Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception

by Philip Houston

The strategic principle is that if you want to know if someone is lying, you need to ignore, and thereby not process, truthful behavior.

the problem with global behavior assessment is that it puts us in the position of having to guess why a person is exhibiting a particular behavior. To make that leap from guessing to actual analysis, we need to focus on those behaviors that we can reasonably associate with a cause, the cause being the question.

data from stenographers tells us that on average, we speak at a rate of 125 to 150 words per minute. Cognitive research, meanwhile, suggests that we think at least ten times faster than we speak. What that tells us is the further in time we get away from the stimulus, the higher the likelihood that the brain has gone on to thinking about something else. Our experience has shown that if we can identify the first deceptive behavior within that first five seconds, we can reasonably conclude that the behavior is directly associated with the stimulus.

we have found that the higher the number of deceptive behaviors a person exhibits, the greater the likelihood of deception.

No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise. —William Congreve

Ignoring truthful behavior helps us manage our biases, so we don’t even have to think about them when the task at hand is detecting deception. Beyond that, it reduces—often dramatically—the amount of data we have to process in order to make a decision about a person’s veracity. The more extraneous information that can be filtered out, the easier it is to spot behavior that’s deceptive.

It’s also important to note that behaviors that are associated with truthfulness can easily be replicated by deceptive people. Truthful responses tend to be direct and spontaneous, and a person who is deceptive is generally able to respond that way to many questions, especially if he’s prepared for them. Similarly, a truthful person is typically alert, composed, and attentive. Yet, untruthful people can, to varying degrees, demonstrate that same behavior. The solution is simple: Ignore it. The chances are too high that it will be used as a weapon against you.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. —Ernest Hemingway

When people lie to you successfully, it’s often because they say things that manage your perception of them as it relates to the issue at hand.

If the facts are not their ally, people have to say something that convinces you, and the best thing they can say is something that’s true or irrefutable.

most people simply aren’t comfortable telling a bald-faced lie.

FAILURE TO ANSWER. If you ask someone a question and he doesn’t give you what you ask for, there’s a reason for that. One possible reason is that the facts aren’t on his side, and he’s trying to figure out how to deal with that. Now, should you immediately conclude that the person is lying because he didn’t give you what you asked for? Absolutely not. Always remember the cluster rule—we need more than just that single behavior. After all, there could be other explanations. Have you ever spoken with someone who just can’t seem to get to the point? Or the person might not have understood the question, or thought he heard a different question? DENIAL PROBLEMS. Closely related to the failure to answer is the absence of an explicit denial of something in your question that involves an act of wrongdoing, or has consequences associated with it.

If, for example, you ask a person a yes-or-no question—“Did you do it?”—and the person does not respond with a “no” statement like “It was not me” or “I didn’t do it,” that’s significant. When the truth isn’t an ally, the person is psychologically inclined to respond with information

• Nonspecific denial. If the “no” statement is delivered in a way that’s more of a general focus than a specific expression of denial of the matter at hand (“I didn’t do anything,” “I would never do something like that”), that’s also significant. It’s subtle, but if a person says he didn’t do anything, psychologically he’s letting himself off the hook so he doesn’t have to tell the bald-faced lie, “I didn’t do it.” It’s a nuance that’s easily missed by an untrained ear. • Isolated delivery of denial. If in response to a question about wrongdoing, a person gives you a “no” response, but buries it in a long-winded answer, that’s important. If the percentage of the answer that relates to the denial is relatively small, that’s a bad thing. Consider it a deceptive indicator. RELUCTANCE OR REFUSAL TO ANSWER. Sometimes, we’ll ask a person a question and he’ll say something like, “I’m not sure I’m the right person to talk to.” In some instances, it’s because he doesn’t want to be the right person to talk to—it’s an easy dodge. Or he may express reluctance with a response like, “Gee, I’m not sure I can answer that.” Of course, these responses could be legitimate, so remember that you have to adhere to that cluster rule. REPEATING THE QUESTION. Why might a deceptive person repeat a question? We think of it as buying time, and ultimately that’s the goal.

NONANSWER STATEMENTS. The psychology behind nonanswer statements is much the same as that associated with repeating the question—avoiding that awkward silence and buying time to figure out how to respond. These are things that people say that don’t provide what you ask for: “That’s a good question,” or “I’m glad you asked that.”

