The Art of Manliness - How to Read Minds and Detect Deception

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.860 Being adept at discerning people's true thoughts and intentions is a valuable skill to have.

00:00:15.340 Knowing when someone is deceiving you can protect your finances,

00:00:17.980 your professional interest, and your loved ones.

00:00:20.160 Here to teach us some of the elements of this skill is Dr. David Lieberman,

00:00:23.160 who's a psychotherapist, a consultant to the military and other intelligence and defense

00:00:26.860 agencies, and the author of Mind Reader, the new science of deciphering what people really think,

00:00:31.580 what they really want, and who they really are. Today on the show, David explains why verbal cues

00:00:35.980 offer a better window into people's minds than body language, and the clues to look for in both

00:00:40.020 spoken and written speech that can indicate whether someone is honest or deceptive. We also get into

00:00:44.420 how to detect whether someone is mentally healthy or not, including the signs you're dealing with

00:00:48.160 a psychopath. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash mindreader.

00:00:56.860 David Lieberman, welcome to the show.

00:01:08.120 Thank you, Brett.

00:01:09.100 So we've had you on the podcast before to discuss your book, Never Get Angry Again. That was back

00:01:13.920 in 2019, so it's been a while. You got a new book out called Mind Reader, the new science of deciphering

00:01:20.540 what people really think, what they really want, and who they really are. Well, let's talk about your

00:01:25.320 background. You're a psychologist, and you specialize in sussing out human deception.

00:01:30.700 How'd that happen, and who do you work with?

00:01:33.140 Right. So I've always had a fascination with human nature and human behavior, and I suppose that's

00:01:37.420 why I went into psychology in the first place. But then I wrote a book called Never Be Lied To Again,

00:01:42.980 and it was a book written for the layperson about how to detect deception.

00:01:47.100 And I got a phone call from the director of the behavioral science unit at the FBI. They

00:01:53.680 houses the profilers. And he asked me if I'd come down and do a training, and that was about 25 years

00:02:00.460 ago. And then so began a long career working with the FBI, CIA, NSA, pretty much every branch of the

00:02:07.560 US military, law enforcement agencies around the world, corporate arena. You've got fraud investigators,

00:02:12.480 human resources, private investigators. I'm just very grateful for the opportunities to be able to

00:02:17.280 work with a great number of very, very talented people.

00:02:20.600 All right. So you've been doing this for a long time. And in your book, you highlight,

00:02:23.640 this is for a lay audience, some of the signals that you look for when you're doing an investigation

00:02:29.100 on whether someone's being deceptive or not. And one thing I noticed throughout the book,

00:02:33.360 you got out of your way to point out that these linguistic or behavioral signals that can reveal

00:02:38.360 what people are thinking, they're not definitive. So how do you use these signals in your work to

00:02:43.940 discern someone's true thoughts and intentions? That's right. And it's a great point. And there

00:02:48.880 is no technique that is going to work 100% of the time. And anyone that claims that it will is,

00:02:55.380 well, they're not being so honest. And one of the reasons why my work is used so widely by law

00:03:00.560 enforcement is because they use a layered approach, meaning that you're not going to have just one

00:03:08.240 trick ponies, you know, watch out if the person always says this or never says this. In any

00:03:13.220 conversation, there's going to be a number of different markers, five, six, seven, eight,

00:03:17.100 to pay attention to. So then you can recognize if the person, you know, they sort of flag seven or

00:03:24.460 eight markers out of seven or eight or nine, then you can likely put this person in a specific

00:03:30.640 category. So a single casual reference doesn't mean anything, but a consistent pattern of syntax can be

00:03:37.180 very revealing. So it sounds like it's about putting together a big picture of a person so

00:03:42.220 you can possibly investigate further if needed. That's right. And particularly when it comes to

00:03:47.000 gauging someone's emotional health, you know, as you, as you say, I make a number of disclaimers in

00:03:52.260 the book because one of the things that I don't want happening is somebody just opening up to a random

00:03:57.760 chapter on emotional health, how to gauge whether someone's, you know, emotionally solvent and then decide

00:04:03.640 that they're in a relationship with somebody who's not well without looking at the larger picture or

00:04:08.720 having a conversation with a babysitter or someone in an elevator and maybe thinking somebody is

00:04:13.100 emotionally well when really they're not. So you want to look for the full context. You want to

00:04:18.880 get a larger picture. And in doing so, you can get a much clearer snapshot.

00:04:23.640 Yeah. And I can imagine seeing, you know, someone reading like a tip and like, well, if someone does

00:04:26.880 this, they're lying. And then you, you see your wife do that thing like, oh, you're lying to me. And like,

00:04:31.020 no, I'm not. I'm just, that's, it wasn't a lie at all. It's just like that one instance that they

00:04:35.600 did that signal that suggests that they might be lying, but it doesn't, it's not definitive.

00:04:40.440 That's right. That's right. And the very last thing I want is a relationship to be injured

00:04:46.240 because somebody erroneously used these techniques. It's one thing to use them to protect yourself

00:04:50.520 emotionally, physically, financially. It's quite another to miscategorize somebody. And when the

00:04:55.800 stakes get high, you know, in negotiation, arbitration, and certainly in our personal

00:05:00.760 relationships, I encourage people spend, it's not a lot of time. You're talking about an extra

00:05:05.260 five minutes rather than 30 seconds to build a profile. So in and of itself, we're not talking

00:05:10.520 about days, but you do have to spend the five minutes. And in the generation where everything

00:05:14.380 is, you know, quick, fast, now, you know, 280 characters, sometimes people don't want to invest

00:05:19.820 those extra few minutes, but it really could make a very big difference.

