How to Read Minds and Detect Deception
Episode Stats
Summary
Being able to discern someone's true thoughts and intentions is a valuable skill to have. Knowing when someone is lying to you can protect your finances, your professional interests, and your loved ones. Here to teach us some of the elements of this skill is Dr. David Lieberman, who is a psychotherapist, a consultant to the military and other intelligence and defense agencies, and the author of Mind Reader, the new science of deciphering what people really think, what they really want, and who they really are.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Being adept at discerning people's true thoughts and intentions is a valuable skill to have.
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Knowing when someone is deceiving you can protect your finances,
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your professional interest, and your loved ones.
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Here to teach us some of the elements of this skill is Dr. David Lieberman,
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who's a psychotherapist, a consultant to the military and other intelligence and defense
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agencies, and the author of Mind Reader, the new science of deciphering what people really think,
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what they really want, and who they really are. Today on the show, David explains why verbal cues
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offer a better window into people's minds than body language, and the clues to look for in both
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spoken and written speech that can indicate whether someone is honest or deceptive. We also get into
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how to detect whether someone is mentally healthy or not, including the signs you're dealing with
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a psychopath. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash mindreader.
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So we've had you on the podcast before to discuss your book, Never Get Angry Again. That was back
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in 2019, so it's been a while. You got a new book out called Mind Reader, the new science of deciphering
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what people really think, what they really want, and who they really are. Well, let's talk about your
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background. You're a psychologist, and you specialize in sussing out human deception.
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Right. So I've always had a fascination with human nature and human behavior, and I suppose that's
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why I went into psychology in the first place. But then I wrote a book called Never Be Lied To Again,
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and it was a book written for the layperson about how to detect deception.
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And I got a phone call from the director of the behavioral science unit at the FBI. They
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houses the profilers. And he asked me if I'd come down and do a training, and that was about 25 years
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ago. And then so began a long career working with the FBI, CIA, NSA, pretty much every branch of the
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US military, law enforcement agencies around the world, corporate arena. You've got fraud investigators,
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human resources, private investigators. I'm just very grateful for the opportunities to be able to
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work with a great number of very, very talented people.
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All right. So you've been doing this for a long time. And in your book, you highlight,
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this is for a lay audience, some of the signals that you look for when you're doing an investigation
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on whether someone's being deceptive or not. And one thing I noticed throughout the book,
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you got out of your way to point out that these linguistic or behavioral signals that can reveal
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what people are thinking, they're not definitive. So how do you use these signals in your work to
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discern someone's true thoughts and intentions? That's right. And it's a great point. And there
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is no technique that is going to work 100% of the time. And anyone that claims that it will is,
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well, they're not being so honest. And one of the reasons why my work is used so widely by law
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enforcement is because they use a layered approach, meaning that you're not going to have just one
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trick ponies, you know, watch out if the person always says this or never says this. In any
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conversation, there's going to be a number of different markers, five, six, seven, eight,
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to pay attention to. So then you can recognize if the person, you know, they sort of flag seven or
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eight markers out of seven or eight or nine, then you can likely put this person in a specific
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category. So a single casual reference doesn't mean anything, but a consistent pattern of syntax can be
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very revealing. So it sounds like it's about putting together a big picture of a person so
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you can possibly investigate further if needed. That's right. And particularly when it comes to
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gauging someone's emotional health, you know, as you, as you say, I make a number of disclaimers in
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the book because one of the things that I don't want happening is somebody just opening up to a random
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chapter on emotional health, how to gauge whether someone's, you know, emotionally solvent and then decide
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that they're in a relationship with somebody who's not well without looking at the larger picture or
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having a conversation with a babysitter or someone in an elevator and maybe thinking somebody is
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emotionally well when really they're not. So you want to look for the full context. You want to
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get a larger picture. And in doing so, you can get a much clearer snapshot.
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Yeah. And I can imagine seeing, you know, someone reading like a tip and like, well, if someone does
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this, they're lying. And then you, you see your wife do that thing like, oh, you're lying to me. And like,
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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
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did that signal that suggests that they might be lying, but it doesn't, it's not definitive.
