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If there is one thing that we here at SoYouWanna.com know about,
it is spotting liars. Two of our writers worked for the CIA from
1994 to 1997 and a third won a National Book Award for Nonfiction
for her 1998 book The Art of Deception: How To Spot A Liar. A
fourth writer, a part-time professor in nonverbal communication
at Stanford University, recently received an Emeritus Award for
outstanding undergraduate instruction.
By the way, everything in the above paragraph is a lie. Now, you
may have caught us early on, because you know that our cleverly
written articles usually start off with a bit of humor or irony.
But the above paragraph serves more than an entertainment function;
it is instructive because it utilizes some techniques that are
essential to the art of persuasive lying. Learn these techniques
and you will be able to deceive with the best of them.
Before
we divulge any secrets, however, we must play Yoda to your young
Jedi: please use the knowledge we impart to you for the purposes
of good and not evil. Our techniques are not meant to be used
when you are on the witness stand nor should they be used to steal
from or hurt others. Rather, our methods should be applied defensively:
for example, you know that someone is lying to you (e.g., a mechanic
says that he's charging you a fair price), and lying back to him
is the only way to set the record straight. That said: read on,
and learn to lie like the dirty dog you are.
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Avoid
lying to people who know your "baseline behavior"
Many
years of research have proven one thing: it's incredibly difficult
to know if someone is lying unless you have prior exposure to
his or her baseline behavior. What is a baseline? It's the back
of the box on a tennis court. What is baseline behavior? It is
how you act when you're not lying. You know, the way you normally
act, the way you talk and behave when you're having a casual conversation
in which no attempt at deception is taking place.
The
greater the number of interactions that the target of the lie
(we'll use a "he" in this example) has had with
you, the more familiar he will be with your baseline behavior.
Because he knows how you usually act, he'll press you on
the veracity of your statements, and be more likely ultimately
to figure out that you lied. This is why the old maxim: "a
liar never looks you straight in the eye" is bull. If the
person doesn't usually look people in the eye as part of his normal
non-lying behavior, he very may well look you in the eye when
he IS lying. (This would be a change from his baseline behavior.)
Lots of other little clues that all of the fogies down at Shady
Pines have provided (e.g., liars talk fast, their eyes dart around,
or clear their throats a lot) are also pretty much useless for
this reason; if the old folks really knew how to spot a liar,
they wouldn't get ripped off in those crazy phone scams all
the time. It doesn't matter what someone does when (s)he lies,
it only matters if such behavior is different from how she or
he normally acts.
It's
easier to lie to people you don't care about
There
is another important justification for having as little contact
with the target as possible: it is easier to lie to people about
whom you don't give a damn. To understand why, consider this:
many studies have shown that it's relatively easy to lie to someone
over the phone because the sense of personal connection is very
small. You can't see them; they can't see you. As a
result, you are less likely to feel guilty and, therefore, give
visual clues that you may be deviating from your baseline behavior.
If you were closer to the person physically, you would have a
greater personal connection. Consequently, you would be more likely
to "leak" (reveal in some way that you are engaging
in deceptive behavior).
The
same reasoning applies to being close to a person psychologically.
Think about it. If you try to lie to your girlfriend or boyfriend,
there are numerous psychological pressures (you'll think about
what happens if you get caught, feel guilty about lying to someone
you care about, etc.), and it will be more difficult to focus
on mimicking your baseline behavior. Trust us; you'll probably
leak all over the place (in all senses of the word). This phenomenon
is often called "liar's remorse," and it's
usually what people are talking about when they say a liar "wanted
to get caught."
So
how does knowing this aid your ability to lie well? The answer
is this: if you're going to lie, try to lie to someone who doesn't
know you very well. They will be less familiar with your baseline
behavior, and you will be less like to care about them. In the
event that you need to lie to a close friend, family member, or
other loved one, try this trick: lie to someone who doesn't know
you as well, and have them pass the message along. If that's
not possible, you must truly master everything we tell you from
here on in.
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Go
on to Step 2: PRACTICE
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