Deception Tip 96 – Social Influence – How To Detect Deception

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 episode 96 of the Deception Tips podcast. Thank you for listening to this podcast and for continuing to tune in to episode after episode. 

I really hope that you will take a few minutes to go on iTunes or iHeartRadio or wherever you are listening to this podcast and that you would take a couple minutes to leave a review.

Reviews are super important and they really help other people find this podcast and listen to it and learn how to read people and detect deception so that they won’t be taken advantage of by lies. So, if you could do that I greatly appreciate it, also, for your own time, if you would like to check out any of the books that I have.

They will really help you to learn even more about body language and reading people and detecting deception. Thanks again for listening and your continued listening of the Deception Tips podcast. I hope that you are really learning how to read people and detect deception.

Last week, we spoke about something that as a lie spotter or a lie detector, you should avoid doing, it is Overconfidence. You want to avoid being overconfident because then you will start to seem a little bit arrogant or like you know everything that’s going on. People don’t like that, nobody likes to be around a know-it-all or someone who is arrogant and thinks that they’re better than everybody else.

Therefore, when you become over-confident, these people may start to use your lie spotting ability against you by feeding you misinformation, by hiding certain things, or being extra self-conscious. 

They won’t exhibit as many signs of leakage or deception or when they do exhibit these signs, there are a lot less or a lot more hidden than normal people who aren’t on high alert, so to speak.

Therefore, stay humble in your lie spotting ability because the fewer people that know means the better advantage you have of learning and understanding what is really going on in their behavior. Obviously, as you start to read people, you’re going to get to know them a little more, and you’re going to understand a little more about them.

They’re obviously going to know something’s up because how else would you be able to know all this information. They might accuse you of being a stocker or something like that and you’re simply going to say, no, I’m not, I’m just good at reading people then they’re going to know. However, they’re not going to feel like you’re arrogant and cocky with that ability and that is what is important.

Today, we are going to talk about another tip, this one is on the liar, a tip about people when they’re telling lies. Humans are social creatures, we like approval from other people, and we like to feel like we belong. 

We like to feel like we matter, that we’re important, we want to be valued, and we want to be approved by others. It doesn’t really matter about anything else, people simply like to feel like they belong, like they’re important.

If they’re not feeling that way, then they’re going to move on to the next thing until they can feel like they matter. People want to feel like they matter, they want to feel like they belong and that is evident not only in work, in school, or anywhere else but it’s also evident in body language and in lie spotting.

Therefore, when you are detecting deception and spotting lies, take a look around for these types of social influence. Things that show you that people look for approval when they’re telling their stories or when they’re telling their lies or giving an answer. 

You’ll typically see this when people are together, when they’re with a group or if they experienced the same thing and they want to give an answer but they want to look for approval first.

If you have family situations where the child is asked a question and then they look at one of the parents before answering, they’re looking for that approval. So, you’ll see this same behavior, I hope you have a visual of what I’m talking about here because it is important.

It is something to look for and it happens a lot, not necessarily with lying, it just happens in general with that family situation where the child will look at the parent before answering a stranger or something like that. 

‘What’s your name, honey?’ They look at the parent, ‘go ahead, tell him your name’, that kind of a situation, they’re looking for approval before answering. So, that’s what you’re looking for here in deception detection, in this specific tip among liars.

Here it is, this is Deception Tip number 96. Liars often look for approval from others. Watch for signs of social influence such as looking around before giving an answer. Here it is again, Deception Tip number 96. Liars often look for approval from others. Watch for signs of social influence such as looking around before giving an answer.

This is something that is more difficult to notice when you are asking people questions or reading them because if you are interrogating someone one-on-one, there probably aren’t going to be those signs of social influence. 

The only way that there could be is if you have a couple of people in the room with you, maybe your partner, and you’re going to go in there together and ask these questions and get the truth.

Well, maybe they look at your partner before answering for a cue or something like that. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is lying, however, they are looking over there to get a feel for that person before giving you the answer. So, it is in fact a form of social influence or looking for approval but we’re not sure what kind of approval they are looking for.