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That's right. That's right. And the very last thing I want is a relationship to be injured
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because somebody erroneously used these techniques. It's one thing to use them to protect yourself
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emotionally, physically, financially. It's quite another to miscategorize somebody. And when the
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stakes get high, you know, in negotiation, arbitration, and certainly in our personal
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relationships, I encourage people spend, it's not a lot of time. You're talking about an extra
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five minutes rather than 30 seconds to build a profile. So in and of itself, we're not talking
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about days, but you do have to spend the five minutes. And in the generation where everything
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is, you know, quick, fast, now, you know, 280 characters, sometimes people don't want to invest
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those extra few minutes, but it really could make a very big difference.
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All right. So not definitive. This is just another tool in your arsenal
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of figuring out other humans. And what's interesting about your book is I think a lot
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of people, when they imagine deciphering deception or trying to figure out what someone's thinking,
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they typically think about body language, right? Well, if your arms are closed, it means they
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are closed out. I think we've all heard that. But in Mind Reader, you pay very little attention
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That's right. Because it really doesn't work. Here's what happened. Go back about 25 years
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ago. And I developed some of the very techniques that are used in body language. But what we
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found was over time, first, that the people became so familiar with them. If your arms are
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crossed, if your eyes, you know, are darting away, you're scratching your nose, we know to
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avoid doing those very same things that will give us away. So when you're dealing with somebody,
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unless they're a very unsophisticated liar, you need more intelligent techniques. Secondly,
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where a lot of conversation and interaction takes place over Zoom, you lose even those
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body language signs that were reliable, you lose the ability to activate them because you
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simply don't have access to those visual cues. So what Mind Reader does is it uses a field called
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psycholinguistics, which looks at how people use language and using it to glean what they're
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really thinking and feeling. So for example, you know, when somebody's arms are crossed,
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you know, technically speaking, they could be defensive, but they could also be cold.
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But when it comes to language, it's much more difficult for us to cover up what it is we want
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to say when we look at not what the person's saying, but how they're saying it.
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Well, yeah, and this also was nice about the language, focusing on language is that it applies
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to text as well. I mean, that's what you highlight. A lot of the research on this is just
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analyzing emails, text, et cetera. And there's a correlation to someone's state of mind based on
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the text. That's right. That's right. You know, one of the reasons why, again, the book has gotten
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so much attention is because the techniques work without the need for interacting with your subject.
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Oftentimes, just from listening to a conversation, a speech, a recording, a voicemail, or a message,
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as you said, from reading a text or even an email, certainly in live interaction, you've got even
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that much more to glean. But there's no way body language will ever even enter into the equation
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if you're looking at a text or you're listening to a voicemail.
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So let's talk about some of these language signals that can suggest what someone's thinking
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or if they're being deceptive. And you highlight research from a social psychologist and linguistic
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professor named James Pennebaker. And he's done a lot of research about how our personal
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pronoun use can indicate what's going on in our mind. So generally, how does our pronoun
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use change depending on whether we feel confident or not confident, et cetera?
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Right. He's on earth, a wealth of information. And he's got a great book called The Secret Life
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of Pronouns, which I encourage people to take a look at. So he basically explains that people
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who have power tend to use I, me, and my fewer times than those of lower status. And it's
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counterintuitive. You know, we assume that the person who's in a position of power would
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be using the words or the pronouns I, me, my, more. But what happens is, is that when you
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feel comfortable, when you are confident, then you're able to focus in on the rest of the
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world, on other people and pay attention to them. When we become self-conscious, literally
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aware of the self, that linguistic I comes into play in much the same way that the physical
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I comes into play. You know, when a person gets up to give a speech and they're nervous,
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they become very self-conscious and they don't really know physically, you know, sometimes
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where their arms go or where to look. So much the same way that when a person is confident
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in who they are in that social setting, you're going to see that linguistically, the personal
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pronouns are more likely to be absent and the person is more focused outward on other people
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and their language is going to reflect that pattern.
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That's really, yeah, that is counterintuitive. You think someone who's egocentric would be saying
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I, me, like who's confident they'd be saying those words, but that's not the case.
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What about like if someone's trying to conceal something, does pronoun usage change?
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Right. So what's interesting is that the research shows is that generally speaking, and again,
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I'm painting with a broad brush here. There are, as we know, many nuances that you've got
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to sort of filter everything through. But when a person is honest in what they're saying,
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they're willing to take ownership. And that usually means they're going to bring that
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linguistic I into the equation. So for example, I could say, Brett, I like your presentation.
