PART I: POWERING UP YOUR BS BAROMETER

The Truth About Lying

Now on the flip side for those without power what motivates them to lie? Simple. What they have to lose. Lying, cheating, stealing and manipulating are definitely not the sole purview of the powerful. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and, for many, these are quite desperate times. When your job or your relation-ship is on the line, lying can sometimes feel like a necessary act of survival.

Sometimes we lie to protect other peoples feelings. (Delicious fruitcake, Aunt Suzie!) But sometimes we lie solely to benefit ourselves. And because youre an honest human being, you probably feel guilty about this kind of lying which is what makes you so bad at it. But chronic liars dont have that problem. Nor do sociopaths. Nor, it turns out, does your boss. Youve heard the expression Power corrupts, right? Well, you might be surprised to learn how easy it is for people in powerful positions to lie straight to our faces. Not just those folks who sit in the corner office: Anyone who holds power over you whether his or her grip is on your paycheck, your mortgage rate or your heart can lie to you as easily as tell you the truth. Heres how it works: When people in power lie, they focus on rewards more than on costs they spend much more energy thinking about what they stand to gain than what they stand to lose. This laser focus on rewards protects them from anxiety and makes it easier for them to lie through their teeth. All the physical and mental benefits that come with power can make unscrupulous people in power almost immune to guilt, allowing them to lie all the time without ever getting caught. Researchers are finding more and more evidence that power appears to give its owners a physical and cognitive high that completely blunts and disguises any negative effects of lying.

Common Myths About Lying People tell lies for a million personal reasons, but most boil down to one of three essential needs: 1. To protect ourselves. 2. To avoid tension and conflict. 3. To minimize hurt feelings. Now, if everyone lies, and we all know we all lie, why is it still not easy to detect these lies? Again, there are many individual reasons, but they, too, boil down to three realities: 1. Many of us dont want to know the truth. 2. Many people are really good at covering up lies. 3. Most are looking for the wrong deception signals. We are able to investigate and identify probable lies with a fairly high degree of accuracy if we know the correct process to follow. But before we learn how to use the BS Barometer, we have to understand what may have kept us from seeing the lies all these years. Here are some of the common myths standing between us and the truth:

 The Myth: Liars have shifty eyes. How the BS Barometer Process The Reality: Not so fast. Twenty-three out of 24 peer-reviewed studies found that eye behavior is not a positive indicator of deception. The biggest thing we must look for in a persons eye movement is a deviation from normal behavior. The Myth: Liars never make eye contact. (Alternate: Liars make constant eye contact.) Works Everyone lies. Everyone. We cannot escape lying, nor would we ever want to, really. Society would cease to function. Marriages would fall apart. Fights would break out in grocery store checkout lines. You get the picture. There are good reasons to lie to people. What we need instead is a way to quickly sort the healthy lies from the toxic ones. Lets start by looking at where lying begins for all of us. Lying is always about helping us get what we want. Sometimes what we want is selfish; sometimes its kind. Lying is a totally normal part of human development. Learning to lie goes hand in hand with the moment when babies realize they are individuals. We dont grow out of the desire to get what we want, when we want it as we get older. Yet despite how useful lying is in this regard, brain imaging has proven that the baseline default for humans is to tell the truth. When we kick this default to the curb, we demand that our brains suppress our natural truth response, which is not comfortable for most people, especially the novice fibber. And the more we tell the truth, the harder it is for us to lie. When you look closely at it, becoming a good liar is a learned skill one that, when mastered, has a nearly unlimited potential to be positively reinforced. The more often you attempt to lie and are successful at it, the more easily your brain and your body can adapt to the stress that comes with doing it and the more convincing you are to the outside world. You continue to get what you want, when you want it. And your lying becomes more automatic.

The Reality: Theyre both correct! And of course, theyre both wrong. Again, whats important is that we watch patiently for a change in a persons normal behavior. The Reality: Rather than a foolproof sign of deception, this nose itch reaction can reflect a basic human response to acute stress, the fightor-flight reaction. The Myth: Liars tend to squirm and jiggle. The Reality: Most likely, nothings up. These pacifier actions do just that: They pacify and soothe unconscious nervous energy. The Myth: Liars skip words. You: How was your guys night, Bobby? Bobby: Eh. Just went to dinner. Burger was good. Then to the club. Then back home. The Reality: This absence of details and even pronouns is nothing alarming if Bobby is typically pretty tight-lipped. However, if Bobby usually shares enthusiastic stories of his escapades, with no detail left undivulged, then you may have an issue here as he departs from his norm. The Myth: Liars scratch their noses.