“I knew you were going to ask me that.” Why is that statement made in response to this particular question? Without realizing it, the person may be cluing us in on what he’s thinking or worried about.

INCONSISTENT STATEMENTS. “It is not without good reason said, that he who has not good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.”

When a person makes a statement about an issue of interest to you, and subsequently makes a statement that’s not consistent with what she said previously, and she doesn’t explain why the story has changed, that is significant.

GOING INTO ATTACK MODE.

“Why are you wasting my time with this stuff?” What he’s trying to do is to get you to back off, to start questioning yourself on whether you’re going down the right path. Kids will often give this a shot when confronted by their parents. Questions like, “Why do you always pick on me?” and “Why don’t you trust me?” fall into this category.

INAPPROPRIATE QUESTIONS. Some schools of thought suggest that answering a question with a question is deceptive, but we would say that’s not necessarily the case. What concerns us is when we ask a question, and the response is a question that doesn’t directly relate to the question we asked.

OVERLY SPECIFIC ANSWERS.

Deceptive people might be overly specific in two ways, and they’re almost polar opposites. One way is they will answer a question too technically, or too narrowly.

In addition to being overly specific by limiting the scope of the response, deceptive people might go to the other extreme of overspecificity and inundate you with detailed information in response to your question.

That often takes the form of providing you with more information than you asked for in order to create a halo effect.

INAPPROPRIATE LEVEL OF POLITENESS. We’re certainly not at all suspicious of someone who’s just a nice person. But if, in response to a question, a person suddenly increases the level of nicety, that’s significant.

INAPPROPRIATE LEVEL OF CONCERN. If the facts are not a person’s ally, he’s put into a hole from which he needs to try to extricate himself. A person in this position doesn’t have much going for him, so he might resort to a strategy of attempting to diminish the importance of the issue. Typically, he’ll focus on either the issue or the process, and try to equalize the exchange by doing the questioning: “Why is this such a big deal?” or “Why is everybody worried about that?” The person might even attempt to joke about the issue, which can be especially inappropriate.

PROCESS OR PROCEDURAL COMPLAINTS. Sometimes, a person won’t necessarily go on the attack, but will still attempt to play offense rather than defense by taking issue with the proceedings. Questions like “Why are you asking me?” or “How long is this going to take?” fall into this category. They may be a delaying tactic, similar to repeating the question or making nonanswer statements, or they may be an attempt at deflection in the hope of steering the proceedings down a different path.

FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND A SIMPLE QUESTION. When you ask a question, you often use certain words or phrases to establish boundaries that define the scope or magnitude of the question. If that particular wording tra...

to change your phrasing or terminology. The aim is to shrink the scope or magnitude of the question, to give him just enough wiggle room to an...

REFERRAL STATEMENTS. Sometimes in response to a question, a deceptive person will refer to having previously answered the question. This might take the form of such statements as, “I would refer you to my earlier statement when I said…” or “As I told the last guy…” or “As we have repeatedly

In many situations, making a claim one time doesn’t have much of an impact. But each subsequent time the claim is made, it diminishes our resistance or disbelief, to the point where the door is opened to the possibility that the claim actually has credibility. Remember what Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1939: “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

INVOKING RELIGION. When a person brings God into the equation, he’s engaging in an extreme form of what psychologists call “dressing up the lie,” and it can be very effective. After all, what do you have in your briefcase that tops God? So, you need to recognize responses that include such phrases as “I swear to God” or “As God is my witness” for what they may well be: an attempt to dress up a lie in its Sunday best before presenting it to you. INVOKING RELIGION “I swear to God…” “As Allah is my

SELECTIVE MEMORY. When a person says, “I don’t remember,” that’s a difficult statement to refute without some definitive, tangible evidence. It’s a psychological alibi, and it’s a hard alibi to crack. Another problem with selective memory is that it can easily be legitimate. Suppose you ask the CEO of a corporation of twenty-five thousand people, “Has anyone in your company committed fraud in the last twelve months?” If he responds with a resolute “No,” that would be somewhat odd, because he probably would have no way of really knowing that. A more reasonable response would be, “Not to my knowledge,” a response that in other situations could raise a red flag. If you had asked the CEO if he had engaged in any fraudulent activity in the last twelve months and you got that response, you’d clearly have a situation on your hands that you’d need to pursue. So, context is especially important when identifying this particular behavior.

