Do These 5 Things To Get The Truth Out Of Liars

Aldert Vrij, a psychology professor and leading expert on lie detection, says body language cues are rarely predictive.

HIG’s review of the research found that “gaze aversion has never been shown to be a reliable indicator.” They look people in the eyes more often than truth tellers.

Start off with expected questions. This is non-intimidating and gives you info — but more importantly, it gets you a baseline. Then, throw them a question that’s easy for a truth teller to answer but that a liar would not be ready for.

For example, ask an underage-looking person at a bar how old they are and you’ll hear a confident “I’m 21.” But what if you asked them, “What’s your date of birth?” That’s an exceedingly easy question for someone telling the truth, but a liar will likely have to pause to do some math. Gotcha

You did your homework in advance, right? Good. Build rapport. Get them talking. Lead them to say something that contradicts the info you dug up.

You want to incrementally reveal evidence. Repeated contradictions may get them to simply confess out of embarrassment. More likely it will make their lying increasingly obvious.

If you immediately start questioning what they say or accuse them of lying, not only might they shut down, but they also might start altering their story.

Why would you want to help them tell a better lie? The goal is to make them want to put it all out there and paint themselves into a corner.