Have you ever been in a situation where you want to know if someone is lying to you? Well, it’s easier to work out than you think.
A former US Secret Service Special Agent has revealed how to tell if a person is fibbing, and her expertise could come in handy one day.
How to tell if someone is lying
During an episode of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, Evy Poumpouras said there are three steps to knowing if someone is lying to you.
1. Intuition
First, trust your intuition. If you feel like someone is lying, they probably are. Your mind is cleverer than you think!
“I think intuition is a huge thing and we dismiss it,” she said.
Intuition is the natural ability of knowing something without any proof or evidence. It’s a feeling that you instinctively have in your gut.
2. Body language
Next, it’s important to look at the way people are acting. If they are lying, they will show you with their body language.
The former special agent explained that we “create baselines on people”, which is how they tend to behave most of the time.
If someone strays from this baseline, you know something is up. For example, if they usually use eye contact but suddenly look down.
3. Curiosity
Once someone’s baseline changes, you become curious about what they are hiding, and it’s important to act on this curiosity.
You need to come in with good follow-up questions, which will put the person on edge and show you they are lying.
“Most people see something, it registers and they let it go. They don’t follow up with another question and another question,” Poumpouras said.
More signs someone is lying
It’s not always easy to work out if someone isn’t telling you the truth, but Verywell Mind has outlined some signs that could indicate someone is lying to you:
- Being vague and offering few details
- Repeating questions before answering them
- Speaking in sentence fragments
- Failing to provide specific details
- Playing with hair or pressing fingers to lips
Evy Poumpouras was a special agent, polygraph examiner, and interrogator with the United States Secret Service for 12 years, from 2000 to 2012. She has expertise in national security, law enforcement, crime and human behavior, and is now a TV personality, journalist and author.
