Deception Tip 98 - How To Detect Deception - A Guide To Deception - Author Spencer Coffman
 

Deception Tip 98:

When dealing with pathological liars, lies will look normal and truths may look like lies. This is because they feel more comfortable telling lies than truths.

 

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E98 – Truths Like Lies – Deception Tips Podcast – Click Here To Subscribe

Podcast Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Deception Tips podcast where you will learn amazing cues to detect deceit that will help you read people like never before. I’m your host Spencer Coffman, let’s get started.

Hello and welcome to Deception Tip episode number 98. We are almost finished with these deception tips, we’ve got a few episodes left and then we’ll be wrapping it up. 

So, I encourage you to stick it out, and let’s get to the end. Continue to learn about detecting deception through other means, whether it’s the videos, or maybe you want to re-listen to the podcasts.

We’ve got Deception Tips emails, we also have the blog and books, so check those out and continue studying and learning how to read people and detect deception. 

Last week, we spoke about how you can keep liars talking because it’s important to keep them talking. Obviously, because the more they talk the more likely it is that they are going to get to the truth.

They are going to trip up somewhere over their lies and then you will be able to find out where they’re lying and what they may be lying about. So, keep them talking by reflecting statements back to them as questions, so you’re going to identify with their feelings. You’re going to identify with what they’re doing and push that back on them in the form of a question.

This isn’t a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question that you want to bring back to them. Remember, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions require one answer and that would be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If there’s anything other than that then usually something’s up because it’s very simple. Remember Deception Tip number 25, we talked about that with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

You want to reflect them back to them in the form of a narrative response or an open-ended question that allows them to continue to speak to you and talk about whatever it is you reflected back to them. Remember liars like it when they feel like they relate to you, they like it even better when they feel like you relate to them.

So, if you can make that happen a little bit and then they will be even more likely to continue speaking to you. We talked about that in Deception Tip number 84, Relating Language. How, if they think you guys have something in common, they may be more apt to continue to speak to you or to open up to you a little more.

You guys have stuff in common, why wouldn’t they talk to you, they want to talk to you. So, it’s very interesting how you put all this together and how you use it will help you determine the best course of action in each situation. Keep them all in mind and keep in mind that it is important to reflect things back to people.

I hope you practice it even in your everyday conversation with people who weren’t lying because it’s something that you can do when people are speaking. 

You can take whatever they’ve said and internalize it for a second and rephrase it and send it back to them in the form of a question and people are going to be like, wow, that’s interesting.

Well, they’re going to be like that because they haven’t heard it from you before. It sounds like you care a lot more than maybe you previously did. So, those kinds of things, they really do help and they are important in conversation and deception detection.

Today, we are going to talk about another tip, this is more of a type of person that you would be dealing with. It is a difference in personality and behavior all in general because they are wired differently than quote, unquote normal people. They are somewhat of an anomaly, a rare breed, however, they are out there.

To actually be diagnosed with this is rare but there are people who mirror or have a lot of these tendencies, so you may experience them more often than you think. We have talked about them before in episode 94, Pathological Liars, so we’re dealing with people who pathologically lie.

In 94, we said that they may not exhibit signs of deception because they’re so used to lying. Today, we’re going to talk about how their signs of deception may not be signs of deception at all, they may be signs of the truth because they are uncomfortable when telling the truth.

I know it was mentioned in episode 94 that that is a possibility and we talked a little bit about it. This time, we’re going to get a little more in-depth on it and we are going to dive into why that would happen and how it works with their conscious and their unconscious. 

Why it would be the opposite and how you could tell that they are the way they are so that you won’t get confused and think that they’re a quote, unquote normal person simply telling lies when in fact it’s the truth.

So, here it is, this is Deception Tip number 98. When dealing with pathological liars, lies will look normal and truths may look like lies. This is because they feel more comfortable telling lies than truth. Here it is again, Deception Tip number 98. When dealing with pathological liars, lies will look normal and truths may look like lies. This is because they feel more comfortable telling lies than truth.

You can get an understanding right there, their lies will look normal, that’s because they are so comfortable telling them, it’s normal for them. Pathological liars, by definition, are going to lie pathologically, they’re going to be lying all the time, that’s just who they are. They like to tell these lies, it’s every single minute of every single day, it just keeps coming out.

It’s not necessarily harmful to other people, they don’t have that intention. Some of them do and some of their lies do, but in general, they are not out there looking to harm people with their lies. 

They’re simply lying because that’s who they are and they feel like it’s not a super huge deal and it’s minor and they can just keep telling lies and that’s it, nothing to it.