A Liar Is Caught A recent meta-analysis report by the FBI found that the most effective approach to lie detection is a combination of tools. These tools are meant to capture leakage (unintentional communication) across multiple channels: facial expressions, gestures and body language, voice, verbal style, and verbal statements. Further, the researchers found that its not simply this combination of signals but also their deviation from the baseline and how they are combined with each other that make them an accurate reflection of deception. The most critical part of detecting deception is that both parties both the liar and you must have something at stake. Begin the process first by asking yourself, Why do I care if this person is lying? What is at stake? Imagine the worst-case scenario for getting this encounter wrong. Emotional investment is essential for accurate deception detection; its the biggest predictor of your success. You must have as much skin in the game as the liar does. Why you want to know is just as important as what you want to know.

Your boss shrugs, looks over your head and changes the subject when you ask him about rumored layoffs. Your new employee brushes off your questions about the petty cash reconciliation, saying, Ill get to it I have the receipts around here somewhere.

Please remember, as a generally trusting person, you are a great gauge of honesty. You just have to give yourself per-mission to pursue those whiffs of suspicion and to investigate further. 2. You feel off-balance after talking with the per-son. Practiced liars are uniquely able to distort reality and make us feel like the floor is shifting underneath us, that something odd is afoot, but we just cant put our finger on it. This particular type of manipulation is called gas-lighting. A gas-lighter spouts false information as if it is fact with such conviction that it makes the victim start to question his or her own recollections of the same incidents. Standard gas-lighter lines include, I never said that stop making things up, How come you are always accusing me of horrible things? and Wow, what is wrong with you? You are so paranoid. Gas-lighters make you question yourself and reality as they slowly drive you crazy. 3. Your gut tells you theres something to fear. When youre walking by an alley and you have a bad gut feeling, it may not be because youre a Nervous Nellie it may be because your subconscious picked up on something odd. Whatever causes that prickle on the back of your neck, trust it your brain has likely registered

When to Use the BS Barometer While there are, of course, no surefire signals that some-one is lying to you, we can point to a few indicators that might prompt you to dig a bit deeper. Some of these signals are logical but some may shock you. 1. You hear answers that seem a bit off. Your teen tells you that shes sleeping over at Beckys house, and you dont know why, but you feel shes not being straight.

something potentially dangerous that your conscious mind just cant see yet. Researchers talk about this phenomenon as thin slices our brains ability to notice details much more quickly than our conscious awareness is capable of doing. 4. You really, really like someone. Have you ever felt an instant magical connection with someone who you couldnt wait to hang out with? But when you have the This person just gets me feeling right away, be warned. The most effective liars are charismatic and downright charming but at their root, they are manipulators. Take a cold, hard look at potential motives. Instead of saying, Wow, that person is so charming! make it your first instinct to ask, Why is this person trying to charm me?

First Things First: Establish Rapport When my mentor and dear friend J.J. Newberry, a retired ATF agent and president of the Institute of Analytic Interviewing, once interviewed a possible suspect in a bombing case, even he was surprised at how smoothly he was able to get a confession. When J.J. asked the man, Joe, what would you say if I told you your fingerprints were on the bomb? Joe responded, J.J., you wouldnt, because I wore gloves. In less than an hour J.J. was able to build up enough comfort, and ultimately trust, with this suspect to get to the truth. How? Rapport. Rapport helps you establish a persons comfortable, relaxed baseline so that you can spot lies later on. Here are a few ways to establish the rapport thats essential for gathering an accurate baseline: Set your intention and your body language will follow suit. More than anything, you want your body language to be open and welcoming. Aim for steady (but not oppressive) eye contact. Lead with empathy. To detect deception, you must learn to think like the other person. You need to see how that person views you from his or her perspective what are the things you want to hear? Listen to their stories. Hostage negotiators know that the first thing you do in a highstress situation is to let the person tell his or her story. The shooter, liar or other bad person needs to regain his or her equilibrium for you to get to the truth. Mirror their movements but very subtly.

PART 2: MASTERING THE BS BAROMETER PROCESS

You can mirror someones posture, but be extremely cautious obvious mirroring can turn the other person off, and the other person might believe that you are not an honest person and clam up right away. Allow transparency to create an atmosphere of trust. Confess to something that might be slightly embarrassing and see what happens. By appearing more human, youre simultaneously less threatening, which immediately lowers others guard around you. The first impression you give determines how much another per-son will trust you. Always err on the side of their relaxation.

bike. Man, that brings back memories, huh? Tell me about the first bike you had as a kid. The key to crafting these sentences is to share a bit about yourself, so that you can then pose an open-ended question about personal information the other person has no reason to fabricate.