00:05:23.640 All right. So not definitive. This is just another tool in your arsenal

00:05:26.160 of figuring out other humans. And what's interesting about your book is I think a lot

00:05:31.560 of people, when they imagine deciphering deception or trying to figure out what someone's thinking,

00:05:36.140 they typically think about body language, right? Well, if your arms are closed, it means they

00:05:39.840 are closed out. I think we've all heard that. But in Mind Reader, you pay very little attention

00:05:44.640 to body language. Why is that?

00:05:46.920 That's right. Because it really doesn't work. Here's what happened. Go back about 25 years

00:05:52.180 ago. And I developed some of the very techniques that are used in body language. But what we

00:05:57.680 found was over time, first, that the people became so familiar with them. If your arms are

00:06:03.620 crossed, if your eyes, you know, are darting away, you're scratching your nose, we know to

00:06:07.540 avoid doing those very same things that will give us away. So when you're dealing with somebody,

00:06:12.160 unless they're a very unsophisticated liar, you need more intelligent techniques. Secondly,

00:06:17.940 where a lot of conversation and interaction takes place over Zoom, you lose even those

00:06:23.740 body language signs that were reliable, you lose the ability to activate them because you

00:06:30.640 simply don't have access to those visual cues. So what Mind Reader does is it uses a field called

00:06:37.100 psycholinguistics, which looks at how people use language and using it to glean what they're

00:06:43.380 really thinking and feeling. So for example, you know, when somebody's arms are crossed,

00:06:48.840 you know, technically speaking, they could be defensive, but they could also be cold.

00:06:52.960 But when it comes to language, it's much more difficult for us to cover up what it is we want

00:06:58.340 to say when we look at not what the person's saying, but how they're saying it.

00:07:02.920 Well, yeah, and this also was nice about the language, focusing on language is that it applies

00:07:06.700 to text as well. I mean, that's what you highlight. A lot of the research on this is just

00:07:10.360 analyzing emails, text, et cetera. And there's a correlation to someone's state of mind based on

00:07:17.540 the text. That's right. That's right. You know, one of the reasons why, again, the book has gotten

00:07:21.780 so much attention is because the techniques work without the need for interacting with your subject.

00:07:26.520 Oftentimes, just from listening to a conversation, a speech, a recording, a voicemail, or a message,

00:07:31.580 as you said, from reading a text or even an email, certainly in live interaction, you've got even

00:07:36.680 that much more to glean. But there's no way body language will ever even enter into the equation

00:07:41.460 if you're looking at a text or you're listening to a voicemail.

00:07:45.780 So let's talk about some of these language signals that can suggest what someone's thinking

00:07:51.240 or if they're being deceptive. And you highlight research from a social psychologist and linguistic

00:07:56.780 professor named James Pennebaker. And he's done a lot of research about how our personal

00:08:02.440 pronoun use can indicate what's going on in our mind. So generally, how does our pronoun

00:08:07.600 use change depending on whether we feel confident or not confident, et cetera?

00:08:12.520 Right. He's on earth, a wealth of information. And he's got a great book called The Secret Life

00:08:17.040 of Pronouns, which I encourage people to take a look at. So he basically explains that people

00:08:23.420 who have power tend to use I, me, and my fewer times than those of lower status. And it's

00:08:29.960 counterintuitive. You know, we assume that the person who's in a position of power would

00:08:33.900 be using the words or the pronouns I, me, my, more. But what happens is, is that when you

00:08:39.420 feel comfortable, when you are confident, then you're able to focus in on the rest of the

00:08:44.640 world, on other people and pay attention to them. When we become self-conscious, literally

00:08:49.320 aware of the self, that linguistic I comes into play in much the same way that the physical

00:08:54.860 I comes into play. You know, when a person gets up to give a speech and they're nervous,

00:08:58.180 they become very self-conscious and they don't really know physically, you know, sometimes

00:09:02.560 where their arms go or where to look. So much the same way that when a person is confident

00:09:08.260 in who they are in that social setting, you're going to see that linguistically, the personal

00:09:13.980 pronouns are more likely to be absent and the person is more focused outward on other people

00:09:20.280 and their language is going to reflect that pattern.

00:09:23.240 That's really, yeah, that is counterintuitive. You think someone who's egocentric would be saying

00:09:26.640 I, me, like who's confident they'd be saying those words, but that's not the case.

00:09:30.860 What about like if someone's trying to conceal something, does pronoun usage change?

00:09:35.340 Right. So what's interesting is that the research shows is that generally speaking, and again,

00:09:40.400 I'm painting with a broad brush here. There are, as we know, many nuances that you've got

00:09:44.180 to sort of filter everything through. But when a person is honest in what they're saying,

00:09:50.140 they're willing to take ownership. And that usually means they're going to bring that

00:09:53.720 linguistic I into the equation. So for example, I could say, Brett, I like your presentation.

00:09:59.680 I really like your podcast. Or I could say, it's a good presentation. Nice podcast. Now,

00:10:05.800 I'm essentially saying the same thing, but the subtext is quite different. When I use the word

00:10:11.940 I, I'm taking ownership of what it is I'm saying. And there's a greater likelihood that I actually

00:10:17.040 believe in what it is that I'm saying.

00:10:19.060 Oh, yeah. I've gotten that compliment. We're just like, oh, great talk.

00:10:22.420 Right. They're just being, maybe they're just being nice. Or maybe they, I mean,

00:10:26.680 maybe they did think it was a great talk, but it might just be, they're just being nice and saying

00:10:30.040 that. True. But you know, I'm sorry, it's important to remember though, that, you know,

00:10:34.840 for example, that introverts are more likely to say something such as nice talk rather than I liked

00:10:41.080 your talk. While extroverts, conversely, of course, are more likely to include the I because they 0.65

00:10:46.140 are more interested in that connection, that attachment.

00:10:49.300 So it's important just because somebody says great talk or great podcast, it doesn't mean that

00:10:55.260 they don't believe what they're saying.