It’s interesting that they believe that but it’s how they’re wired and it’s how they behave. So, when you’re dealing with these people, your questioning should be a little bit different. You need to pay attention to a baseline behavior and notice that no behavior exists. Obviously, some behavior does exist but it’s going to be limited.

In addition, when you start seeing these signs of deception and other things that you think maybe deception, you need to know, wait a minute, I know this person lies all the time because I’ve just been talking to them. 

Then you can start to recognize that truths may be happening if they’re feeling or displaying these signs of leakage. We’re going to talk more about it and why that’s happening and the conflict in their minds compared to quote, unquote normal people’s minds coming up right after this.

Not only can you listen to these deception tips, you can also watch a quick video explaining each one. Subscribe to the body language YouTube channel today.

Welcome back to Deception Tip episode number 98 where we are talking about pathological liars and how when they lie, they may not exhibit signs of deception and when they tell the truth, they may exhibit those signs. Obviously, they’re not going to be called signs of deception but that’s what they are known to you as because that’s what we’ve been learning and talking about.

They will exhibit them when they tell the truth if they are uncomfortable or if it is an uncomfortable truth for them to tell. The reason this is happening, remember in the brain, there are two essential sides to this battle, there’s the conscious and there’s the unconscious. These sides are battling head to head in a fight to the death to either have the truth come out or a lie comes on.

The conscious wants the lie to be told because it is more self-serving protective, selfish, etc. The unconscious wants the truth to be told because it is very truthful and it wants others to know the truth. 

Therefore, it leaks all of these signs that we’ve been talking about, it lets them slip out unconsciously. They are out there for people to see if they can see them but the unconscious is now happy because it is telling the truth.

Unfortunately, many people do not know how to see it, so the conscious is very happy because it’s telling the lie and more people are believing lies than truths because most people are only conscious. Well, of course, they’re conscious because if they’re unconscious then obviously they’re unconscious, they’re not awake or aware.

The goal is to take these unconscious signs and behaviors and bring them into your conscious, so you will be able to see when they happen on other people. When someone’s unconscious is leaking these signs, you will notice them in a part of your conscious and your unconscious will become one.

So, your conscious and unconscious will start working together to notice these unconscious behaviors, that is the goal in all of this. If you take someone who is a pathological liar, they still have that battle going on except that battle is confused. Instead of the conscious and unconscious fighting and one wanting the truth and one wanting a lie.

It’s more like the conscious and the unconscious are messed up, essentially, they’re already working together. So, the conscious is telling these lies all the time but it also has the unconscious convinced that these lies are normal. So, instead of their unconscious wanting the truth like a quote, unquote normal person’s unconscious, their unconscious doesn’t, it doesn’t know what it wants.

Therefore, when this pathological liar is telling these lies over and over again, the unconscious is just sitting passively like, I’m completely comfortable, I don’t mind that these lies are being told because I don’t know that they’re lies. I think they’re the truth because I believe they’re the truth, that’s what I’ve been told. So, essentially what’s happened is the conscious has won, and the battle is over.

The conscious has defeated the unconscious and the whole thing goes to pathological and that’s a pathological liar. In certain circumstances when the conscious is starting to tell the truth or when people are pinning it down in a conversation and talking to this pathological liar, they get things that are truthful and maybe a little bit uncomfortable then some signs of leakage may occur.

Why would this happen? If the conscious has won, what difference does it make? Well, it makes a difference because they’re at peace, they’re on the wrong side of peace because they’re telling lies all the time but the conscious and unconscious are not battling like crazy in a pathological liar.

What happens is when this pathological liar starts, to tell the truth, the unconscious says, wait a minute, something is not right, this isn’t normal. This isn’t the normal way that I feel, this isn’t the normal way that we behave, so it’s going to start fighting and now a battle is going to start. The battle between the conscious and the unconscious is going to continue until the conscious goes back to what the baseline or normal behavior is.

Therefore, the pathological liar will sometimes display these signs of leakage when they are telling the truth. Again, that’s when the unconscious realizes that something’s not normal, it’s a different behavior, it’s a deviation from baseline. So, it’s going to start fighting back and leaking these different signs of deception, that’s because it believes that it is being deceptive.

It’s different from normal, it’s not the regular baseline behavior, hey, wait a minute, we always do this, we always say these things, we always do this, we’re very careful. 

Now, all of a sudden, we’re doing something else I don’t believe that it’s true, I don’t believe that’s what we’re supposed to do. So, I’m going to fight back and leak these signs so that other people call us out on it and that’s what’s going on.

If you reverse that scenario and put it into a non-pathological liar or a quote, unquote, normal person then that’s what’s happening too. We have the conscious having a normal baseline behavior of telling the truth and maybe some polite or socialized here and there, but it’s generally a truthful behavior.

