When did your lying become as easy as breathing? It is so difficult to understand when the person is telling the truth because most people acquired the skill of lying over their lifespan. Everyone possesses an ability to lie, so there is no surprise that it’s a common form of human behavior. Whether it’s a white lie like “Oh, that new haircut suits you”, or a serious lie concerning crime, fraud, cheating, theft, any type of lie can hurt someone’s feeling.
Detecting if someone is telling the truth can be a difficult task. There are some really good liars out there that will manipulate you into trusting them wholeheartedly. Fortunately, according to a professional private detective in Sydney, some behavioral cues can help you to discover if the person is telling the truth. However, these indications of truth-telling cannot guarantee anything for sure. The best way is to carry out an investigation that requires data collection, observation, and even surveillance at times. First, try to study the physical and verbal clues to spot a lie, and later, if necessary, turn to an expert for help.
To help you to identify if someone is telling the truth, we compiled a guide to the following signals of common human behavior during a lie-telling that you may find useful.
Facial expressions
One of the signals of lying is that it is difficult for a deceptive person to keep eye-contact. At a crucial moment of lie-telling, people tend to look away or move their eyes around too much. It is also possible for a person to stare at a specific object while lying. Start by asking some basic questions, and carefully observe the eyes of a person in question, then change to the topic of interest and see the eyes give it away. Another potential signal of lying is rolling lips inside a mouth. Pressing the lips together and kind of sucking them in can be a sign that a person is restrained from saying something. Also, watch out for any sudden changes in facial expressions. Anything that differs from a norm is your first sign that something is not right.
Body language
Look closely at the physical distance that a person keeps away from you. If a person stands further away from you than usual or walks away from you the moment you start asking questions, it may be a sign that the person in question doesn’t want to talk about the topic. Also, look out for hand gestures. People tend to move both of their hands around when they are lying. Fidgeting can be another sign of lying, like too many head movements or rocking their body back and forth. Many nervous people tend to fidget.
Verbal cues
Listen attentively to the speaker as some of the deception cues may be a vague content that leaves out a lot of details, indifference such as bored tone of voice and lack of expressions, or overthinking. Words like ‘umm’, ‘uh’, and ‘hmm’ are an indication of overthinking. People tend to use too many words to fill in the gaps in their stories when they are lying. Also, sudden changes in the tone or volume can be a sign of nervousness and deception.
These signals may help you to understand if the person is telling you the truth or not, but each person is unique and different so the behavioral cues may vary for each individual. If you know the person well, it might be easier to notice the changes in the behavior, but the most important tip is to trust your instincts. Most of the time, we know when something seems off, we feel it in our guts when we have been lied to. On the other hand, don’t become paranoid thinking that everyone is constantly lying to you.