Interviewing (Part 15) – Liespotting!

Pamela Meyer is a well-known and well-respected deception detection expert. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and holds an MBA from Harvard. Over twenty years ago, she wrote a bestseller on the topic called Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. It continues to be one of the best guides to identify lies in work and life situations.

For many years Meyer studied and researched the relationships of speech patterns, body language and normal / abnormal behaviors that relating to lying, and she also identified certain conditions which encourage lying. Some of the most important include:

1. For a lie to succeed, it must be a cooperative act. Someone must agree to believe the lie for it to be powerful and effective. When there is an unwilling participant, the lie is insignificant. If detected, however, it can still be important in providing personality information about the liar.
2. Although most people lie daily (estimates are between 10 and 200 times), the greater majority of these events are benign or “White Lies.” Men, for instance, lie many times more about themselves than others, and women lie to protect someone and / or avoid hurting someone.
3. The most serious lies involve acts of fraud. For instance, recent estimates of all types of corporate and individual financial fraud losses (criminal, civil, employment, insurance, tax, internal / external business, etc.) is approximately $2 Trillion annually. That is roughly 7% of 2024 U.S. GDP.
4. Strangers lie at least three times in the first 10 minutes of contact.
5. Trained “Liespotters” have the ability to identify up to 90% of lies communicated in their presence vs the untrained who can only spot up to 54%.
6. Detection has a huge impact on trust, and it is an effective tool in criminal and civil witness evaluation, pre-employment application decision making, insurance claim’s matters and all types of relationship building.

Research over the past 50 years has identified effective steps that can be taken to become a trained “Liespotter”. It requires study and practice, but you can quickly learn how to identify the most common red flags that increase the potential for lying. Check out the Meyer book and also watch for upcoming RNI newsletters for some of these tips!

Research North, Inc. (RNI) is a professional private detective service providing support to the business community, the insurance industry and individuals in Michigan and Wisconsin since 1981. More information is available at www.researchnorth.com.  The company also offers pre-employment background checks to small and medium sized businesses through www.backgroundcheckswork.com – a service that is fully staffed by experienced investigators who are retired from law enforcement.

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