Page 54 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

Signs of Deception 95

mitment discussed above minimizes anxiety but there are subtler and more telling clues, and
failure to deny an accusation is the most telling.

Falsely denying an allegation requires commitment and raises anxiety.
For this reason, liars don’t react in the way an honest person would

Failure to deny

It is critical that you confront a liar with what you believe really happened and with the symp-
toms of his deception (see pages [xref]and [xref]). The way he reacts to accusations such as:

• ‘Bill, I have to say that I believe you took the money.’
• ‘The evidence shows clearly that you did this.’
• ‘I can see no other explanation than you did this.’

is critical.
A truthful denial of an accusation is normally a positive and committed assertion, such as

‘I did not do it’, and when the syntax used is in the first person singular, past tense, the denial
is usually true. Most guilty people cannot commit themselves to utter this barefaced lie but
will use pseudo denials, objections, partial denials and subjective truths.

Any deviation from a first person singular, past tense denial must be regarded with suspicion

Frequently, as in the case of Bill Clinton (see page [xref]), they will prevaricate and use
superfluous words before and after what appears to be a denial. A person making a false denial
is at great risk from a statement along the following lines.

THE ULTIMATE IN COMMITMENT

‘So, Bill, there can be absolutely no doubt explanation is that you have told a barefaced
about this, can there? If I prove that lie and deserve all the punishment possible:
what you have said is not true, the only isn’t it?’

In over 40 years of practical experience a proven liar has never once answered this question
with a simple ‘yes’, although many people wrongly suspected have.

THE GREAT ANSWER you should tell me before I answer that
question’. As always, it is a different matter
In one case, where a dishonest but legally when it is your turn in the barrel.
qualified senior manager was confronted
with this question, he responded: ‘This
is not fair. If you have this evidence,

If the response to the statement is in the affirmative, the liar is denied a plausible excuse.