Here’s How You Can Tell If Someone’s Lying In A Matter Of Seconds

Do you keep falling for the same stupid lies over and over again? (Or maybe you’re the sneaky liar and have come online to find out how not to get caught, eh?)

Whatevs, we won’t judge. Unless you’re lying to your mammy. Then you’re a monster.

Apparently there’s three foolproof signs that someone is lying to you and they’re all revealed in the first few seconds so you have to be pretty quick and pay attention. 

According to Paul Ekman PhD, a psychologist who is a specialist in lying and recognising deceitful behaviour, these are the things you need to look out for. We’re taking mental notes for when our future children try to say they’re “staying in a friend’s house.”

1. They blink rapidly or look from side to side

“This is a physiological reaction to him feeling uncomfortable or trapped by your questions that he doesn’t want to answer,” former FBI agent Mark Bouton says. “It’s a throwback to when people had to seek an escape route when they feared they were in a dangerous situation, such as facing a human or animal adversary.”

2. They start fidgeting or touching their face 

“This is when one body part (usually the hand) manipulates another body part (the other hand, hair, some part of the face or an object). Manipulators include a variety of actions: scratching, picking, squeezing, twisting, tapping, grooming and so forth.”

3. They subconsciously shake or nod their head in the opposite answer of what they’ve just said

Another slip psychologists have found “is a very tiny fragment of the head shake ‘no’ or head nod ‘yes’, directly contradicting the words that are spoken.”

Good to know.

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