Follow the Baseline Checklist Body language is where I typically start with my base-line. This checklist works equally well whether encountering strangers for the first time car salesmen, other parents on the playground, new doctors or people youve known forever but whom youve just started to suspect of lying. As you go through this list, keep in mind two baseline rules to live by: Keep your communication simple, and sometimes whats not there is the most important clue. Is he a space invader? First youll determine how big the person is. How much space does this person take up, both while he is stationary and while he is moving? Is he becoming as large or as small as he possibly can be? We are looking for the baseline, so well notice when we see a change. He might still be making a hand gesture, but now all of a sudden instead of being up at shoulder height his gestures are really low. Why? Whats going on here? What is his face factor? Whats his chin positioning? Does he tend to have his chin pulled in, level headed, or is his chin up? Is her head generally straight or is it tilted? Tilted right or left? Facial touches. Does he typically touch his face? How often is he touching his face? What is his voice saying? Where does your tar-gets baseline fit into this spectrum? Tonal differences: soft,

Your mantra for obtaining a baseline is How do I lower the stress in this situation? Because how you confront any situation can change the outcome.

Ask Open-Ended Questions The real secret behind detecting deception is asking questions. But youre not out to win the Pulitzer in this interview you just want to get an accurate read on the person. For right now, your primary objective is to get him or her talking. Believe it or not, you can baseline people with just one or two very simple open-ended questions. The trick is to keep it light. Bring yourself into the conversation in a way that disarms the subject and takes the focus off of him or her. For example, Im so excited to get home this after-noon Im buying my 5-year-old his first

medium or loud talker. Pitch differences: low, medium or high pitch. Speed differences: slow, medium or fast. What are his words saying? Statement analysis is an incredibly useful tool once you start to notice the little language idiosyncrasies, youll be amazed at how much information youll get from them. Is she using pronouns? Dropping pronouns has definitely been tied to deception. Some people never use pronouns; some use them without fault. You have to know which is normal for her. Is she using verbal fillers? Once the lies start flowing, the ums, ahs, ers are likely to follow. Is she using absolutes? I always do that, I never do that. Sounds like overselling but only if its not her baseline. For now, absorb what you can about the persons norm.

Evolutionary Psychology found that the pitch of womens voices will shoot up when they are speaking to a man they find attractive. Vocal tone lowers with sadness and shame. We saw this with Britney Spears when she was being inter-viewed about divorce rumors, insisting everything was great in her marriage to Kevin Federline you couldnt even hear the words coming out of her mouth. Taking Care of Business: Teeter-Tottering, Convincing-Not-Conveying and Backsliding Get this mental picture in your mind: Liars are all tightrope walkers. They want to get from where they are now, talking to you, all the way across the canyon of your skepticism and doubt, to the other side freedom, the moment at which youve been convinced of their lie. Their task is to remain upright and make steady progress through the lie and not fall off the rope before they get to their destination. And their brains are carrying an awful lot of weight on this journey: The truth: the facts about what really happened. The facts in their own lie: the whole story theyre trying to convince you of. What theyve already told you in every conversation up until now. The new information they may not yet know but once they learn, they will have to instantly assimilate without slipping up. Your reaction to their tale positive or negative. Their own visible and audible reactions to the stress of telling the lie.

Step 2: The Wiretap No matter whether you are turning on your BS Barometer at a distance or in person, youll be able to hear the verbal indicators of deception in the words people choose and in the changes in their speech rates, volume and pitch that naturally occur in most deceptive statements. Vocal tone is a powerful indicator of emotion. Research has shown that a persons vocal tone will waiver from baseline in up to 95 percent of all deceptive statements its one of the most reliable indicators of deception. Whether it goes up or down depends on the emotions involved. Vocal tone rises when were angry or excited. If your friend denies that she has the hots for your husband, listen for her tone of voice when she talks with him. An article in the Journal of

Teeter-Tottering. A teeter-totterer will leak inconsistencies in many of her statements or will try to make everything seem like sunshine and roses. Her language is garbled and she may even blurt out clues midsentence all signs of an off-balance, klutzy liar. As long as its a deviation from her baseline, its cause for a closer listen. Remember, our default is to always tell the truth. Our brain doesnt want us to lie, so we teeter-totter and say things in a weird way.

