestions from Dr. Paul Ekman. People can get trained about micro

expression from education videos, books, TV series such as Lie to Me, behavior

psychology classes, etc. When you start to learn about micro expressions, you will find a

different world. To begin, you could choose a body language book, which covers all the

basic information. Practicing observing plays a important role in learning body language.

Go to a place that has many people such as a coffee shop, subway etc. Observe people at

least once a week. To avoid be caught starring at someone, get a pair of dark sunglasses.

According to experts of lying, although people think liars often smile when they

7
are lying, the fact is they smile less (Lie to Me). Psychology professors normally pay

more attention to people’s facial movements especially eyes, nose, mouth, lip and

eyebrows. From watching Lie to Me, I learned that when people are thinking about the

future when their eyes shift to the right, which means they are telling a lie. They are

thinking about the past when their eyes shift to left. For example, “A suspect displaying

shifty eyes and gaze aversion and looking up and to the left when answering

uncomfortable questions is exhibiting sign of lying” (Matsumoto 1). Nobody can hide his

or her body language. They can lie to you, but the truth is shown in their small

movements, even though they aren’t aware of it.

Furthermore, there are also language clues for lying. For example, we detected the

lie by asking people the same question more than once. If the person answers differently

the second time, that may mean they are lying. Also a liar may respond to a question

with an answer that doesn’t match the question at all. This may show his nervousness or

desire to avoid a certain topic (Lie to Me). For example, common signals for deceit are

“more pauses in conversation, more speech errors, fewer specific details, more “allness”

terms-all, always, everyone, none, nobody, higher- pitched voice and shorter verbal

responses” (Reiman 245).

Here is a tip from Dr. Paul Ekman to reveal lying from language. It is tense

discrepancies, which means noticing if people are speaking in the appropriate tense such

as speaking in the future, or past, or present. For example, a parent who has killed her

own child and claimed the child has disappeared or has been abducted might say, “He

was such a fun-loving boy.” If she were still hopeful for his return, she would said, “He is

such a fun-loving boy”. Advanced detection of lies in relationships has pros and cons. It

8
is not easy to be human lie detectors, but if you already know how to detect lies, there are

some advantages.

How lie detection affects relationships

When we consider the connection between lying and relationships, we will notice

some general effects of lies on a relationship, namely, loss of trust, end of relationship,

pain, embarrassment, are further lies.

To begin with, from learning how to detect lies, we will know people better from

observing them. Also, we are able to detect lies more quickly and accurately. It is hard to

believe that someone can know exactly what you are thinking, but it is the truth. From

observing people’s body language, you can tell who actually is lying to you. It is

beneficial for all kinds of relationships and with people you may not know well. Here are

some examples. We all like to be told the truth; the truth lets us know whom we can trust.

However, you will not always hear the truth. Therefore, you can detect lies from body

language.

Having the ability to detect a lie will definitely work to your advantage when you

are dealing with your all kinds of relationships. You can finally figure out whom you can

trust. For example, when shopping, you will be able to know if the salesperson is lying

about the product. When you are talking to your boss, from observing his body language,

you can know what he is actually thinking about. Is he satisfied with your work? After

you know this information, it may be easier to perform well at your job. (Lie To Me)

Using your lying detection skills, you will know people are lying, but you

probably will not tell them you know it. In another words, having this special knowledge

9
will have some benefit, but it will also have a negative effect on you. According to Dr.

Paul Ekman,

“Many people simply want to believe what they are being told, even if
they really know better. Who wants to find out that your spouse is being
unfaithful with your best friend? Or that your kids are using hard drugs?
You should want to, but it’s terrible when you discover it. And if you
knew this, you’d have to do something about it; most of us are pretty
avoidant”( Siri 2).

In other words, it will hurt you. It is a burden to have this knowledge. It may feel

like pressure. You may feel alone. Also, It will harm your relationship if you confront

someone who is lying.

We have some difficulty in calling someone a liar. In Lie to Me, there are several

lying detection experts. Most people envy the experts’ distinctive skill because they know

who is lying to them. However, it makes their relationship more complicated. Despite the

fact that they know how to detect lies, they cannot hide their lies from their own faces.

