How to Tell When You’re Being Deceived
Learn about deception in everyday life and if it’s possible to detect when we’re being deceived.
Deception is intentionally misleading others through words, actions, or omissions to create a false perception or belief. It’s important to note that there’s an intention to deceive. So, if you unintentionally mislead, like giving someone wrong information because your memory is incorrect, then it’s not deception.
● Social lies: Commonly known as “white lies”, these are the typical things we say to avoid hurting others’ feelings or to gain social approval. Examples – “I like your new haircut!”, or texting “On my way”.
● Outright lies: The most straightforward form of deception, lying includes things like adding made-up experience to your resume to lying on the witness stand.
● Withholding information: For example, your partner asks how your day at work was, and you shrug it off when you were laid off. Or a pharmaceutical company doesn’t disclose known side effects of medication.
● Concealment: Concealment is the act of hiding something or preventing it from being known. An example is when President Nixon refused to give up the Watergate tapes.
● Half-truth: This form of deception involves telling part of the truth, but purposely leaving out crucial details with the intention to manipulate or mislead.
● Distortions/Exaggeration: For example, “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”
● Self-deception: One of the most common self-deceptions is to overestimate our abilities and underestimate our limitations to bolster self-esteem. This can have both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, it increases confidence. Also, it can lead to more optimism which may inspire us to work harder to achieve goals (Chance & Norton, 2015). However, confidence based on false beliefs can bring huge disappointments when we’re unable to live up to our unrealistically high expectations. Or worse, it can lead to unhealthy or dangerous outcomes. For example, ignoring a health issue by telling yourself it’s nothing.
● In social media: It’s pretty common to create an idealized version of yourself on social media. We want to show our highlights and success and conceal challenges and struggles. This reminds me of a coworker whose friend was studying abroad in Europe, and his social media posts made it seem like he was having the time of his life. But when the two of them spoke on the phone, he revealed that he was extremely lonely and depressed in this new and unfamiliar situation.
● In Advertising: An example that comes to mind here is the use of words like “healthy” and “natural”. I’ve seen plenty of foods labeled as healthy, but the ingredient list tells me otherwise. And to be labeled “natural” a food can’t have anything artificial added. But this claim doesn’t mean it’s healthy or organic, and it may still be highly processed (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, n.d.)
● Fraud: In perhaps the most famous and largest Ponzi scheme ever, Bernie Madoff deceived nearly 40,000 people out of billions of dollars (Department of Justice, 2021).
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” ―
Determining when someone is being deceptive is something people have been trying to figure out for hundreds of years (DePaulo et al., 2003). Identifying deception is hard. However, there are some things to look out for. While none of these indicates definitively that someone is being deceptive, they can provide a clue:
● Pupil dilation: When someone is lying, they are usually more nervous, which activates the sympathetic nervous system and causes pupils to dilate.
● Inconsistencies: Stories tend to sound less logical or implausible. Liars also sound more ambivalent and are more likely to repeat words and phrases.
● Response time in conversations: This is a tricky one. When someone is being deceitful, they often have longer hesitations before responding. This is due to the additional thought time required to make sure lies are consistent (De Paulo et al., 2003, Hartwig & Bond, 2011). However, when liars have time to plan, they answer more quickly. So one has to consider the situation (De Paulo et al., 2003).
● Go with your intuition: Studies show that people are better at detecting deception when they go with their intuition rather than consciously looking for deceptive behaviors or signals. Distrust may even hamper the ability to detect deception. This is partly due to incorrect beliefs about what the signs of deceit actually are (Stel et al., 2020).
Deception seems to be a part of our everyday lives. Although this sounds disheartening, it’s not always bad. Sometimes a small lie can spare someone hurt feelings or bolster self-confidence. Or if used ethically, deception in research can yield valuable results that can help people.
But more often deception is harmful. It’s often used to cover up unethical or illegal behavior or to mislead others for personal gain. Most of us want to know if we’re being deceived, and many people claim to be experts at spotting liars. In reality, though, it’s extremely difficult to detect. Also, studies suggest that distrust actually decreases our ability to discern if someone is lying, So, it’s probably better to interact with others from a position of trust. Not only will this promote open and honest relationships, but approaching others with a trusting attitude fosters intuitive processing which is better for detecting deception.
● Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. (n.d.). Use of the term natural on food labeling. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/use-term-natural-food-la beling
● Chance, Z., & Norton, M. I. (2015). The what and why of self-deception. Current Opinion in Psychology, 6, 104-107.
● Department of Justice. (2021, September 18). Justice Department announces additional distribution of more than $568 million to victims of Madoff Ponzi scheme. The United States Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-additionaldistribution-more-568-million-victims-madoff-ponzi
● DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological bulletin, 129(1), 74.
● Hartwig, M., & Bond Jr, C. F. (2011). Why do lie-catchers fail? A lens model meta-analysis of human lie judgments. Psychological bulletin, 137(4), 643.
● Stel, M., Schwarz, A., van Dijk, E., & van Knippenberg, A. (2020). The limits of conscious deception detection: when reliance on false deception cues contributes to inaccurate judgments. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1331
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