Then we have a lie coming out and the conscious is telling this lie and the unconscious is saying, wait a minute, this is a deviation from our normal behavior, I need to fight with this and leak some signs and hope that other people pick it up and find the truth, so keep this in mind when you’re detecting deception.

Some people who pathologically lie may not exhibit these signs and they may exhibit them when they’re telling the truth. How do you know if someone is a pathological liar? It is from the baseline behavior, so you need to get to know them, you need to have a little conversation with them and see if they’re telling lies like crazy or if they are not.

You’ll know based upon their behaviors, what they’re saying, and your knowledge of whatever it is you’re talking about to determine whether they are always lying and trying to pull the wool over you or if they are a non-pathological liar. So, this is at your discretion and your interpretation, use all of the tools and tips you’ve learned to help you with that.

I want to thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Deception Tips podcast. I hope that you’ll share it with your friends, subscribe to the feed, check out the Deception Tips videos, the blog and take a look at the books I have available, and, as always, tune in next week for a new deception tip.

Video Transcript

Hey guys, my name is Spencer Coffman, thank you for watching the Deception Tips videos. They’re all about how to read people and detect deception so that you will be able to tell if someone is lying to you. Today, we’re going to talk about an abnormality in the deception detection world. This is a personality trait or display of people who may not be normal, so they’re abnormal.

They may have a disorder, they might be sick, you never know but it’s not the norm, so these are the outliers or the people that are way outside the bell curve, remember a bell curve. Then we’ve got some people over here that may lie a ton, some people that don’t lie at all and then everybody else in the middle at that high point. So, this is about those outliers who may lie a lot and how they display their behaviors.

So, here it is, this is a Deception Tip number 98. When dealing with pathological liars, lies will look normal and truths may look like lies. This is because they feel more comfortable telling lies than truths. There are a couple of differences here, so first off pathological liars, these guys are not normal, they feel more comfortable telling lies than the truth.

This is because they’ve grown up all the time only telling lies, no one has ever told them it was wrong. We spoke about pathological liars in a previous deception tip, number 94, you’ll see that pop up above here. Maybe no one ever told them lying was wrong, maybe they just didn’t listen, either way, they have lied so often and so much that now their unconscious and conscious aren’t battling anymore.

It’s like the lying conscious overtook the unconscious and now the unconscious is like, well, lying is normal so when they lie, I don’t need to do anything. However, if the truth may look like the lie it’s because now the unconscious says wait a minute, this isn’t normal, something is wrong, you don’t normally do this, I don’t feel right. So, now it displays some signs of leakage because this person is telling the truth and they normally don’t tell the truth.

It’s not in little insignificant things, it may be in things that are a little bit more serious, things like, how are you doing today or do you like my haircut, those types of polite or social conversations and small talk, they’re not going to display leakage. They would only display leakage if it’s something heavy, something serious, something major in their life or in the lives of others that’s affecting them that when they tell this truth it might look like a lie.

It’s important for you to watch for patterns and clusters of behavior and then also to determine how they are normally. Hopefully, you will know that this person might be a pathological liar. You may have gotten some kind of inclination that they are lying a lot and that when you speak to them you have to sift through what they’re saying.

It’s very important to get a great baseline behavior because if you don’t have that good baseline behavior you’ll never know whether or not the truth is a lie or their lie is a lie, that is what you really need to focus on. So, with pathological liars and with anyone in general, a baseline is a very good thing. A baseline is something like you ask them some questions that you already know whether or not they’re true.

You may ask them their name, you may ask them what they did yesterday, you may ask them what they’re wearing. Certain things that you can verify instantly that you know whether or not they’re true or false. That way, whatever answer they give you, you can pay attention to and say, well, wait a minute, all those answers they gave me were true, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Wait a minute, all those answers they gave me are false and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so it’s one or the other. Normal people, if they give you a lot of true answers, nothing should be out of the ordinary. These pathological people, if they give you a lot of true answers, you might say, wait a minute, all those answers were true yet they displayed a lot of weird signs, maybe this person is a pathological liar and they’re more comfortable telling lies than truths.

So, that’s something you need to sift out, just remember that these people are outliers, they are not the norm. Most people are right in the middle of that bell curve and then there are very few people over on one side that are pathological liars, they lie all the time and they’re very comfortable with it. Then there are some people that pretty much never lie, most people are in the middle, so you don’t need to worry about this, you simply need to be aware.

So, if this is your first time watching these videos, I’d love to have you subscribe to the channel on YouTube. Feel free to comment with any questions you may have as well. Also, if you’d like some more information, we have bookspodcasts, and blog posts all available on spencercoffman.com that are dedicated to teaching you exactly what every body is really saying.

Until next time.

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