THE BODY LANGUAGE OF LIARS THE BODY LANGUAGE OF LIARS FROM LITTLE WHITE LIES TO PATHOLOGICAL DECEPTION How to See Through the Fibs, Frauds, and Falsehoods People Tell You Every Day LILLIAN GLASS, PHD Best-selling author of Toxic People Copyright © 2014 by Lillian Glass All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press. THE BODY LANGUAGE OF LIARS EDITED BY KIRSTEN DALLEY LAYOUT AND DESIGN BY KARA KUMPEL Cover design by Brad Foltz/Foltz Design Printed in the U.S.A. To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press. The Career Press, Inc. 220 West Parkway, Unit 12 Pompton Plains, NJ 07444 www.careerpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP Data Available Upon Request. To anyone who has ever felt shock, emotional pain, or heartache after discovering that someone whom you trusted with all your heart, lied to you. May the pages of this book give you all of the information you will ever need to quickly decipher and unveil who is real and who is phony, who is telling you the truth and who is lying to you. May what you learn in this book provide you with peace of mind, less stress, and more confidence in your life. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge my two precious muses—my beautiful, brilliant, and charismatic mom, Rosalee Glass (“Miss Congeniality”), and my precious, cuddly, incredibly smart baby goldendoodle, Annabella Glass, both of whom always make me smile and count my blessings. Thank you for making my writing breaks fun. And thank you to my dear literary agent, Paula Munier; to Career Press; and to Jennifer White at Splash News and Mary Velasco at Getty Images, for their assistance in the use of the celebrity photos throughout this book. CONTENTS Introduction Part I: Encountering the Liar: Who Lies, and Why? Chapter 1: What Is a Lie? Chapter 2: The Price of a Lie Chapter 3: The Evolution of a Liar: Why Animals (Yes, Animals!), Children, and Young People Lie Chapter 4: The Seven Reasons Adults Lie Chapter 5: Cyber Liars Part II: Human Lie Detection Chapter 6: Instincts and Context Chapter 7: The Body Language of a Liar Chapter 8: The Facial Language of a Liar Chapter 9: The Voice of a Liar: Pitch, Volume, Tone, and Pacing Chapter 10: Speech Content: It’s Not Just Words Chapter 11: Your Lying Eyes: Lovers Who Cheat and Deceive Chapter 12: A Profile of the Most Toxic Liar of All—The Psychopath/Sociopath Conclusion: The Catharsis of Discovery Index About the Author INTRODUCTION Being fooled, conned, duped, or just plain lied to can happen to anyone. It doesn’t matter how smart, old, rich, or famous you are. Almost everyone at one point in their life, and in one way or another, has been the victim of a liar— someone who has withheld the truth or given them false information. Whether you have been unfortunate enough to have met up with someone who has scammed you in business; swindled you out of money; betrayed you by spreading falsehoods; stolen your lover, husband, or wife; conned you over the Internet, or “catfished” you by purporting to be someone they were not—rest assured that you are not alone. The world is full of these most toxic of people, the liar. When you find out that someone whom you once trusted, loved, or respected deceived you, a myriad of strong emotions can arise. These emotions range from feeling shocked, hurt, depressed, sad, and/or angry—sometimes all of them at once. You wonder whom you can really trust or whether you can ever trust again. You even tend to question your own judgment. You may even beat yourself up emotionally as you constantly ask yourself why you didn’t see the signs of their lies well ahead of time. But realistically speaking, how could you have seen the signs if you didn’t know what signs to look for? How could you have known that your spouse was cheating on you, that a suitor you met over the internet was a phony, that your housekeeper was stealing from you, or that your babysitter was neglecting (or worse, abusing) your child? How could you have known that your boss was full of it when he said your performance was great, only to fire you the next day? How could you have possibly known that your coworker was badmouthing you behind your back, or that your employee was bilking funds from the petty cash? How could you have been able to tell that your closest friend was being insincere when she told you that marrying your troubled boyfriend was a great idea? What signals did you miss when your son swore he never experimented with drugs, only to find his bong and a stash of pot under his bed later? How do you know whether you can trust what you read in the media about certain newsmakers? Is that celebrity couple really in love, or is their relationship merely a PR ploy? How can you be sure your political leaders are telling you the truth, or that those on the world stage aren’t really lying to you? Researcher and pioneer in the field of lying Paul Ekman of the University of California San Francisco studied 12,000 people. He discovered that only a little more than 50 percent of them were able to tell if