It’s not easy to spot lies – and those good at lying know how to exploit these blindspots

You don’t have to be in the middle of an election campaign to be concerned about your ability to spot a lie. Psychology research suggests people lie at least once a day.

A 2006 review of 206 papers found that we are little better then chance at guessing whether something is a lie or not, 54% to be exact.

Some lies are told to make others feel better. I wouldn’t mind if someone wanted to tell me, “You’re such a brilliant psychologist.” Most lies however, are for the benefit of the person telling the lie.

We learn to lie young, typically between the ages of two and three. More successful lying in childhood takes a little longer and requires a more developed ability to understand others’ mental states.

You also need good working memory to be convincing, so that you can remember the lie. Brighter children seem to lie most often and most selfishly.

By adulthood we are, it seems, well practised.

There are no tell-tale signs of lying per se, but there may be indicators of negative emotion associated with telling a lie (anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness, fear of being caught) even when the liar is trying to conceal them.

These sometimes leak out in micro-expressions, brief facial expressions lasting a fraction of a second or squelched expressions where the liar covers the emotion with a...

Read more