Step 3: The Stakeout Now its time to focus on the stakeout and learn how to decode the facial signs that are likely indicators of deceptive hot spots. Although facial findings wont give you all the information youre looking for for example, whether or not the person is actually lying spot-ting them gives you potential areas to later probe. Before you get started looking for nonverbal hot spots, ask yourself if the person youre about to do the stake-out on is in one of the following wildcard categories. A few factors that might make suspects nonverbal behavior an untrustworthy source of information are: Their intelligence. The smarter the suspect, the more likely his or her body language makes sense and mirrors his or her thinking. But when people are not the sharpest tools in the shed, their body language might reflect confusion or misinterpretation of the questions instead of anxiety about lying. Their emotions. When people are unstable, so are their body language signals. You can never know where the emotions are coming from or what they relate to. Their age. Kids and teens may not have matured enough to appreciate the consequences of their actions

Convincing-Not-Conveying. Honest people convey information. Liars, on the other hand, try to convince us that their story is the truth. While a truthful person expects that you believe him or her, a liar will fight to be believed. Some phrases that liars love are: What kind of a person do you think I am? Id have to be stupid to do something like that. I knew this was going to happen to me. You think Im lying to you?

Backsliding. Backsliders primary mission is to get away from being found out. The backslider is a master of obscurity and camouflage, usually using ways to distract you or distance himself or herself from the lie. Whether with sneaky statements or overwhelming politeness and selfdeprecation, the backslider would love nothing more than for you to forget the entire incident ever happened.

so they may not feel fear even when they should!

Their culture. Some cultures consider the direct eye contact favored by Americans to be rude so a persons averted eyes would be a sign of respect rather than disrespect or guilt. Their partying status. Drinking and taking drugs dramatically alter behavior. Dont look at a drunk person and think you can gauge his real baseline hes far from it.

Above all, with this process you have to trust your eyes. Your BS Barometer is helping your brain absorb and process more than you can ever consciously know.

fleeting emotions is incredibly useful because each of these emotions registers with very distinct patterns that are almost impossible to fake. Consciously faking emotional response patterns (which can involve moving any of the more than 40 intricate muscles in our face) is hard to do, hard to manipulate, hard to disguise for everyone. We still cant know for sure what sparks the wobbly leakage on the tightrope of those emotions (she says shes sad, but we spot happiness; he tells us hes happy, but we decode disgust and surprise). But if we see the micro-expression, the person is definitely feeling that emotion, which, for a liar, makes these moments of emotional leakage the faces version of teeter-tottering. The big gun for convincers is consciously faking emotions. They try very hard to convince you just how honest they are. But often they miss very key, subtle differences in the movement of the forehead, eyes, cheeks and eyebrows. So a great way to bust a liar is to really focus on some key differences between genuine and fake emotions. Also, like changing the channel on the TV, the speed of a switch in emotions is, in itself, a telling sign. If someone can go from sad to happy or from fear to anger to happiness in the time it takes to switch the station, thats the big red flag of the convincer.

The Teeter-Tottering Face We spend our entire lives gathering information from other peoples faces, so we dont have to work that hard to get the basics down. The special motor neurons in our brains, called mirror neurons, react immediately to subtle signs of true emotion on others faces a flash of a genuine smile or a tiny hint of sorrow can trigger that same emotion within us. All humans share seven universal emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger and contempt. These can be seen in micro-expressions that are universally hardwired into us. These automatic expressions are the same whether you are male or female, black or white, young or old. Everyone who is surprised makes the same expressions.

Step 4: The Full Body Surveillance As a channel of communication, some experts say that full body surveillance contains more than 50 percent of the true message behind our words. Bearing in mind that people tend to mirror one another, its in your best interest to present honest, open body language. Remember, were not looking for the lie; were looking for the truth. Anything you

These micro-expressions may leak out for only onefifteenth of a second. While these micro-movements can be a challenge to spot, learning to see these

can do to help other people be honest will help you too. Honest people tend to: Point their toes and body toward you. Lean forward with casual interest. Be somewhat casual and at ease but not artificially, so they shift their body posture fluently, without any nervous tics. Keep their throat, neck dimple, belly button and naughty bits all open and pointed toward you. Use a wide, solid, powerful stand (short fat candle) versus a tight, wobbly stance (tall skinny candle). Uncross their arms and keep their hands down at their sides or on their chairs.

already know the answer to or one that you know wont arouse any suspicion: What are you doing this weekend? And move slowly up to the more heavy-duty ones: Why is there a tan line on your ring finger did you recently get divorced? Ask open-ended questions. An interrogation is not a true/false test its more like an essay. Yes-or-no questions are typically dead ends. For now, get the basics down: who, what, when, where, why, how. Then, keep going just for sheer quantity: What is it about ? You said Tell me more. What do you mean? Tell me what happened

The biggest teeter-tottering red flag you might see during your full body surveillance will be obvious discomfort or unconscious incongruence of a liars gestures with whats coming out of his or her mouth. Shoulder shrugs indicate uncertainty, so when a shrug shows up with a definitive statement, it could indicate deception. The often less noticeable hand shrug is very similar to the shoulder shrug. The palms typically stay facing down on the lap or table, and all of a sudden, they face up. The meaning is the same as a shoulder shrug: ambiguity and uncertainty.