someone was lying. Thus the odds of being able to figure out whether someone is lying to you are not great. However, these odds can increase dramatically when you know how to read certain signals that will alert you to the fact that someone is not telling the truth. My aim in writing this book is to help you increase those odds. I will teach you how to trust your instincts when you have that “gut feeling” that someone is lying to you. More specifically, I will show you what to look for in terms of possible signals of deception in a person’s body language, facial language (expressions and movements), voice patterns, and finally, their speech patterns— how they say what they say and even what they write over the Internet. MY BACKGROUND As a body language analyst, I have been able to report the deception of newsmakers—politicians, sports figures, world leaders, celebrities, and criminals who appear throughout the media. I have done this for years. I have appeared often on various national television shows such as 20/20, Dr. Phil, Entertainment Tonight, ABC News, Good Morning America, CNN, The Today Show, The Insider, HLN, Discovery Channel, MSNBC, and many other programs too numerous to list here. I was even the body language expert for Dancing With the Stars and Millionaire Matchmaker. In addition, I regularly appear in newspapers, magazines, and all over the Internet, where I comment on whether I think newsmakers are lying or telling the truth. I explore whether celebrity couples are telling the truth about their relationship or just presenting it as a public relations opportunity. As well, I examine whether politicians or world leaders are telling us the truth, or merely reciting some not-very-heartfelt rhetoric. I am constantly asked by the media to examine the body language of those involved in high-profile criminal cases, and whether I think suspects are exhibiting signals of deception or telling the truth. Additionally, I report on whether those newsmakers involved in humiliating public scandals are telling us the truth or lying through their teeth. I have also drawn on my expertise as a body-language analyst in my lectures to law enforcement across the United States and Canada on how to detect deception during interrogations. Perhaps my biggest achievement was the honor of being invited to speak to the FBI, where my lectures included how to recognize the signals of deception. Most of my work in the area of recognizing deception has been in the legal field, where I have assisted attorneys in picking up relevant information during their questioning of witnesses, as well as focusing the direction of their case. From analyzing surveillance tapes of a drug bust, deposition tapes, interrogation tapes of those involved in child molestation and sexual harassment and abuse cases, to studying the movements of suspects, plaintiffs, defendants, and key witnesses during trial, I have been able to pick out specific instances of possible signs of deception. I decided to share the same techniques I use in my professional life with you throughout the pages of this book. I wanted to do this to empower you to be able to tell who is and who is not telling the truth—simply by looking at their body and facial movements, listening to how they sound, and deciphering what they say. LYING NEWSMAKERS The specific signals of deception will be permanently etched into your brain as you see actual photos taken of newsmakers as they were engaged in acts of deception. You will read the actual words they said during interviews or testimonies, which also help to illustrate their deception. You will be able to point out specific body language and facial signals, or “tells,” that you may have previously overlooked or ignored. Now, it will all begin to make sense when you see the signals occurring at the exact moment they lied. You will now see these photos with a new set of eyes, from a different perspective. For instance, you will notice the nuances of former President Clinton’s facial expressions and body movements, and understand more about signals of deception that could be heard in his voice when he pointed his finger and angrily stated, “I did not have sex with that woman—Ms. Lewinsky.” You will see signals of deception of other politicians and even understand what signals former Presidential candidate John Edwards gave off when he lied about the paternity of his child with mistress Rielle Hunter during an ABC Nightline interview. You will discover the actual moment various criminals in the news—everyone from O.J. Simpson, Jerry Sandusky, and Scott and Drew Peterson, to financial schemer Bernard Madoff and a host of others—have engaged in deception. You will even learn how to profile the deceptive patterns of the most toxic of liars, the sociopath, by looking at the traits and MO’s of such conscienceless criminals as Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. You will also examine the body and facial language of disgraced athletes who lied, such as Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds, as