The truth is shown in their body language. So when these people are working together,

they know when their co-workers are lying to them. The fact is normally people lie every

day. But for them, maybe it is painful. From your observing, everyone surrounding them

lies to them each day and they will never tell them that they already know their lies. If

you know your friends are lying to you, you cannot just say to them, “I know the truth,

you are a liar!” This will totally hurt your relationship. So the only thing they can do is

either say nothing or accuse the person of lying.

Be sure you really want to learn lying detection skills, because once you learn

them you cannot unlearn them, says Dr. Paul Ekman. He also has several warnings.

Firstly, try not to read people and especially do not tell them what you see from their

body language. People will hate it and they will think you are creepy. Secondly, when

10
you figure out everything more clearly around you, then you might be very sensitive. It is

not good for your or your relationships.

Xia Ying, a policewomen who knows how to detect lies, talks about her own

relationship. She doesn’t like to lie especially people who lied to her. People around her

never lied to her. When they were lying to her, the pose she did normally made people

think she found out their lies. After ten years’ experience of detecting lies, her friends and

co-workers said she is very sensitive and distrustful of others. Once her husband came

home late, and she asked him several questions to detect his lies. After that, they often

argued with each other, and finally they divorced. Besides marriage, her relationship with

her friends is also tough. According to her observations, she found she is not welcomed

by her friends and co-workers. Once her friend suggested she to read some books about

women’s relationship in order not to confuse work with her own life. After that, she tried

to improve herself by reading books and getting rid of her bad habits. Later, all her

friends think she is a easy going person.

As shown in the examples, it isn’t always helpful to be aware of the lies which

people tell. For example, in public places, you may overhear strangers’ conversations.

Although you are not interested in their conversation, you will know who is lying from

observing them. Then what are you going to do? Tell the liar he is lying or keep it a

secret? Both of them are hard. Although we don’t want to be sensitive all the time, our

mind is always on duty and will continue to catch all the signals around us.

Dr. Paul Ekman spends a great deal of time training others in lying detection

skills, but even he believes that it can be harmful in a personal relationship. His advice

for people who have received the lying detection training is to consider the feeling of

11
others. When he knows others are lying, he asks himself how the other person would feel

if he found out that he had been lied to. If the person would feel betrayed or taken

advantage of, then revealing the lie would be damaging. (Siri 3)

Considering the potential negative effects, I don’t encourage people to learn to

detect lies unless you have the strength to handle the consequences, which might include

loosing your friendships. Also, people will think you are weird and being painfully

sensitive. Although this topic is fascinating, I don’t recommend learning about it any

further. The more you learn, the more difficulties you will encounter.

In a word, learning lie detection skills is not a wise choice for the general public.

It is intriguing for the police and military field; however, it’s not appropriate for personal

use.

12
 Works Cited

Barbara, Pease. Body Language. 1. Bantam, 2006. P1-400. Print. Reiman, Tonya. The

Power of Body Language. Dec. 2012.

Fink, Jennifer L.W. "I Didn't Do It!." Scholastic Parent & Child. 2011: P1-3. Web. 11

Gallery Books, 2008. P1-352. Print.

Glossary, Psychology. "Microexpressions." (2012): P1. Print.

<http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=microexpressions>.

"Lie detector Xia Ying: The hardest thing in the world is to lie to me 测谎专家夏莹：我

是世界上最难骗的女人." 妇女生活杂志社. 11 2012: P1-272. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

<http://www.psycofe.com/read/readDetail_28172_1.htm>.

Matsumoto, David. "Evaluating Truthfulness and Detecting Deception." FBI Law

Enforcement Bulletin. 2011: P1-8. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

Miller, Mark J. "The Pinocchio Syndrome." Counseling & Values. n.d. P1-7. Web. 11

Dec. 2012.

Orr, Tamra. "What is Your Truth Quotient?." Current Health 2. 2004: P1-3. Web. 11

Dec. 2012.

13
Perf. Roth, Tim. Lie To Me. 21 2009. Television.

Philip, Houston. Spy The Lie. 1. St. Martin's Press, 2012. P1-272. Print.

Robin, Lloya. "Why We Lie." (2006): P1. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

<http://www.livescience.com/772-lie.html>.

Schubert, Siri. "A Look Tells All." Scientific American Mind. 2006: P1-6. Web. 11 Dec.

2012.

14