00:10:56.900 Okay. So if someone's concealing something, they're going to not take ownership of it. They're

00:11:00.620 not going to use I, the I pronoun. What about, there's another way you highlight that we use

00:11:05.860 language to maybe conceal or at least distance ourselves from an idea or others. And this is a,

00:11:12.420 it's putting spatial distance. What's going on there?

00:11:14.920 Right. So there's so much. And also with pronouns and language, when the active voice versus the

00:11:20.920 passive voice is also statistically more likely to be true. The person says, I took the pen versus

00:11:28.800 the pen was given to me. When I say I took the pen, again, it's an active voice and a personal pronoun

00:11:34.480 and more likely to be true. And you just see how you begin to build those layers.

00:11:37.880 But regarding interesting, the words here and there, sometimes, you know, we have something

00:11:44.760 like adverbs such as this and that, these and those, and here and there, and they show where a person

00:11:50.580 is in relation to an object or the speaker. So for example, you know, a person says, this is an

00:11:56.420 interesting idea, or here's an interesting idea. Now, when the person says, here's an interesting

00:12:02.220 idea, rather than there, once again, it's more likely that they are truthful in what it is

00:12:09.720 they're saying. Now, it's important to note, just because someone says, again, this is an interesting

00:12:14.000 idea, it doesn't mean that they're not interested. But when we say here, that is what we call spatial

00:12:20.140 immediacy. They are looking for a greater attachment, a greater connection to what it is that they're

00:12:25.000 saying. And so you begin to see how putting these things together in a single sentence can be very,

00:12:31.160 very revealing. And can you give us another example of that?

00:12:34.700 Sure. Let's say we say a person says something such as, there's your drink versus here we are.

00:12:42.040 Right. Now, so a person says, there's your drink. There is non-immediate, it signals distance.

00:12:47.640 Oppositional, which is something else we didn't discuss about you versus us, right? Here's your drink.

00:12:53.700 And a concrete noun, drink. Person says, here we are. Again, you've got here signaling closeness.

00:13:01.200 We, united, a bond. And then finally, are, sort of a function word relying on shared knowledge.

00:13:08.440 This is, again, something else that we go, obviously, into more detail. But for here,

00:13:13.800 for example, take the word we, right? When a person says we, let me give you an example. Let's say Jack

00:13:19.640 and Jill walk out of a restaurant on a first date. And Jack innocently says, or Jill says to Jack,

00:13:24.160 where do we park our car or where do we park the car? Now, when she says, where did we park the car or

00:13:30.840 even more so our car, she's already begun to identify themselves as a unit. If it was not a

00:13:36.480 good date, you can rest assured that she would say something such as, where did you park the car,

00:13:42.980 right? She would not want to associate herself linguistically with Jack. Once again, we want to be

00:13:49.020 clear. Just because, you know, Jill says, where do you park the car or your car, if it is in fact

00:13:54.160 Jack's car, it doesn't mean she's not interested. But when we use words like we and us and our,

00:14:00.240 they indicate a bond, a connection. And as soon as she says, where did we park the car or even more

00:14:08.160 so our car, we know that she's communicating a subtext of interest. And we do this all the time.

00:14:14.000 Again, sometimes we pay attention to language, but often not. And that's why it's so difficult

00:14:19.520 for somebody. The question people always ask is, you know, if somebody reads a book, can't they now

00:14:23.960 avoid doing the very things that will give themselves away? And the answer is no. By body

00:14:27.680 language, you can, but this is human nature. And you're going to have to think about every single

00:14:32.780 thing you say all the time in order to avoid giving yourself away. Okay. So this idea of, you know,

00:14:39.040 language, the modifiers, or even passive or active voice, are there things to be on the lookout for

00:14:44.580 if someone's trying to distant themselves from an accusation? Because maybe they didn't,

00:14:50.400 so they're just trying to make it look like they didn't. You know what I'm saying?

00:14:53.280 Yeah. No, for sure. There are many ways to tell whether somebody is being honest or not. And what

00:15:00.820 you want to do is take a look at the situation. If it's an accusation you want to make, we'll take a

00:15:05.520 look at how to go ahead and solve that. But it's going to be a different technique than if you're

00:15:09.520 looking at a story, if you're looking at an alibi. But let's take your question in terms of you think

00:15:15.200 that somebody may be up to something. So one of the biggest mistakes we make in trying to get the

00:15:19.620 truth is we actually accuse the other person of doing something wrong. Now that immediately is

00:15:24.260 going to put them on the defensive. If they are guilty of the behavior, they're going to say no.

00:15:28.860 And if they're not guilty, of course, they're going to say no. And if they say yes,

00:15:31.460 then any technique would have worked. So rather than accuse the other person, what you want to do

00:15:35.980 is you allude to a similar scenario. And it works like this. Let's say that a hospital administrator

00:15:42.700 thinks that one of her doctors may be drinking on duty. What she would say is, you know, Dr. Marcus,

00:15:48.080 maybe you can help me out with something. We think that there's another doctor over at Mercy Hospital

00:15:53.180 that may be drinking on duty. Any idea on how the hospital administrator there can best approach him?

00:15:58.260 Now, all she has to do is gauge his reaction. If he's not guilty of the same behavior,

00:16:03.120 he's going to become very interested, want to engage, offer his advice, be happy that it was

00:16:07.520 sought out. But if he is guilty of a similar scenario, he's going to become very uncomfortable,

00:16:13.160 look at the change, change the subject, and offer some sort of, you know, quick assurance that he

00:16:17.060 would never do something like this. So again, if you think somebody may be up to something,

00:16:21.100 rather than accuse them outright, bring up a similar situation, and then just simply watch how they

00:16:26.260 handle it. Well, you give this other great tip if you're trying to figure out if someone is lying

00:16:33.040 or not, is, you know, it's similar to what you just said. It's injecting an emotional stressor

00:16:38.240 into the situation. And so you do this, you have like a neat little trick. What's that little trick

00:16:43.740 you talk about in the book? You know, I'm trying to remember. I think it's the, okay, it's the one

00:16:48.660 where you say, oh, I heard there was lots of traffic. Ah, right, right, right, right. So they're

00:16:57.860 right. So when you're talking to somebody face to face, you know, one of the ways that we have to

00:17:03.460 get somebody to be more honest or to gauge their emotional, you know, integrity is by taking a step

00:17:13.320 closer. Because when you increase that physical proximity, it adds to their emotional stress.

