And how can you tell?

BY MEGAN GOOD

EDITED BY LAURA DURR

We all do it. If you say you haven’t, then you are doing it right now. We have all stretched the truth, told little white lies and told big bold-faced ones.

We’ve all also been lied to and we’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to tell if someone is lying to us. We overthink their eye contact, their tone and even the way they’re standing.

Throughout our lives, we decide that we know how to tell when people are lying. Sometimes we even call them out on it before we have any actual evidence of the deceit.

What is it about people that can really let us know if they are lying? Are there secret ways that make it visible to us when someone isn’t being totally honest?

With experts on body language telling us how to pinpoint a liar, the truth behind deceit and body language can be hard to find. We all know the tell-tale signs: if someone is avoiding eye contact, they’re lying. If someone is fidgeting, they might be lying.

To what extent are these assumptions true? Well, if we turn to science we may be able to uncover some of the accuracy behind the perceptions we take as truths. Let’s explore the ways in which we may be able to tell – or not tell – how someone may be trying to deceive us.

The first – and possibly largest – misconception about deciding if someone is lying to us is their eye contact. Many have decided that there is a direct correlation between someone’s level of eye contact and their truthfulness. After all, why would someone telling the truth avoid eye contact?

The truth is, there is no science behind this idea. No correlation between eye contact and deceit has been discovered, according to Dr. Timothy Levine of the University of Alabama and his colleagues.

Their research published in the Southern Communication Journal has shown – as have countless past experiments – that whether or not someone is lying cannot be determined through their level of eye contact.

What does change is the perception of eye contact when someone thinks another is lying. When we think someone is lying to us, we believe that this person is making less eye contact with us, even if they are making the same amount as they normally would.

Therefore, we must be careful not to overthink someone’s eye contact when we assume they are trying to deceive us. We may just be seeing it in the wrong light.

The other thing we like to focus in on is hand gestures. Some of us think that lying makes people jittery, and therefore someone who’s lying will be more fidgety and uneasy.

But, according to Dr. Letizia Caso of the University of Bergamo and her colleagues, we may have some answers to this.

Their research published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior has shown that those who are lying may actually be less fidgety than they normally would be.

Naturally, we make these gestures known as self-adaptive movements. These are the small things we do to regulate our bodies — brushing our hair behind our ears, scratching an itch, etc. When someone is trying to be deceitful, they tend to do less of these types of movements. This is to avoid drawing any extra attention to themselves in an effort to deemphasize the lie they are telling.

So, they are changing their movements because of their nervousness, but just in the opposite way than most people expect.

Truth-tellers often look like they are lying when confronted with suspicion. According to the same study, a heightened level of suspicion will influence the behavior of both liars and truth-tellers. Therefore, if we approach a situation with suspicion, it is very unlikely we will be able to tell whether or not someone is lying.

In addition to the self-adaptive movements, the research also suggests that many people use more metaphorical gestures when they are lying.

So when someone is telling the truth and describing something, they will most likely use specific, descriptive hand gestures. On the other hand, when someone is trying to deceive you, they are more likely to use broad, sweeping gestures to describe something.

While some of the things you used to think about lying may not be true, there is evidence to show that the gestures people make can suggest whether or not they are lying.

Just because you aren’t getting the eye contact you expected doesn’t mean you should jump to conclusions. However, don’t be oblivious to a person’s hand gestures either. It just might tell you what you’re trying to find out.

So next time you go to read one of those articles by a body language expert, keep in mind that there is little research that helps us tell if someone is lying. We need to be careful not to read too far into someone’s body language, as the things you thought were true about deceit may not be after all.