SELECTIVE MEMORY “Not that I recall…” “To the best of my knowledge…” “Not that I’m aware of…”

QUALIFIERS. There are two types of qualifiers that are potential deceptive indicators: exclusion qualifiers and perception qualifiers. Exclusion qualifiers enable people who want to withhold certain information to answer your question truthfully without releasing that information. Examples of qualifiers of this type include “basically,” “for the most part,” “fundamentally,” “probably,” and “most often.” Perception qualifiers are used to enhance credibility: “frankly,”

CONVINCING STATEMENTS. Lies of influence, the category of lies that we spoke about in the opening of this chapter as being especially powerful, occur in the form of what we call “convincing statements.”

When Oscar responded to Phil by saying that he would never do that, that child molestation is perverted and that he wasn’t a pervert, he was employing convincing statements. If a person is asked a question and is unable to respond with the facts because the facts are not his ally, he is very likely to respond with these statements, which are designed to convince the questioner of something, rather than to convey truthful information.

Suppose someone asked you, “Did you take the missing money?” Since you’re honest and didn’t take any money, your most likely response would be, “No!” The reason is that’s the single fact that’s most important to you to get across. The guilty person may or may not deliver the “no,” but the discomfort of the facts not being his ally will likely compel him to convey other information to convince you. “I would never do that,” he might say. “That would be dishonest, and I’m not that kind of person,” or “Ask anybody around here, look at my record,” or “I have a good reputation,” or “You think I would jeopardize my job by doing that?”

NEUTRALIZE CONVINCING STATEMENTS The way to combat convincing statements is to neutralize them—to render them ineffective by acknowledging or agreeing with them. This, of course, needs to be distinguished from agreeing with the action. In

you’ll be vulnerable to these convincing statements, regardless of your background. The reason is simply that they’re so, well, convincing. They tend to be perfectly reasonable, and they can be very difficult to catch simply because they make so much sense. You’ll hear one, and you might think, “That sounds like something I would say myself if I were asked the same question.” That might well be, but the difference is there would very likely be no more than one such statement, and there would be more to your response, including a straightforward statement that you didn’t do it. The deceptive person will often give you a string of convincing statements, because he has no choice. He has no facts that are his friend.

statements. If your child has not experimented with drugs, his likely response to your question will be something like “Absolutely not!” or “No way!” Kids who have used drugs are unlikely to deny it. Instead, they typically rely on convincing statements such as: • “I can’t believe you would think I would do that!” • “I’ve never given you any reason to think that!” • “Why don’t you trust me?

Those three convincing statements were tremendously effective, for three reasons. First, like all convincing statements, they were true or irrefutable. When she said, “I love my children,” that was probably true on some level. When she said, “I would never hurt my kids,” that was heartbreakingly untrue. But at the time she made it, it was irrefutable. CONVINCING STATEMENTS “No one would ever question my honesty.” “I have a great reputation.” “I’m an honest person.” “My word is my bond.” “It’s not in my nature to do something like that.” “I always try to do the right thing.” “I would never jeopardize my job by doing something like that.” “How could you even think I could be involved in something this serious?” “I have worked here for over twenty years.” “I love you, I would never do anything to hurt you.” Second, convincing statements usually incorporate emotion. In this case, the officer said that when Ms. Smith made those statements, the investigators could see tears welling up in her eyes—the emotion is what expresses the conviction. Emotion in and of itself isn’t necessarily truthful or deceptive. But untruthful people use it to enhance the deception. The third factor is that the statements were consistent with the investigators’ bias. “In our experience, moms just don’t kill their kids,”

Unlike qualifiers, we consider each convincing statement as a separate deceptive indicator. So, two convincing statements constitute a cluster. They’re that powerful.

No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant. —Friedrich Nietzche

Attack behavior such as that exhibited by Skilling in that conference call and on the witness stand can be an especially powerful indicator of deception. The more desperate a situation is, the more a person will feel prone to attack. So, when we see this behavior in response to a question, it tells us that the person is particularly highly stressed by that question, and that it’s an area that strongly warrants further attention.

As we said, when the facts are not a person’s ally, he might resort to a strategy of attempting to diminish the importance of the issue by responding to it in an inappropriately lighthearted manner. In some instances, this behavior could be a form of attack or aggression.

a person who feels cornered by a particular line of questioning might be compelled to launch an attack on the questioner as a means of getting him to back off.

When the stakes are high and a person feels she has run out of options, aggression often becomes the weapon of choice.

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. —Sigmund Freud