Are they looking at that person out of fear? Are they looking at that person because that’s the person who they want to speak with? There could be any number of factors. The main thing to remember in this social influence is that there is a battle going on inside of the liar. Remember they’re under a tremendous amount of stress and tension, it’s boiling up inside of them.

They have that battle between the conscious and the unconscious, the conscious wants the lie to be told and wants to get away with the lie and get out of there. Whereas the unconscious, that’s more calm, easy and keeled, it wants the truth to come out. So, it’s going to leak these signs of deception and these truthful behaviors time and time again.

It’s going to hope that your unconscious notices that and then you’re going to feel like something is off. Now that you have been studying body language and deception, you’ve made those unconscious behaviors part of your conscious, and now you will be able to consciously see them. Your conscious and your unconscious are meshed and you will be able to see these signs and make them a part of your conscious.

You’ll know what they mean and now you can read people and detect deception. You’ll be able to look for these social cues and to see them and spot people who are looking for approval from others before they answer. We’re going to talk a little bit more about the social cues and influence and how they may play a role in lies coming up right after this.

Want to be an expert at detecting deception? Download the Deception Tips eBook and swipe through the pages while waiting in line, in the elevator, or anywhere you have a few minutes to spare. Download it today at spencercoffman.com.

Welcome back to episode 96 of the Deception Tips podcast where we are talking about social influence and how liars may look around for a cue or for visual approval before they give their answer. Before they either tell the truth or the lie, they’re looking for that approval or the nod from someone else. Humans want to feel like they belong and they matter and this is one way of them doing that.

When you’re spotting lies, when you’re talking to people, or when you’re in group situations, maybe it’s at a birthday party or a graduation party, or a wedding. You’re speaking with other people and you’re at the table with a group and you’re having conversations about certain things, pay attention to this form of behavior.

It doesn’t necessarily always happen when someone’s lying, it could happen when they’re shy or when they don’t know what to say or they don’t know if it’s okay if the answer. Maybe a parent said to a child, don’t tell a lot of people about X, Y, Z, and then they get asked a question, so they look at the parent, like, what can I tell him? The parent says, yeah, go ahead and then they tell him.

So, look for these signs when you are out and about at different events and gatherings. Watch people and see when they happen, when social influencer, when this looking around before giving an answer happens. Take note and say, well, it happened in such and such circumstance, and then try to think about it. Did I see any other signs of deception? No. Ok.

After this social approval happened, what happened next? Did they start telling a story? Was the story true or was it a lie? Did I see any evidence of either one? Focus on this as the opening factor. So, when you see this happen, start paying attention to whatever is coming next and see if there’s going to be a lie or a truth coming.

Start to build a catalog of cases so that you will know moving forward a little bit more about how this works. You will understand, okay, I saw this social influence 20 times and 15 times after it I saw other signs that indicated that the story that they were telling was a false story. They showed contradictions in behavior, they had vocal slips, and they didn’t use contractions.

They were being defensive or withholding upon further questions, then you’ll know that this social influence, this looking for approval was an opening or a gateway to a fictitious story. On the other hand, you could also notice that in looking for this social approval or the social influence, looking around before giving an answer, in 20 cases, 15 of them were true.

The story that came next was a true story and then you may conclude that, well, when people look around, looking for this approval when giving an answer that they are more apt to tell the truth. Now they’ve been convicted by one of their peers on this story and given the approval to go ahead and tell the truth.

So, that’s what I want you to pay attention to and to look around because it can be different in your area, it can be different depending on the situation. People may look for an approval to tell a lie or people may look for an approval to tell the truth. The bottom line is that humans want to belong, we want the approval from others. If it takes a lie to do that, then a lot of people are going to lie.

For example, how much do you make in a year? Well, a lot of people greatly exaggerate that amount. Do you like your job? Oh yeah, my job is great, I got a great house, I got this, I’m doing this, I’m not in any debt. 

A lot of people talk about their social status like they’re happy with it, like it’s no big deal, it’s not overwhelming them. Their bills are paid, they’re happy, they’re set, everything is good.

