Mankind has been endowed with the gift of communication use both verbal and non-verbal means. However, meaningful communication among the people is usually distorted by willful lie and deception. Deception refers to intentional distraction of information between people in a relationship and usually leads to distrust between the partners (Rondina and Workman 1).
It usually involves the violation of rules governing relationships and is regarded to be an outright contravention of what is expected each of the relational party. In any interaction, people expect their close friends, family members, as well as unfamiliar persons to exercise the highest degree of truthfulness. It is unfortunate that human beings have a natural tendency of wanting to deceive in their day to day interactions.
Some forms of deception that may be mentioned include lies, concealments or omissions, understatement which involves limiting truth, equivocations where an individual make contradicting statements, and exaggeration of truth. A lie is the act of claiming to have some information or disseminating or withholding information from an individual (Cullen 2). Usually, the information supplied is farther from the truth. The research paper explores lie and deception from a psychological perspective.
Different groups have realised the need to detect lies and deceptions especially the forensic psychologists, the police, security experts, and those in relationships. A lie refers to a statement that is usually made deliberately with an intention of misleading or deceiving another; it is a deliberate telling of falsehood (Rondina and Workman 3). It is also a form of deception and has been categorised into different types. They include: being economical with the truth, propaganda, bluffing, emergency lie, the big lie, and so forth.
The ability to detect lies and deceptions is a useful skill that any manager, employer, and many activities that help one from either becoming a victim. Psychological researchers have realised that they can investigate individuals suspected of lying. They use both body and language and can tell whether one is telling the truth or not (Cullen 25). It has been established that with objective observation of an individual’s body language by concentrating on the physical gestures as well as the verbal cues, one can tell if a person is lying or not.
A number of physical gestures have been associated with deception and that it is possible to understand the body language. If an individual is being untruthful during communication, the individual’s overt expression will be limited and strained (Cullen 41).
The movement of the arms and hand will also be limited and if any, they would be highly self-centered. They would also not spread their hands when seated on a sofa or leave them on their on when standing.
In other words, the liar will appear to be shrinking into him/herself. Another clear that a person is not telling the truth is that he or she will not make direct eye contact or if made, it would be prolonged. In case of any hand movement, they would be directed towards the face, holding the throat as well as the mouth. Moreover, the individual would be touching their nose or rubbing at the back of their ear (Rondina and Workman 11).
With keen observation, such an individual would not be seen touching the chest with widely opened hand. The standing posture also tells a lot about the truthfulness of what an individual is saying at any particular time and psychologists would read a lot from this.
Psychological researchers in the field of human interactions in relation to lying have also found that emotional gestures can be used to effectively tell whether someone is being truthful (Cullen 49). A close observation of these gestures reveals clear contradictions from what would otherwise be natural expressions.
When one is lying, the timing as well as the duration of emotional signs is usually out of the natural pace. The expression of these emotions may be delayed, or prolonged, and when they end suddenly than one would naturally anticipate (Rondina and Workman 16).
For instance, when someone receives a gift and says “I love it!” in the course of receiving, and smiles later, instead of doing the two concurrently, the person would probably be insincere. On the other hand, there is usually a mismatch between the verbal statements and gestures or expressions when one is lying. A truthful person’s expressions would involve the whole face unlike the one who is telling a lie or faking emotions since the facial expressions would only involve the mouth.
The other way through which one can detect lies is by investigating the behaviour of an individual interactions and how they react. Research findings reveal that a liar would always be on the defensive while an innocent person will always be offensive during interpersonal relationships (Rondina and Workman 30).
Eye contact during interaction also tells a lot; the liar will often avoid direct eye contact with the questioner. A liar is likely to cross his hands over the chest as well as fold the legs; this is an indication that he or she is trying to withhold some information.
This scenario is usually evident during interviews or when police are interrogating a suspect. Liars are more likely to use the words of the questioner when answering. They are also known for avoiding pronouns and introducing other parties into what involves them, for instance:
Police officer: Did you steal the electrical appliances from your neighbor?
Suspect (While facing the ground): No, I did not steal any electrical appliances from my neighbor.
Police officer: Where were you on the night of December 31, 2010?
Suspect (With a raised tone): Even my family members know,…did not do anything evil on that night.
It can be concluded that lying and deception raises moral concern when it comes to interpersonal relationships. The consequences of lying can be so hurting on the victim. People ought to be truthful in whatever they say or do despite the myth that truth is a bitter pill to swallow.
Works Cited
Cullen, Sharon. Understanding Deception. Samhain Plc. 2009: 1- 57
Rondina, Catherine & Workman, Dan. Lying: Deal With It Straight Up. James Lorimer & Co. 2006: 1-32