The psychology of lying is a complicated concept because people lie for various reasons.
Some people lie to avoid punishment, and some lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Some lie because they want to present themselves as someone they are not. Some people are very good at telling lies, but some show a lot of signs. That could be easily spotted. How good are you at spotting a lie? In this article, I will be discussing with you a few ways to spot a liar.
1) Body Language:
Hand Gesture: Experts believe that a liar could be detected by observing his body language.
And the most common one is a hand gesture.
When you question them about something, they would move their hands vigorously to make you believe in a more appealing way. Researchers have been done, and it have also been proven that these gestures are caused because of natural chemical reactions in the body. So next time if you are not sure if someone is telling the truth or not, look at his hands. Many hand gestures show that the person is telling the lie. If the physical gesture doesn’t match with their word, they are telling lies for sure. Some common hand gestures that you have to be aware of: Placing hand on chin, as if done while thinking something.
Rubbing the neck with a hand while speaking. Moving the hands vigorously while speaking. Excessive palm displays. Arms crossed and keeping the body stiff and looking somewhere else while speaking. Experts say that these are some common hand gestures that could be used to spot a liar. Even the jiggling of the feet is also a great sign of dishonesty.
2) Explaining Events:
There are two ways to explain something. Explaining in simple terms. Explaining in complex terms. Liars typically use both this way. When the brain finds it difficult to build a complex lie, they tend to communicate in a word or two. But some liars don’t like to keep it simple, they tend to use complicated and longer sentences to explain things. They also tend to use a lot of words that are completely irrelevant. When a person is going through long periods of lying, they will start to exhibit very strange behavior. And the way they explain things will be strange too, it won’t be realistic nor relevant to what the other one is asking them.
