
Deception Tip 64:
In some cases, liars may rephrase the question and then answer it. This is done to give them more time to think about their lie.
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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. Iโm your host and Spencer Coffman, letโs get started.
Hello and welcome to Deception Tips podcast episode number 64. The last time, we spoke of a behavior that happens on the lips, we talked about a kind of primate creature and how humans sometimes make their lips look like those dudes when they are lying.ย
It is an attempt to pacify themselves or release some stress or tension because as you know, stress and tension are very popular when people lie.
When they lie, they are under tremendous amounts of stress and tension, donโt believe me? Go out there and try to tell a lie to your boss, a big lie, or your parents or something like that, and see if you donโt feel a little different or a little awkward.ย
Then obviously make sure you straighten out the situation and say it was a social experiment and then you will know that when people lie, they are very stressed and tense.
If that isnโt enough, take a look at all the evidence weโve discussed and all of the things that happen when people lie, and they are all symptoms of your body being stressed and tense.ย
So, we spoke of โChimpanzee Lipsโ last week and how when people are lying, they may exhale or push their lips out a little bit more like a chimpanzee. That also went along with another tip that we spoke of quite a while ago when they might pop up their cheeks like a pufferfish or a blowfish and then exhale through pursed lips and this was back in episode 46.
Overall, weโve had quite a few different lip episodes, to hear them all youโll have to listen to last weekโs episode where I recapped them. You can really understand that the lips are a popular place for lying and among bodily leakage or deception leakage where the unconscious leaks that nonverbal behavior. They are because that is a central point when you talk to someone, youโre most likely watching the eyes, the lips, or the face.
The conscious really does its best to try to hide micro-expressions and other things muscularly on the face. However, the lips are something that it doesnโt quite do as good of a job with because we have to breathe, we have to speak, and we need our lips to do both.ย
We really donโt need our lips to breathe, but itโs part of the breathing process, so it goes unnoticed by the conscious because it is primarily an unconscious behavior.
Breathing is already unconscious, so itโs very easy for the unconscious to get away with leakage in breathing or in actions related to breathing because the conscious already knows that itโs going on.ย
Itโs unconscious, I donโt have to mess with breathing, so then some little deception leakage can get slipped right into the breathing patterns and the unconscious doesnโt even notice, so thatโs that.
Today we are switching gears, weโre going to talk about a tip related to speaking and voice. Now, weโve had quite a few of these already, weโve talked about them several times over the course of our 64 episodes of the Deception Tips podcast, but you probably already know what this episode is about. Hopefully, youโve read the books, youโve checked out the blog, etc.
Today, we are talking about how liars will use a stalling tactic to give themselves a little bit more time to think about and plan their lie. Something is important to mention here that they arenโt really buying more time to think about and plan their lie because chances are their lie has already been thought about, it is already been planned. What they are doing is giving themselves a little bit extra time to calm down so that they can deliver their lie.
It is buying extra time, they are thinking about the lie, but theyโre not prepping it. What theyโre doing is taking a breath, calming down, getting ready to deliver that lie, and giving themselves a little bit of a mental break or a little bit of a breather, so that they can do that properly and effectively according to them.ย
This amount of time isnโt really a lot, itโs maybe a second or two, but nonetheless, it really helps out unconsciously and consciously in the mind to give them that breather.
So, here it is, this is deception tip number 64. In some cases, liars may rephrase the question and then answer it. This is done to give them more time to think about their lie. Here it is again, deception tip number 64. In some cases, liars may rephrase the question and then answer it. This is done to give them more time to think about their lie.
Something is important to say here, again, theyโre not thinking of planning their lie, but theyโre thinking about it. So, if theyโve prepped this lie and theyโre really nervous about it, obviously theyโre stressed, theyโre tense, things are going on and they are planning and preparing and all of this stuff, and they get up to the point of delivery and they freeze, they stopped, they donโt know what to do.
So, someone asked them the question and what they do in order to help get the thing flowing, like when you have a dead battery or your car isnโt working properly and you say, we just got to get it going.ย
So, you start to roll it and then you roll-start your car, similar concepts, youโre just starting to roll their minds, so they repeat that question, which then gets them going.
Now theyโre starting to talk, theyโre getting in, theyโre loosening up, theyโre easing and boom they can just go right in with their lie. So, thatโs something to watch for when they repeat the question and then answer it, we know somethingโs going on. It is some sort of a stalling or delaying tactic.
As I said, weโve talked about this in a similar manner before and it was quite a while ago, it was deception tip number 43 โRepeat the Questionsโ. So, today weโre on, โRephrase the Questionโ then we were on โRepeat the Questionโ. This specifically states that a liar will use stalling tactics such as asking for the question to be repeated or rephrased.
