Page 53 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

94 Deception at Work

• failure to explain an admitted inconsistency;
• Freudian slips;
• admissions of having failed to volunteer information, possibly in response to a ‘blocking

question’ (see page [xref]);
• rigid recollection of some facts (such as times) but not others of equal significance.

Other inconsistencies, such as variations in estimates of time, distance, size etc. are not neces-
sarily indicators of deception, but they should still be carefully examined.

Unnecessary or apparently irrelevant detail may unconsciously expose a chain of events
or subject matter which the subject has tried to conceal.

WHAT IS OJ CONCEALING?

Vannatter: You haven’t had any problems with her lately, have you? (This is a bad,
OJ Simpson: negative, leading question.)
I always have problems with her, you know? Our relationship has been a
problem relationship. Probably lately for me, and I say this only because I
said it to Ron yesterday at the – Ron Fishman, whose wife is Cora – at the
dance recital, when he came up to me and went, ‘Oooh, boy, what’s going
on?’ and everybody was beefing with everybody. And I said, ‘Well, I’m just
glad I’m out of the mix.’ You know, because I was like dealing with him and
his problems with his wife and Nicole and evidently some new problems
that a guy named Christian was having with his girl, and he was staying
at Nicole’s house, and something was going on, but I don’t think it’s
pertinent to this.

There was a reason why OJ did not simply reply to the awfully bad question with the word
‘yes’ rather than go into the unnecessary detail about Ron, Cora etc. The likely answer is that
he unconsciously associated these people with a real problem that he did not want to reveal.
Unfortunately, he was never asked to explain so we will never know the answer.

Consistent detail – in response to both control and relevant questions – indicates that the
subject is being truthful.

There is no such thing as irrelevant detail.
The subject says everything for a reason

REDUCING ANXIETY WITHIN THE RESPONSE

Generally

The liar will try to reduce his own anxiety by consciously avoiding a barefaced lie, avoiding
detail, by evasion, deflection and so on. But he will be also driven by his subconscious mon-
key to make sure that anxiety is reduced and this may be manifested in the content, syntax,
paralinguistics and non-verbal communications of his responses. Obviously, the lack of com-