00:17:20.680 But when you're speaking to somebody and you're trying to get the truth, and maybe you're a thousand

00:17:24.400 miles away, you don't have the luxury of stepping closer, you can introduce an emotional stressor.

00:17:29.800 And it works like this. You know, if you think, let's give the example of an alibi. Once again,

00:17:35.280 if you simply say, oh, you're really at the movies with your friend, person says, yeah, really? Yeah,

00:17:40.200 really? You know, where does that go? So rather what you do is you want to confirm the facts and

00:17:45.960 then you introduce a plausible, but not true fact, quote unquote fact. And it works like this.

00:17:52.320 So taking the example of a person who says that they were movies with their friends,

00:17:56.000 you'd say, what movie did you see? I saw, you know, Planet of the Apes. I'm dating myself here. I just

00:18:01.540 happen to like the movie, but Planet of the Apes. And what showing did you see? The A30 on Main Street?

00:18:09.220 Yeah, Main Street. And now once you've got the facts, you introduce a false bit of information.

00:18:15.160 You'd say something such as, oh, eight o'clock on Main Street at about 930, I heard that there was a

00:18:21.720 big water main break and traffic was backed up for hours. It must have taken you forever to get out

00:18:26.620 of there. Now he's got a problem. But he's going to do the one thing that every single liar does when

00:18:33.940 making up a story. And that Brett is hesitate. He's not sure how to answer. He's trying to figure

00:18:39.940 out whether you're tricking him or not. But if the person was in fact there, you're going to get a

00:18:44.260 very quick, what are you talking about? There was no water main break, but he's going to hesitate.

00:18:49.780 Again, this is highly reliable, but once again, I encourage people to look at four, five, six,

00:18:54.760 seven markers and use language in determining, you know, to gauge their response and how they answer

00:18:59.820 and as how they express themselves. But that could be one very powerful technique.

00:19:05.280 Yeah. One other, similar to that technique I've heard is, let's say you're a bouncer at a bar

00:19:11.220 and you're checking someone's ID and you think this is probably fake. And you ask them, well,

00:19:16.220 are you 21? They'll say, yes, of course. But then you ask them, what's your birthday?

00:19:20.240 Okay. And if they're lying, usually they'd be like, oh, geez, I got to do the math. Like what

00:19:24.600 would make me 21 or 22? And it'll cause some flustering, some fluster going to go on.

00:19:31.660 That's right. That's right. People who lie generally have their pat answers ready to go,

00:19:36.980 which is why, you know, whenever you're dealing with somebody who you want to find out whether or

00:19:42.620 not they're being honest, you want to ask them a question that they're probably not expecting,

00:19:47.540 but obviously one that's relevant to what it is you're discussing. So in that case, you know,

00:19:52.100 you can also say something such as, you know, what's your horoscope sign? Now they may have

00:19:57.840 chosen, you know, August down for the license, even though their birthday is in June and they're

00:20:03.500 not going to be able to figure out too quickly unless they're into astrology, what their actual

00:20:07.060 horoscope is. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

00:20:10.220 And now back to the show.

00:20:14.780 So you also talk about our language can reveal whether we're anxious or fearful or angry. And

00:20:22.480 that can come in handy, you know, if you can, if someone sounds like they're anxious, it could be,

00:20:26.620 you know, it could be they're just anxious about the thing, or it could be that they're,

00:20:30.360 they're deceptive. Like they don't want someone to know the truth. So they're getting anxious.

00:20:33.980 So how does our language change when we start to feel worried or anxious?

00:20:39.260 Right. So once again, people use physical markers, which may or may not be practical,

00:20:45.760 right? And if you can't see the person, clearly not. But even very small things,

00:20:50.240 go back to pronouns again. And the pronoun me, for example, indicates inward orientation,

00:20:56.100 as does a pronoun I. But because me is almost always used in a passive tense,

00:21:02.960 meaning that something acts on the person rather than the person taking action.

00:21:07.180 Me is indicative of feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. And when it's used superfluously,

00:21:13.200 when it's used unnecessarily, the anxiety is even more true. So for example, this comes into small

00:21:18.660 children a lot. A person can say, or a child, whoever it is, my stomach hurts, or my stomach hurts me.

00:21:25.640 Why are you yelling? Or why are you yelling at me? Now, you don't need, it's superfluous to say

00:21:31.000 the me at the end of my stomach hurts me. It's obvious whose stomach is going to hurt. Why are

00:21:35.820 you yelling? You're obviously yelling at me. But when we use the word me because it's passive,

00:21:41.000 it is inextricably linked with a degree of anxiety. So that's something to pay attention to. There's

00:21:48.020 also something called linguistic qualifiers and retractors, where a linguistic qualifier is,

00:21:56.560 I think, and maybe, or I believe, and a linguistic retractor is although and but nevertheless and so

00:22:04.340 on. So a person who's very anxious is likely to pepper their language with a lot of qualifiers and

00:22:09.740 retractors. And if you think about it, that's just how they sound. You know, I think this could be okay, 1.00

00:22:13.940 but I don't know. I guess it might make sense. But so I could try it, although. And they're going to

00:22:20.500 sort of have that halting linguistic speech where they qualify what they're saying, and then they

00:22:26.500 use their tractors to sort of take it back. And that is indicative of an anxious state.

