8 - Detecting Deception

Summary

Lying is not a distinct psychological process with its own unique behavioral indicator.

(DePaulo and Morris, 2004:17)

Lies are everywhere. We hear continually about lying in public and private life. Very few people would claim never to have told a lie, and even fewer would say they have never been duped by a liar.

(Barnes, 1994:1)

Human beings hate to be deceived. It makes us feel violated, used and stupid … The intellectual and moral traditions of Western culture have been shaped and driven by an explicit and consistent fear of deception … but … without such lies humanity cannot survive.

(Rue, 1994:4–5)

Not every deception involves emotion, but those who do may cause special problems for the liar. When emotions occur, physiological changes happen automatically without choice or deliberation.

(Ekman and O'Sullivan, 1989:299)

INTRODUCTION

Unlike the land of the Houyhnhnms that Gulliver came across in his travels where there was no word to express deceit, deception in general and lying in particular is a global phenomenon whose occurrence varies across cultures but is characterised by a few pan-cultural beliefs about cues to deception such as gaze-aversion (see Bond and Rao, 2004; Global Deception Research Team, 2006). A moment's reflection tells us that deception implies that someone intentionally does or says something in order to induce a false belief in someone else (Ekman, 1985; Miller and Stiff, 1993:16–31; Vrij, 2000:6).