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88 Deception at Work

However, the four most important clues that a liar unconsciously leaves are:

• lack of commitment;
• reducing anxiety within his response;
• from his attitude and especially not doing and saying the things an honest person would;
• not reacting as an innocent person would.

These are discussed below.

LACK OF COMMITMENT AND SPONTANEITY

Generally

Most liars (but there are always exceptions) will make every effort to avoid being caught in a
barefaced lie for which they have no plausible excuse. They will dance like a dervish around
difficult topics, squirming and using every option to avoid commitment. The liar will try to
keep his options open, so that he is not pinned down to a barefaced lie or any other position
from which he cannot escape and will consciously use a number of techniques, such as eva-
sion, appeasement, deflection, ambiguity etc. to do so.

Liars rarely answer a relevant question with a binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’

Another critical factor is the liar’s lack of spontaneity and ‘naturalness’ in his answers to ques-
tions and his failure to volunteer information, especially if it might show him in a bad light.

What a liar does not say can be more important than what he says

Even when a person seems to be committed to an explanation, the syntax used can still
give the game away.

THE BODY2 His body landed head first; I attempted to
catch him but was unsuccessful. When I
‘Around 5:00 am/5:30 am I, John A. Woods picked him up he cried for about 90 sec.
Jr, was in the process of giving my son, John then started to gag. His eyes were glazed. I
A. Woods III, his scheduled feeding. During immediately called 911.’
this feeding he bucked and fell approx. 2
ft to the floor, hitting his head on the floor.

Can you spot the hidden clue? It is that he referred to the ‘body’ (a dead one) before it sup-
posedly hit the floor.

Lack of commitment is often concealed by alleged memory failures such as:

• ‘I am not sure about this …’
• ‘Don’t hold me to this …’
• ‘To the best of my recollection …’

2 From the excellent site www.theirwords.com