00:22:32.080 And if you see a pattern of this behavior, then you can assume it's an anxious trait, meaning that

00:22:38.300 just because a person is acting anxious or using that language pattern in the moment, it's very telling.

00:22:43.160 That doesn't tell us if he has a anxious personality. But when you see a consistent

00:22:47.680 pattern of that syntax, then you can presume that it is a matter of trait rather than simply state.

00:22:53.900 Well, how does language change once you get angry? So this is interesting because,

00:22:57.820 you know, a lot of our communication is over text. And someone might, it might sound polite,

00:23:03.200 right? Like the text sounds polite, but there's like signifiers that, well, this person might be

00:23:07.140 actually angry with you. That's right. That's right. Right. You know, you can use a bunch of emoticons

00:23:12.500 and you're, you know, you have a question, there's a smiley face, but you know, are they angry or not?

00:23:17.260 And sometimes it's obvious in person, but if it's not in person, it can be difficult to tell.

00:23:22.300 So first, grammatically speaking, an angry state is distinguished by the use of more second and third

00:23:27.540 person pronouns, meaning that the person is going to shift away from themselves. And it makes sense

00:23:33.240 because I'm not focused on me. There's not going to be a big I or me. It's going to be about you

00:23:39.720 and your, right? There was certainly not going to see a lot of language that shows cooperation and

00:23:46.060 such as us and our, and we, those things are going to be quite absent. You're not going to see

00:23:54.360 a lot of language that connotes sort of anything that qualifies we're saying. There's not going to

00:24:02.080 be a lot of retractors. The language is very clear and pure in much the same way that the anxious person

00:24:07.540 may say things such as, I think this may be a good idea or maybe not, right? Qualifiers and

00:24:13.000 retractors. The angry person eliminates both qualifiers and retractors. And the language is

00:24:17.960 very direct. It's how dare you do this? What is going on? You're not going to notice a lot of

00:24:23.320 qualification in what they're saying, and they're not taking it back. They're not going to say

00:24:27.220 something as, you know, such as, you know, how could you do this to me? Although, you know,

00:24:31.220 oh, I can kind of see and so on. Now, again, as we're using these examples, it seems quite intuitive,

00:24:36.440 but if you're simply reading a text from somebody and you're not sure whether they're angry or not

00:24:41.580 looking for the absence of qualifiers and retractors and for the, whether or not they're

00:24:47.400 focused on you or themselves is just very, very telling. So talking about some more signals of

00:24:52.880 possible deception. I thought this was really interesting. People who are deceiving typically do a

00:25:00.080 lot of pontificating and philosophizing. What do you mean by that?

00:25:04.500 Yeah. You know, the person who's deceptive, and again, one of the reasons why you've got so many

00:25:09.140 approaches here, because it depends on whether you want to get a confession or you want to see whether

00:25:14.780 they are lying about an alibi or whether just making something up in general. But, you know,

00:25:21.440 pontificating is something that they do often because a person who's lying, they can't obviously tell you

00:25:27.020 the truth. So they come up with a lot of ways of filling the space. So they'll tell you things

00:25:32.680 such as, you know, in the old days, something like this would never happen. They'll speak very

00:25:37.460 metaphorically. They will use words that try to convey emotion, but because they're not really

00:25:42.860 feeling the emotion, it's going to seem very stale. A person who's lying also, they're going to be

00:25:48.240 filling their statement, whether it's written or oral, with superfluous, unnecessary details.

00:25:55.700 The reason is because a person who is lying recognizes that they need to include details

00:26:02.980 because that's what's going to make what they're saying more believable. The problem, of course,

00:26:07.140 is they don't have a lot of real details because they're making up the story. So you're going to

00:26:11.500 notice a lot of unnecessary details. So you'll ask the person, you know, tell me about your morning.

00:26:16.380 And they'll say, now here's where they can tell you about what really happened. And you're going to

00:26:20.660 get the most, if you pay attention to it, I got to tell you, Brett, it's so obvious. They're going to

00:26:25.560 fill what they're saying with the most unnecessary superfluous details. Oh, I got up at 7 a.m.

00:26:31.700 I had eggs for breakfast. You know, you got to start your day with a good breakfast. And I like

00:26:34.920 protein because, you know, who needs those empty carbs? So I had that, you know, obviously not

00:26:39.200 necessary to what is it talking about, but they feel that the more detailed they are, the more

00:26:44.340 believable they are. The problem, of course, is that when details are superfluous, when they're

00:26:48.220 unnecessary, it is indicative of somebody who's making up a story. There are a number of other

00:26:54.000 things to pay attention to in terms of the story. You'll notice that a person who is lying, when they

00:26:59.400 get to the main event, they're going to stop talking. And that's when, you know, the person,

00:27:04.020 you know, shot him and so on. The person who's telling a truthful story is going to talk about

00:27:08.380 what happened afterwards, how they felt, the conversations, the mood, interactions, and so on.

00:27:12.980 The person who's lying, they think their job is just to get to the main event. And then they're just

00:27:17.320 happy for the conversation to be over. And you'll notice that what follows afterwards is truncated or

00:27:22.400 completely absent, while the truthful person is going to talk more about after the actual event

00:27:28.340 than the person who's lying about it. Yeah. The other example of like an unnecessary

00:27:32.460 detail is when someone's like, well, I woke up at seven. Well, no, it was actually 7.55 because I

00:27:36.720 was up late last night with the blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, that's not, I don't need to know

00:27:41.820 that. Yeah. What they're doing there is they're showing, you know, you've got to know how honest I am,

00:27:46.980 Brett, because I'm even correcting myself, right? Now, only an honest person would take the time to

00:27:52.940 make sure that he got even these unnecessary details correct. Now, once again, to the, you know,

00:28:00.740 unlearned observer, we might be thinking, this is a really honest person. Wow, he's taking the time

00:28:05.680 to correct these details on what he had for breakfast. But obviously, we already know that

00:28:10.740 if he is trying to correct the details about something that's already unnecessary in the

00:28:16.400 first place, this is somebody's trying to convey to give the impression that they're being honest

00:28:20.820 when obviously they're not. And then you said, when you get to the actual moment of truth,

00:28:25.120 like the thing that we're, that's really important, they're going to do, start doing stuff.

