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Signs of Deception 81

The liar’s conscious objectives

BACKGROUND

In most cases, a liar has conscious objectives, which are to distort what he knows to be the
truth and to communicate the modified story to another person with the intention of mis-
leading him. Achievement lies are told before the event, to provide the liar with a financial or
other benefit and are usually based on falsification.

Everything is said for a reason

Exculpatory lies are usually told after the event with the conscious objective of:

• Permanently removing suspicion or stopping the enquiry:
– by attacking,
– by convincing you of his innocence.

• Escaping, taking a line of appeasement, without incriminating himself:
– by avoiding making admissions and ensuring he does not increase the evidence against
himself in any other way,
– by diverting, distracting, evading or attacking so that the matter is not effectively
pursued.

• Finding out what you know and planning so that he can take appropriate action.
• Minimizing the penalties, if there is no escape.
• Frustrating follow-up action by further attacks.
• Possibly returning to the deception as soon as he believes it is safe to do so.

These conscious objectives are mainly achieved by concealment and falsification of the
content of a story. Few liars appreciate the importance of syntax, paralinguistics, non-verbal
communication and attitude. Even if they did, they could not consciously control them. Also,
lying is easier when the liar knows he has left no repudiatory evidence.

Liars usually concentrate on the content, but know too much.
They fail to say things an honest person would

If the liar cannot succeed with an achievement lie, possibly because he is effectively chal-
lenged, his fall-back position is to try to escape by removing suspicion: if this is not possible he
will fall back to minimizing the penalties or making sure action cannot be taken against him,
so that he can walk away to fight another day, with another victim. In fraud cases, achieve-
ment liars usually revert to their dishonesty once they believe it is safe for them to do so. Thus,
this makes it imperative that suspicions of dishonesty are resolved. However, in most cases,
liars and fraudsters have not planned their endgame and this is their weakest link.

If you currently have suspicions, you should make every effort to resolve them