well as troubled entertainers such as actress and wild child Lindsay Lohan. In looking at photos of celebrity couples, you will learn how to tell whether a relationship is in trouble. Even though a celebrity couple may have insisted to the press that all was well with their relationship, you will clearly see how their body language and facial expressions can tell a much different story. You will see photos depicting the body language of couples such as reality star Kim Kardashian and basketball player Kris Humphries, actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, golfer Tiger Woods and model Elin Nordegren, singer Katy Perry and comedic actor Russell Brand, and how it revealed the signals that they were actually headed for a breakup far before their split was made public. You will even note the body language of singer Chris Brown and his girlfriend, Rihanna, after the couple reunited and claimed they were happy together. Viewing the precise moment newsmakers exhibited deception, whether through a sweaty upper lip, a squinted eye, a clenched jaw, a cocked head, or a pointed finger, will allow you to easily recognize that particular signal of deception in others with whom you live, play, or do business. WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS BOOK This book is divided into two sections. In the first section, you will learn what happens to you emotionally when people lie to you, and the importance of being vigilant during these challenging times. Next, you will discover when and how lying begins, and how it may even be a significant part of normal human development. You will learn why animals, children, teens, and adults lie, and what kinds of lies they tell. You will come to understand how “little white lies” and even bigger lies can be positive and have beneficial effects. Conversely, you will see how lying can destroy lives, as you learn to recognize habitual liars, “catfishers,” Internet schemers, and even sociopaths. And, because you can’t see or hear someone over the Internet, you will learn about the red flags to look for in peoples’ writing that can alert you to possible deception. This section will uncover what signs to look for as you socialize or conduct business online. The second section of the book provides you with the profile of a liar. You will learn the importance of context and trusting your own instincts, as well as listening to your own body language signals, all of which can clue you in to possibility that someone may be lying to you. You will learn what clues to look for in a liar’s body language, facial expressions, voice, and speech patterns. You will essentially learn how to become a human lie detector as you learn the specific signs of lying that present on the human body—the head, eyes, nose, mouth, lips, jaw, teeth, ears, hair, skin, arms, hands, torso, posture, legs, and, finally, feet. You will also learn how to listen to specific speech and vocal patterns and word choices that may reveal the liar. You will even discover key words and phrases and communication signals that liars often use when they speak or write. You will even learn how to use all of these techniques to recognize the most toxic of liars—the sociopath. NEVER AGAIN! Today, you cannot be too careful when it comes to determining who is friend or foe, who is honest or who is a liar. Whether buying a car, entering into a new business venture, getting ahead at your job, finding the right mate, remaining in a marriage (or not!), or making sure your kids are not engaging in illegal activities, you have no choice but to be a vigilant observer. You need to know if newsmakers, including your elected officials, are telling the truth or selling you a bill of goods. And, because so much of your socializing and work now take place online, you are at a huge disadvantage if you don’t know the signs of cyber liars. After reading this book, you will never have to be the one who says, “I never saw it coming,” “I was ripped off,” “I got conned,” or “Someone took advantage of me.” Now you will be able to see the visual signals and hear the auditory signs of deception well ahead of time so that you never again fall prey to the liar. Editorial note: In an attempt to achieve gender neutrality and avoid awkward sentence structure, we have alternated feminine and masculine pronouns. PART I ENCOUNTERING THE LIAR: WHO LIES, AND WHY? In this section, you will discover what various religions and cultures have to say about lying and under what circumstances it may be acceptable to lie. You will learn when lying begins and how it may be part of our normal development. You will learn why infants, children, teens, adults, and even animals lie, and the different types of lies they tell. You will learn about the emotional consequences of lying, and the effects on your psyche when people lie to you. You will explore the potential positive effects of the “little white lies” and see how bigger lies can ruin lives. Finally, you will learn how to detect cyber frauds in both the business and the romance arenas.