Have you ever wondered if someone was being truthful with you? A trial lawyer has shared insights into a specific word that might betray a lie.
Spotting a skilled liar can be challenging, as they often blend truths and falsehoods seamlessly.
Despite pressing them for answers, you might still feel that something is amiss.
During a recent episode of The Diary Of A CEO podcast, hosted by Steven Bartlett, trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher discussed a word that could suggest deceit.
Fisher elaborated on this during the podcast.
“Were you texting while you were driving that day?” Bartlett inquired, to which Fisher replied: “No, I never text. Never text when I drive.”
“Notice I said a big word. I said ‘never’. Never is an extreme. Extremes are a dead giveaway that they’re usually not telling the truth,” the Texas-based lawyer explained.
“Everybody texts when they drive at some point in time, even in your car. Never and always. It’s always or never true. So that’s a big one.”
Fisher also pointed out that liars typically respond to questions ‘very quickly’.
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The lawyer further noted: “They’ll say, ‘well, I mean sometimes I do’, because now they hinge on that word ‘never’.”
Researchers have also identified a method that might help determine if someone is speaking truthfully.
This involves engaging them in another activity while they answer your question.
The technique relies on the premise that lying taxes the brain, as it requires more cognitive effort to fabricate and remember false information.
Adding a concurrent task while lying might cause someone to inadvertently reveal the truth.
Professor Aldert Vrij, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, explained: “In the last 15 years we have shown that lies can be detected by outsmarting lie tellers.”
“We demonstrated that this can be done by forcing lie tellers to divide their attention between formulating a statement and a secondary task,” added Prof Vrij.
Prof Vrij continued: “Our research has shown that truths and lies can sound equally plausible as long as lie tellers are given a good opportunity to think what to say. When the opportunity to think becomes less, truths often sound more plausible than lies.”