In my work as a CIA analyst, and now as a CEO, reading people and navigating complex social dynamics is central to everything I do. And spotting a liar is not always as easy or obvious as we might think.
There is no physical response linked to lying. Some people are more nervous than others. Or they have a hyper-developed sense of guilt that causes them to behave in ways that only seem “guilty,” at the suggestion that they did something wrong, even when they didn’t.
That’s why polygraph tests are inadmissible in court. They measure physiological stress — heart rate, sweating, breathing — not deception. Anxiety, fear and nervousness can all cause false positives in a polygraph test.
So if lie detectors can’t detect lies and “tells” like fidgeting or evasive eye contact don’t reveal much, how do you actually catch a liar?
“Trust, but verify” is a big motto at the CIA. To build a complete picture of someone’s trustworthiness, we collect information from a variety of sources and monitor their behavior and reliability over time.
