Body Language & Lying
When you watch someone's body language, lying is harder for them to perpetrate without getting caught. Especially if you know the person well, you know what their typical mannerisms are, and you can usually tell when something is amiss.
In studying body language, lying affects the way a person acts and interacts, because usually when people lie, they are under some type of stress. Facial expression and body language are excellent barometers, but they're not always accurate. The best that these barometers can do is to make you leery that the person may not be telling you the total truth.
To determine if someone is lying to you, watch their mannerisms and see if they look “right” to you or not. When “normal” people are trying to lie, they generally reveal stress signs in their mannerisms, the way they are standing, and their facial expressions. If they are telling you something the way they want it to be, then sometimes they can be telling you the way they wish things were. It's not as easy to tell if they are lying, because they don't feel as much stress in these circumstances.
As a general rule, though, if there is a change in someone's body language, lying may be its source. Watch how long they take to answer questions you ask them, too. If their response is delayed by several seconds, that may be an untruthful answer. As a rule, answers that speak of the truth are quicker off the lips than lies are.
Some things to watch for, to see if a person you are speaking to is lying, include:
- Stiffer carriage of body and facial countenance
- Flaring of nostrils
- A higher pitch in voice
- Touching of hands to face, particularly covering of mouth and rubbing of nose
- Lips may become tighter and thinner
- Forehead looks tighter above the nose, between the eyes
- Hands and face look pale as blood flow doesn't reach extremities
- Lack of eye contact
- Deeper breathing
- Palms of hand are not open, but instead are closed or down
- Shoulders may be tight and elbows as well, lessening the space the body takes up.
Whether you are aware of it or not, body language, lying or when speaking the truth, is noticed by others. Almost everyone has lied before; when they feel that it is serving a need they perceive. We call them “fibs” or “white lies” when we do it ourselves. In some cases, we just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. In other cases, we don't want to do something, so we pretend we already have other plans. Sometimes we lie to make ourselves feel more important. Sometimes we lie to make others feel good, or to make ourselves look good.
Body language, lying or not, says as much as we say with our speech.