The more questions you ask 20, 30, 40 the more information you gather, the wiser you become. And as you ask, keep your eyes open. This is where the baseline comes in. Youre looking for those deviations that come when people seem slightly uncomfortable. Anytime anyone deviates from that nonverbal baseline, say to them something like, Maybe Im wrong here, but it seems like theres more to the story or Maybe Im wrong here, but you seem a little anxious about your meeting later. And then you WAIT. Silence is interrogation gold. People dont like awkward silences, so they will do almost anything to fill them up. A truthful person believes you will believe him or her, but a liar will immediately think the worst.

Step 5: The Interrogation The real secret of detecting deception is to know that you have to ask lots of questions and to continue doing so until you get what you need. Start with an easy one. Ask an innocent question that you

PART 3: YOUR BS BAROMETER IN THE BIG PICTURE

In general, people with power experience fewer restrictions while simultaneously having greater access to money, information and connections. People with less power have the opposite more rules to govern their behavior, fewer resources to draw from. Breaking the rules can signal to others that you have power. Research has shown that powerful people are more likely to: Take more cookies from a common plate. Eat with their mouth open and spread crumbs. Interrupt conversations. Be close talkers. Stereotype. Exhibit more aggression toward other people (and have it tolerated).

is, it can be done. Research shows a simple apology can restore trust so thats always worth a try. But one study found that just a short series of cooperative acts can restore mutually cooperative behavior. The important thing to remember is, when you are doing this to intentionally repair your relationship, you must let the other person take top billing. Allow your husband to pick the seats at the game, what to plant in the garden, or even where to place the bike rack in the garage and then agree with him. If its your colleague, go out of your way to praise his or her ideas both when you work as a pair and when you present the project to others.

The Self-Exam Do you find that you frequently encounter deception by almost everyone in your life? Whether there is one liar or many in your life right now, it might be time to take a peek in the mirror. What mistakes are you making in your life that are stopping you from spotting that friendly phony? Why are cheating partners, lying bosses and frenemies even in your world?

You dont have to be a boor just to prove that you have power. The trick with interrogation is to display supportive, appropriate power. Your task is to walk the fine line between cheerful supplicant and angry overlord

you want your employee (or any person from whom you want the truth) to feel that you have the upper hand but not so much power that he or she is unwilling to work with you.

Getting Back to Trust Sometimes we may have distrusted someone and called him or her out in a lie and found out we were dead wrong. In those situations, it will take a while to repair the relationship but the good news

Lets turn the BS Barometer around and take a good long look at your degree of honesty with yourself. Do you always give people second and third chances and expect a different result and then blame them when they betray you again? Have you been turning a blind eye to suspicious behavior of your longtime trusted advisor and friend? Or are you so busy that you have given someone too much power over the most important areas of your life and you just assume that he or she has your back? Many people who are looking to tune up their ability to detect deception and improve their

communication skills skip the most important step: setting a positive and authentic intent, such as success, love or truth. Instead they often set a negative one, such as The next guy better not be a cheater! or I hope I dont appear nervous or I hope people dont think Im a liar! When people focus on what they dont want to happen, its as if their ability to honestly communicate and genuinely connect with other people just deflates. As we do the self-exam, we need to take a good hard look at all the deceptive lenses we use to view the world and how they can block us from creating genuine, authentic relationships with ourselves and others. Every aspect of communication begins with intention. You can choose whether that intention is positive or negative. Negative intentions break down relationships, opportunities and self-esteem. Positive intentions create possibilities, growth, confidence and love.

Epilogue I hope that by tuning up your BS Barometer youre creating the courage and the confidence to do whats right and get to the truth of the matter faster, and more directly. Because, ultimately, I want you to fight not only for yourself but also for the other people who might need you even more: your student, who needs you to confront him about drugs; your mother, who needs you to watch out for a dishonest caregiver; your young son or daughter, who needs you to stay vigilant about the predators in your midst. I want you to have open, trusting relationships; to enjoy genuine connections with people who deserve your respect and your love; and approach the world with confidence and without fear.