00:28:28.880 They're just going to go, you know, glance over it and they're going to do things to distance

00:28:32.200 themselves from. So they'll maybe use passive voice. So it's like if someone, if like the safe

00:28:36.700 at work got robbed or whatever, when you say, well, that's when the, that's when the safe was

00:28:41.340 robbed, was robbed, right? Right. That's right. That's right. The active voice is indicative of

00:28:46.820 something that's more truthful. And there are a lot of, you know, I stayed away from in the book,

00:28:50.580 bringing in real life examples only because I do a lot of work with the government and I had to avoid

00:28:56.800 anything that was sort of politically charged or, you know, or any sort of affiliation. But if you look,

00:29:01.980 you know, at some of the transcripts from different scenarios in the real world, you'll notice that

00:29:10.260 when a person is telling the truth, whatever point they are, they're using the active voice. And then when

00:29:15.140 it comes to the part that they're lying about, they switch to a passive voice. And if you pay attention

00:29:20.180 to it, it can be glaringly obvious. Well, I learned this when I was in law school, you know, you have to

00:29:24.540 take a legal writing class, right? And so you're, you're, one of the things you have to do is write a brief

00:29:29.240 for a memo. And that's one of the tips you like, say, say if you're on the, you're on the defense

00:29:33.480 side, right? You have to state the facts, like here's the statement of facts, but you can state

00:29:38.200 them in a way to make your client look less or more guilty. So like if someone was killed or you

00:29:45.220 can't deny that someone was killed, right? That's because the fact that there's a dead body, but you

00:29:49.080 can do things like, well, the person died or the person was hit. You don't have to say like,

00:29:54.460 who did it, right? Because you're just trying to distance your client from it.

00:29:57.300 Right. That's right. You know, politicians have a penchant for doing this. It's, you know,

00:30:01.020 mistakes were made. That's quite different from I messed up, right? You know, when they switch the

00:30:06.420 passive, they take themselves out of the equation. It's obviously that they're looking to distance

00:30:10.500 themselves from it. And what's interesting is that, you know, we're talking about this, we know this,

00:30:15.260 and you, some people might be thinking, well, of course that's obvious what they mean to say,

00:30:20.820 but language is very powerful. And just as you noted, you know, skilled attorneys know to avoid

00:30:26.960 language that's going to create that stark visceral response in the jury and to use language that

00:30:34.840 paints their client in a greater light.

00:30:38.820 Yeah. If you're on the prosecution side, you'd use the active voice. Like so-and-so did, you know,

00:30:43.400 he took the hammer and like bludgeoned, like you would, that's how you would do it. And it would

00:30:47.580 paint the picture in the person, the judge's head or the jury's head that, yeah, the guy did it.

00:30:51.600 And so, I mean, we've talked about, you know, some different ways to detect deception. Is there

00:30:56.560 like one signal or, you know, a convluence of signals that you think, you know, if someone

00:31:01.920 starts paying attention to more, that it'll provide some like, oh, that's something I didn't

00:31:06.900 know. And I need to investigate that more. Like some of the most bang for your buck.

00:31:10.420 Yeah. You know, I see this all the time. And, you know, every time I read it in the paper,

00:31:14.160 again, I want to clip it out, but I know that I can't really do much with it. It's amazing. People

00:31:18.920 who are accused of doing something in the public eye, if you look for it again, it's glaring

00:31:22.880 obviously, they, no matter how much they want to, they have a hard time saying, I didn't do it.

00:31:30.320 You know, they'll say things such as the facts will bear out exactly what we're saying, or,

00:31:36.120 you know what, I'm not that kind of person, or, you know, this is something that I would,

00:31:40.860 I don't stand for. A person who is innocent is going to give a very clear definitive, I didn't do it.

00:31:48.780 Now, of course, that's not enough to hang our hat on, but you're going to notice that a person

00:31:53.460 who's denying something that they did is, has a hard time because unless they're an outright

00:31:59.080 sociopath, they do feel a degree of guilt and they're trying to distance themselves and they

00:32:03.340 don't want to lie, at least part of them. So they're going to say things, you know, such as everyone

00:32:07.700 loves me, reputation is spotless, I'm not a bad person. You know, I don't know how they could say

00:32:12.620 such things, but you're not going to hear, I didn't do it. And if you do, it's going to be after

00:32:17.300 some long convoluted, you know, statement that has nothing to do with, you know, whether or not

00:32:24.860 they did it or not do it, they're going to offer some sort of, you know, supporting evidence or

00:32:29.700 information. But one of the mistakes I continuously see, even from people who are well-represented 1.00

00:32:35.040 is they don't offer a very clear, definitive, upfront denial.

00:32:40.320 Yeah. The other one you hear when people don't give an upfront denial is just like,

00:32:43.300 well, how could you think that of me? They turn it back on the other person without just saying,

00:32:47.360 I didn't do it. That's right. Who do you think you are? How could you accuse me of that?

00:32:51.640 And, you know, it's the centerpiece of a person's response should be, again, a consistent,

00:32:56.820 clear denial of the act and not proof that he's not the kind of person who would never commit such an

00:33:01.400 act. You know, I could never do that. I've got daughters myself. What is that other thing? Or,

00:33:05.820 you know what? I've got too much respect for the, you know, these people to go ahead and do

00:33:10.100 something like that. Again, irrelevant, irrelevant. You want to hear a very clear,

00:33:15.040 definitive denial. Once again, not enough to say that the person is being honest,

00:33:20.000 but the absence of a denial is very striking.