However, the vast majority of the population is not okay. In fact, there are some studies that have been out, they’re a little data now, 10 years, but they said that if people needed to come up with $600, $600 one time. 

Their car broke, they need $600, 80% of the people cannot do it. You can Google that, take a look at that study, there are going to be tons of other surveys and studies out and about relating to that same thing.

It is a sad situation and a lot of people lie about that and about their standing and social status. They want that approval from others, so they tell these lies and they look for this approval from others in other situations and circumstances. Therefore, that’s what you should watch for, also, remember to watch for other signs of deception.

You’ve learned 96 of them, pay attention to all of these social cues and pay attention to all of these different signs. Put them together, make patterns and clusters of behavior, and continue studying with the Deception Tips videos, books, and other materials out there. There are so many different things you can use to learn more about reading people and detecting deception so that you will not be taken advantage of by lies.

You obviously know this is important because you’ve stuck around long enough, for 96 episodes. Therefore, share this with a few people in your circle, allow them to listen to this podcast, and to start reading people and detecting deception because you believe it’s important, so share it with others as well.

I want to thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Deception Tips podcast. I really do 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.

Hey guys, my name is Spencer Coffman, thank you for watching the Deception Tips videos. They’re 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 have a cool tip to talk about, it’s more of a tactic that you can use as a conversational piece, it’s something that people will always go for.

So, here it is, this is Deception Tip number 96. Liars often look for approval from others. Watch for signs of social influence such as looking around before giving an answer. So, here it is, social influence. When people are talking, are in conversation in general, when there are other people around, someone is always looking for approval from someone else.

People always want to be validated or to be looked happily upon when they do something. It’s like in sports, you see kids when they make a good play, they catch a ball or they score a goal, they look around to see who was watching. Did they see me do that because I just did something great? They want to be noticed. It’s the same way when people are telling lies.

If there are other people around, maybe before they tell the lie, they might look around then tell the lie. Like, is somebody watching me tell this lie? The other scenario would be if there’s a parent and a child and someone asks the child a question, they might look to the parent for permission to give that lie. “Oh, do you like the gift that grandma gave you?” They might look at mom or dad and then like yeah, say yes.

“Yeah, I loved it, thank you so much.” They’re looking for approval for that lie, like I know you told me mom not to lie but you also said to be nice to Grandma. So, they look up and get the approval from someone around them, so it’s like a social awareness, its social influence. People always like approval from others.

The other thing this does for people who are lying, like in the child example when they look to their parent to say hey, is it okay if I lie about this because I really hate the sweater that I received? They’re looking almost like to pass the blame. For example, they look and then the parent gives that verbal nod, like yeah, just tell them that you like it and we can take it back later.

They lie about it and say they like it but if grandma were to say “Oh, I know you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else.” The kid won’t feel guilty about it unconsciously because they received permission from their parent to tell that lie. It’s like they passed the blame and people love doing that.

All through growing up people always like to blame someone else for anything that happens to them that’s not good. Any problem they have it’s always passing the blame. They hit a tree with their car, it’s the tree’s fault, it’s not their fault. It’s really their fault but no one likes to admit that, everybody likes to pass the blame and that’s what this is.

By social influence, they’re looking around, they’re hoping to either get some confirmation that it’s okay for them to lie so they don’t feel responsible or they’re looking around to make sure no one sees them so they feel convicted in their lie. Like oh, I didn’t have a choice, they can pass that blame somewhere else. Remember that people are always motivated to never take responsibility for, especially, negative actions or anything bad that they do, they always want to blame someone else.

That’s something that you can use when lie-spotting, you can just keep looking out and when you see this type of behavior usually, it’s almost always someone looking around. So, if someone looks before giving an answer, where are they looking, who are they looking at and why are they looking there? Answer those questions and you will know whether or not it’s something where they received some kind of social influence and its deception or if it’s something completely unrelated in general.

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 books, podcasts, and blog posts all available on spencercoffman.com that are dedicated to teaching you exactly what every body is really saying.

Until next time.