So, in this instance, the liar is not doing the repeating or the rephrasing, theyโre asking for the repeat or the rephrased such as, could you repeat the question? Something like that, because now they are getting another three or four seconds while someone repeats the question.ย
Then they get a pause of a couple of seconds plus they had the pause prior to repeating the question and they had the question. So, now they have a total of 10 extra seconds to plan that delivery.
In this one today where they rephrase the question and then answer it, they can still have all those pauses, plus they have control of rephrasing that question and then saying, is that what you mean? So, this will actually buy them about 15, maybe even 20 more seconds in that conversation.
So weโre going to talk a lot more about the different examples that may happen, some of the different examples that may happen because there are endless and some of the reasons why this may help and how you can watch for it, things like that, coming up right after this.
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Welcome back to deception tip number 64, where we are talking about rephrasing the question. How are liars when they are asked a question, they may pause and then rephrase that question to give themselves a little bit more time to calm down, prepare, and think about the reason, for their lie. Theyโre giving themselves a little bit more time, they need to be calm, they need to prepare, and they need to have that mental break.
So, they are going to rephrase that question to buy time. What does this look like? Letโs walk through an entire situation, so be ready, here we go, the next 20 seconds or so is going to be this example.ย
Did you steal my money out of my bedroom? What? Do you want to know if I took your money? Yes, thatโs what I said. That was a very short example of how this would go and typically when liars rephrase questions, itโs going to be a longer question.
Did you steal the money out of my bedroom? Do you want to know if I took your money? Those are very short, theyโre saying in two seconds or less. When someone rephrases the question, itโs probably going to be a longer question.ย
Where were you on Saturday, December X, Y, Z at two oโclock in the afternoon? Thatโs a longer question, thereโre a lot more details in the question so then the liar would say, โLetโs see, you want to know where I was at two oโclock on Saturday, December, what did you say?โ
Then theyโll, โOkay, on the X, Y, Z date, the 20th? Okay, letโs see, where was I?โ Then theyโve bought another 10, 15 seconds of time because theyโve rephrased it, theyโve pointed it back to the questioner, then the questioner gives them another detail, repeating the question. Then they say, okay, letโs see where I was and ask it again, so now theyโve got all this stuff going and theyโre buying more time.
What this does is it gets the questioner, or the target has two things happen with them, they either get very frustrated because theyโre not being answered, or they start becoming engaged, and then they start listening and being won over by the liar. So, this is something that you need to really watch out for because if you are the type that gets either one of those, itโs not good.
If you get frustrated, then youโre going to let your emotions start to dictate what youโre seeing and what youโre doing, which means you may not be getting the truth. If you get won over by the liar, then youโre definitely not going to see the truth because youโre starting to be won over by them.
Why would this happen? Well, people would get frustrated because of the evasiveness of the answer, how they are never answering the question, theyโre just dodging it. So, people can get frustrated with that, then how would they get won over?
Well, they can get won over because if the lair is having a conversation with the target, even though nothingโs really getting answered, the target may feel like theyโre getting somewhere because the liar is talking.
Theyโre getting somewhere, theyโre rephrasing my question, theyโre asking me, Iโm giving them answers. Psychologically, when people help other people, they trust them more, they like them more.ย
So, thatโs a little bit of a tip, if you can get someone to help you, they automatically trust you a little bit more. This is something simple, spill your glass at the restaurant or the bar or spill a little bit when youโre taking a drink and ask someone for a napkin, and theyโll help you out.
Now, they will automatically trust you a little bit more than if you were to help them, people like helping other people and it gives them a connection. So, when a liar target is going on and the liar is asking the target again for certain details in the question, the target is going to feel like theyโre helping the liar out and then they will believe them a little bit more.ย
So, that is something definitely to watch out for it and obviously it wonโt happen in every situation, in every circumstance, but it is something that can happen.
Frustration is also bad, why would that happen? We went over it a little bit, but Iโm going to get a little bit more into it. You need to avoid frustration because when a liar is toying around with your questions and not getting to the point or not answering them, that can be frustrating. What you need to do is allow it to run its course and then do the same to the liar because they will get a lot more frustrated, a lot faster than you will.
So, when they finally do give an answer, you twist it and make it something else and show them that youโre playing that same game, they will become frustrated because now theyโll feel like, wait a minute, youโre incriminating me, youโre doing this. Theyโll feel like theyโre not being heard, so then they are going to want to talk and tell you the truth.