00:33:23.440 So a section of the book I found particularly useful, it detailed signals to help you figure

00:33:28.740 out if you're dealing with someone who's emotionally and mentally healthy or not. You

00:33:33.400 start off by distinguishing between two types of mental health unwellness. There's

00:33:37.320 ego dystonic and ego syntonic. What's the difference between the two?

00:33:43.100 Right. So the psychological disorders, they're commonly classified as either ego dystonic or

00:33:48.600 ego systonic. Any behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that upset a person that make them uncomfortable

00:33:54.600 are what's called ego dystonic. This person doesn't like them and they don't want them. And they are

00:34:01.860 going to generally be mood disorders, also called affective disorders. They include depression,

00:34:07.780 bipolar, anxiety, things like that. Sufferers of ego dystonic are also more likely to have negative

00:34:16.120 thoughts, rumination. They're hypersensitive to everyday stressors. They can become easily frustrated,

00:34:21.200 overwhelmed. They are pretty much anxious folks. And it's obviously, there's a spectrum. It's not an

00:34:26.200 all or non-proposition. But then you have personality disorders, which are ego systonic.

00:34:33.100 And those include borderline personality disorder, antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, and so on.

00:34:39.360 The classification changes every time the DSM comes out. But personality disorders, from their

00:34:45.400 standpoint, this person's behaviors, their thoughts, their feelings, there's nothing wrong with them.

00:34:50.320 They're all part of their identity. A personality disorder, people, we well know people who have

00:34:55.100 personality disorders. They're very, very difficult. They blame everyone else for their problems.

00:34:59.060 They don't believe they're suffering with anything. They refuse to look inward and will assume that

00:35:03.600 everyone else has a problem and not them. So those are the two general sort of categories of emotional

00:35:10.280 unwellness. It's either going to produce like an affective disorder, mood disorder, or in the other

00:35:17.480 classification, a personality disorder. Again, painting with the broad brush.

00:35:20.760 Yeah. So the affective disorders, this is like anxiety and depression. And the language that

00:35:26.640 people use that have the disorders, it's typically passive. There's a lot of me language. I've heard

00:35:33.080 it called me always everything language. So it's like, why does bad stuff happen to me? And everything

00:35:38.640 is going wrong. And always everything goes wrong. So it's a lot of negative orientation. So the use of

00:35:44.840 that kind of language can point to someone having an affective disorder. I'm curious, we've been talking

00:35:51.340 about recognizing signals in other people, but to take a short detour here, I'm wondering if we're depressed

00:35:58.400 or anxious ourselves, and we notice that we use that sort of language, that sort of passive, me always

00:36:04.280 everything language, can the way we, you know, can we change our language so it's more, it's more active,

00:36:11.040 less ruminative. If we change the way we talk, can it change our own mood?

00:36:15.740 That's such a great question. And the most recent research says absolutely positively.

00:36:21.260 When we use language and, you know, when I do work with kids, this comes up a lot, or even adults,

00:36:26.700 anyone feeling anxious, I encourage them to pay attention to the words that they're using. When

00:36:30.780 they say things like, I'm feeling overwhelmed, this is too much for me, all they're doing is

00:36:35.420 reinforcing that state. Now, certainly using more positive language is not going to be enough in and of

00:36:40.320 itself. But when we use language that's more empowering, we use language that is more definitive,

00:36:45.900 more bold, and less vulnerable, it does change how we feel about ourselves and certainly can change how

00:36:52.380 we feel about the situation. So yes, language can be much the same way that there's a field called

00:36:57.700 embodied cognition, which looks at our body language and how it can sometimes reflect our mood and state,

00:37:04.060 meaning that if a person, you know, moves their body physically, they are more animated,

00:37:09.580 they're more open, they're more expressive, it can help them to feel less anxious, it can help them

00:37:14.400 to feel less withdrawn and timid. But when we close in our body language, again, because of embodied

00:37:19.780 cognition, the thoughts don't just originate from the mind, but rather they can sometimes reflect the

00:37:26.180 physicality. We're able to really change and change our state simply by changing our physiology and

00:37:33.300 certainly by changing the language that we use can make a very big difference to how we see ourselves

00:37:37.940 and how we see the problem with the challenge in front of us.

00:37:40.440 Well, I imagine that's the whole impetus behind cognitive behavioral therapy is to shift your,

00:37:44.360 the way you think from, you know, thinking it's not all about you, not everything in your life is

00:37:49.140 terrible, and not everything always goes wrong, because that's what a lot of times depressive

00:37:53.640 people do. So it's like, no, it's not that you got to challenge that thinking.

00:37:57.180 That's right. And I also encourage people to use the word choice. You know, a person says,

00:38:01.420 you know, I am stuck in this job. So you're choosing to stay in this job. See, if they're

00:38:06.660 stuck in the job or everyone's out to get them, it's very passive. And if someone else is responsible

00:38:11.760 and someone else can fix it. But if I say, remind them to look at it as if they are choosing to

00:38:18.460 respond this way and they can choose to respond the different way, it's very, very empowering.

00:38:23.240 All right. So be an agent, use agency language.

00:38:25.960 Yes.

00:38:26.220 Let's talk about the personality disorder stuff. Like, are there signs of the way someone speaks

00:38:31.420 or interacts when you're interacting with them to know if they have like a personality disorder

00:38:35.260 or if like they're a narcissist?

00:38:37.320 Yeah. So there's a wide spectrum, but here are some sort of red flags to pay attention to.

