Each of us encounters up to two hundred lies every day. Therefore, it is necessary for us to learn how to recognize lies. This is important according to Pamela Meyer, a social networks expert who has been researching the causes and symptoms of deception for several years. She has also participated in many professional trainings and summarized her accumulated knowledge in a successful book entitled Liespotting. You can familiarize yourself with some of her findings in Meyer's speech from the TEDGlobal 2011 conference called How to spot a liar. This TED talk has prompted more than 7 million visits on the internet, ranking it as among the most popular TED talk ever.
"Lying is a cooperative act. A lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie," explains Meyer. She adds that sometimes we wish to be deceived in order to maintain our social dignity or a secret. Then, however, there are times when we do not want to be deceived because they can have dramatic consequences, as in such cases as various current financial frauds. The problem is that lying is evolutionarily encoded in the human species. "We're hardwired to become leaders of the pack. It starts really, really early... One-year-olds learn concealment. Two-year-olds bluff. Five-year-olds lie outright... ," says Meyer.
The good news is that with training people can get to the truth in 90% of the time, as opposed to the untrained in 54%. Why such a low numerical difference? Because all liars use the same techniques and commit the same mistakes. Pamela Meyer demonstrates this using as examples the the speeches of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards. Another example is of two mothers whose children were murdered. One had actually killed her children, the one who lies and the other is telling the truth. Mayer uses this to show what telling the truth looks like. She also speaks about modern technologies that are being used for both creating and detecting lies.
You can watch the video on http://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar
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