Now, all of a sudden, youโve put words in their mouth, youโve got the situation all wrong, youโre an idiot. Theyโre going to correct you because they want to make sure that their side of the story is heard and if you can make them feel like that, then they will most likely end up slipping up and telling you the truth, which is what you want anyway. So, even if they think for a little while that you donโt know what youโre talking about, so be it.
Youโre after the truth, youโre not there to impress that person, at least I hope not, so that is something to watch out for when people rephrase the question. Remember, this could take on a few different forms in that the liar can rephrase the question. They could also, as we talked about before, they could also ask for the question to be rephrased or repeated.
So, thatโs two methods of stalling right there, they can either do it themselves so that they would have a little bit more control and then they could pause, they could slow down, or they can ask for it to be rephrased or repeated. It could happen multiple times, they could say the question, they donโt have to say it twice, they could say it three or four times.
They could ask you to repeat it two or three times, then they could ask you to rephrase it or say it differently. It could be a long process depending on how confident the liar is, so anytime you hear someone repeat the question or rephrase the question or ask for it to be repeated or rephrased, pay attention to other nonverbal behaviors that may occur.
I want to thank you for listening to this weekโs episode of the Deception Tips podcast. I hope that youโll share it with your friends, subscribe to the feed, check out the deception tips videos, the blog, 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 theย deception tips videos, theyโre all about teaching you how to read people and detect deception so that you will be able to tell if someone is lying to you. Today, we are going to talk about a deception that is giving the liar more time to think and consider their lie, theyโre planning it, this is a stalling tactic or a delaying gesture.
Itโs something that someone will do when theyโre lying to give themselves a little bit more time and a little bit more peace to plan that and deliver that lie. Weโre not talking a lot of time here, this could be a second or two, itโs something that is simply just a mental break. Itโs one of those things that doesnโt require a lot of time but itโs just the control of the situation that gives them that peace.
It allows them to believe that theyโre in control and that they can do this and that they know whatโs going to happen and they can say this lie and that someoneโs going to believe it and theyโre going to get away with whatever it is. Hopefully, thatโs not the case, youโre hopefully going to catch them in this, thatโs why youโre learning about this tip today.
This is what theyโre thinking, this is whatโs going through their mind whether itโs consciously or unconsciously. So, here it is, this is deception tip number 64. In some cases, liars may rephrase the question and then answer it. This is done to give them more time to think about their lie. Weโve talked about this before in a different deception tip episode.
This was also talked about in Deception Tip episode number 43, where we had them repeat the question. So, this was where the liar was asking for the question to be rephrased or repeated, in this one, the liar is actually repeating or rephrasing the question themselves.
For example, if Iโm talking to you and trying to get the truth from you then you say, โCould you repeat the question, please?โ Then I would repeat the question to you to give you some time to answer. Thatโs also a stalling tactic, itโs delaying because in the amount of time, well first you waited then you ask for the question to be repeated. I repeated the question then you waited a little bit more and then gave the answer.
That could be about a five-second period, maybe even a little longer, five to ten. Again, not a lot of time but it was enough for the liar to feel like they had control of that situation. In this circumstance, it could be even longer than that because if youโre asking me a question, the ball is in my court. So, you asked me this question, then I could sit here and pause for a few seconds.
Iโm not going to pause for a few seconds because it would be kind of strange in this video, but I could pause then I could repeat the question either verbatim or I could rephrase it in my own words and say it back to you. Then I could even wait for you to confirm, โYes, so whatโs your answer?โ That could take even longer then I would think about it again or I could say, โWell, let me think about itโ and stall even a little bit longer and then gives that answer.
So, here weโre talking, this could be drawn out for about a 30 second period before someone gets frustrating and say, โCome on, give me the answer alreadyโ. The point is, this is a stalling tactic, itโs a delaying tactic that is done to give whoever is answering the question a little bit more time.
Whether itโs more time to frustrate someone, to think of an answer, to better plan it, prepare for it or calm their nerves so that they can mask any of the unconscious behavior thatโs coming out, you donโt know, it could be for any number of those reasons. It doesnโt necessarily mean that the person is lying or being deceptive, but it also could mean that they have something that they are hiding.
So, you need to watch for other patterns and clusters of behavior that could go along with that. Ask them the question again, maybe in a different way, see how they respond, there are all kinds of other strategies that you can use to find out whether or not they are telling the truth.
So, if this is your first time watching these videos, Iโd love to have youย subscribe to the channel on YouTube, feel free to comment with any questions as well. Also, if youโd like some more information,ย there are books,ย podcasts, andย blog posts, all available onย spencercoffman.comย that are 100% dedicated to teaching you exactly what every body is really saying.
Until next time.