00:38:42.800 And again, everything is on a range and it's not an all or none, but the less emotionally healthy

00:38:47.980 people are, the worse their boundaries are going to be. Because, you know, people often assume that

00:38:54.460 boundaries are meant to keep people out. They're not. They're meant to define our personal sense of

00:38:58.080 space, responsibility, and obligation. Every relationship needs boundaries. And, you know,

00:39:03.220 when a person comes into our space in an unhealthy way, or really, Brett, don't let people into their

00:39:09.340 space in a healthy way, it is indicative of, again, of poor emotional health. And it tells us whether or

00:39:16.060 not it's more ego dystonic or ego systonic, because a person who is ego systonic is going to come into

00:39:23.560 our space. They're going to breach boundaries. Because at the end of the day, all human beings

00:39:28.680 are wired for connection, but the surrogate to connection is control, which is why that's something

00:39:33.400 that every single personality disorder has in common. They all see control. So they're going to come into

00:39:38.560 your space in an unhealthy way. They're going to take everything personally, because the egocentricity

00:39:43.740 makes a very big capital I. Conversely, they're going to have a very narrow perspective, because

00:39:48.920 it's that I that blocks perspective. They're going to be the perpetual victim. They're not going to

00:39:53.900 take responsibility. They're certainly obvious that they're going to blow things out of proportion,

00:39:58.520 because they don't have a clear perspective. And, you know, if you see any clear warning signs of

00:40:03.000 lying, cheating, stealing, advancing their own agenda, then obviously you're dealing with somebody who

00:40:07.400 can be quite injurious. Well, how do you, I mean, in your practice, how do you counsel people to deal

00:40:12.480 with someone who's maybe a narcissist or a sociopath or borderline personality disorder,

00:40:17.200 whatever? Right. So of the personality disorders, the one that really is in a class by itself is

00:40:23.320 the antisocial personality disorder. That's a sociopath or psychopath. And the reason they're

00:40:28.340 in a class by themselves is because every other personality disorder, as we mentioned before,

00:40:31.720 they seek connection. Even the narcissist, they want to connect. They just can't, or they have a very

00:40:36.800 difficult time, depending on where they are on the spectrum. Because in order for me to connect with

00:40:41.380 you, I need a me, right? I need a sense of me. But a narcissist counterintuitively suffers with

00:40:46.640 perverse low self-esteem. There is no real I. They're entirely egocentric. So there's no real

00:40:51.660 ability to connect because they have no sense of self, right? With whom are they connecting?

00:40:56.320 There's no ability for them to authentically bond. What they do is they've got this mask,

00:41:03.560 they've got this facade, and that's what really connects them to other people. And when that fails,

00:41:07.560 they're going to use coercion and control. The person suffering with antisocial personality

00:41:13.860 disorder, sadly, they do not require connection. Other people are not people, they are tools. 0.95

00:41:20.840 So the most important, powerful lesson to understand about people who suffer with sociopathy or psychopathy

00:41:27.860 is that people without a conscience exist. It makes us feel better to believe that they're just

00:41:35.280 misguided, misunderstood. They're really good deep down inside. A person who legitimately suffers

00:41:40.580 with a personality disorder, such as, again, psychopathy or sociopathy, have no conscience.

00:41:47.540 You are a tool. You will be used, manipulated, cast aside. There is no appealing to their higher 0.83

00:41:54.860 self, their conscience, their soul. There is no one home to talk to. Everything is going to be about

00:42:01.280 them. And they're the most dangerous. Do you just avoid them? Is that the best way to deal with it?

00:42:06.580 Yes. There is, right. There's no outsmarting them. They live, they feed off of power and control. 0.73

00:42:16.000 And they are generally, certainly sociopaths, intelligent. They're highly practiced. But just

00:42:22.860 so your listeners are aware, there are a couple of things, no matter how good they are, sociopaths,

00:42:28.240 they can't help but give themselves away because they're wearing really a mask of a mask, right?

00:42:33.400 They're a caricature. They can feign empathy and feign connection, but they don't really care about

00:42:39.260 you, but they're practiced at it. But a couple of things to pay attention to, there are actually,

00:42:44.080 there's eight or 10 that you want to look at, but just two to give over now. One is that they will

00:42:48.220 always promise the world, but deliver nothing. Now, if they're playing the long game and they're looking

00:42:53.360 to invest in trying to get something from you, they may temporarily do something that seems like

00:43:00.240 they're really bending over backwards to accommodate. And they'll make sure that you

00:43:03.020 find out about it, of course. But they generally, when push comes to shove, will promise the world

00:43:08.040 words are cheap, but they will deliver nothing. Also very important to look at, they do not have any

00:43:14.440 real relationships. They are friends with the world and close to no one. They do not speak fondly about

00:43:20.780 their parents, their siblings, their children, their ex former spouse. There is nobody close

00:43:27.300 to them. Certainly there are people, unfortunately have personality disorders that are not antisocial,

00:43:32.760 that have fractured relationships, but that's something to pay attention to when it comes to

00:43:38.100 sociopaths or psychopaths. Well, David, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to

00:43:43.300 learn more about the book and your work? They can connect with me on social media. Feel free to reach

00:43:49.260 out to follow or connect on LinkedIn, on Instagram. They can also visit the publisher's website,

00:43:55.300 which is prh.com slash mindreader. Fantastic. Well, David Lieberman, thanks for your time. It's

00:44:01.080 been a pleasure. Brett, thank you so much. Appreciate the time. My guest here is Dr. David Lieberman. He's

00:44:06.260 the author of the book Mind Reader. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. Make sure

00:44:10.200 to check out our show notes at aom.is slash mindreader. We can find links to resources. We delve deeper into this

00:44:14.640 topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

00:44:25.920 artofmanliness.com. We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written over the

00:44:29.540 years about pretty much anything you'd think of. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate

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00:44:40.220 something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:44:43.600 Remind you on this AOM podcast, put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - August 29, 2022

How to Read Minds and Detect Deception

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