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I really like your podcast. Or I could say, it's a good presentation. Nice podcast. Now,
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I'm essentially saying the same thing, but the subtext is quite different. When I use the word
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I, I'm taking ownership of what it is I'm saying. And there's a greater likelihood that I actually
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Oh, yeah. I've gotten that compliment. We're just like, oh, great talk.
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Right. They're just being, maybe they're just being nice. Or maybe they, I mean,
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maybe they did think it was a great talk, but it might just be, they're just being nice and saying
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that. True. But you know, I'm sorry, it's important to remember though, that, you know,
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for example, that introverts are more likely to say something such as nice talk rather than I liked
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your talk. While extroverts, conversely, of course, are more likely to include the I because they
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are more interested in that connection, that attachment.
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So it's important just because somebody says great talk or great podcast, it doesn't mean that
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Okay. So if someone's concealing something, they're going to not take ownership of it. They're
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not going to use I, the I pronoun. What about, there's another way you highlight that we use
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language to maybe conceal or at least distance ourselves from an idea or others. And this is a,
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it's putting spatial distance. What's going on there?
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Right. So there's so much. And also with pronouns and language, when the active voice versus the
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passive voice is also statistically more likely to be true. The person says, I took the pen versus
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the pen was given to me. When I say I took the pen, again, it's an active voice and a personal pronoun
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and more likely to be true. And you just see how you begin to build those layers.
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But regarding interesting, the words here and there, sometimes, you know, we have something
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like adverbs such as this and that, these and those, and here and there, and they show where a person
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is in relation to an object or the speaker. So for example, you know, a person says, this is an
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interesting idea, or here's an interesting idea. Now, when the person says, here's an interesting
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idea, rather than there, once again, it's more likely that they are truthful in what it is
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they're saying. Now, it's important to note, just because someone says, again, this is an interesting
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idea, it doesn't mean that they're not interested. But when we say here, that is what we call spatial
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immediacy. They are looking for a greater attachment, a greater connection to what it is that they're
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saying. And so you begin to see how putting these things together in a single sentence can be very,
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very revealing. And can you give us another example of that?
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Sure. Let's say we say a person says something such as, there's your drink versus here we are.
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Right. Now, so a person says, there's your drink. There is non-immediate, it signals distance.
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Oppositional, which is something else we didn't discuss about you versus us, right? Here's your drink.
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And a concrete noun, drink. Person says, here we are. Again, you've got here signaling closeness.
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We, united, a bond. And then finally, are, sort of a function word relying on shared knowledge.
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This is, again, something else that we go, obviously, into more detail. But for here,
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for example, take the word we, right? When a person says we, let me give you an example. Let's say Jack
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and Jill walk out of a restaurant on a first date. And Jack innocently says, or Jill says to Jack,
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where do we park our car or where do we park the car? Now, when she says, where did we park the car or
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even more so our car, she's already begun to identify themselves as a unit. If it was not a
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good date, you can rest assured that she would say something such as, where did you park the car,
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right? She would not want to associate herself linguistically with Jack. Once again, we want to be
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clear. Just because, you know, Jill says, where do you park the car or your car, if it is in fact
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Jack's car, it doesn't mean she's not interested. But when we use words like we and us and our,
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they indicate a bond, a connection. And as soon as she says, where did we park the car or even more
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so our car, we know that she's communicating a subtext of interest. And we do this all the time.
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Again, sometimes we pay attention to language, but often not. And that's why it's so difficult
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for somebody. The question people always ask is, you know, if somebody reads a book, can't they now
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avoid doing the very things that will give themselves away? And the answer is no. By body
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language, you can, but this is human nature. And you're going to have to think about every single
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thing you say all the time in order to avoid giving yourself away. Okay. So this idea of, you know,
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language, the modifiers, or even passive or active voice, are there things to be on the lookout for
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if someone's trying to distant themselves from an accusation? Because maybe they didn't,
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so they're just trying to make it look like they didn't. You know what I'm saying?
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Yeah. No, for sure. There are many ways to tell whether somebody is being honest or not. And what
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you want to do is take a look at the situation. If it's an accusation you want to make, we'll take a
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look at how to go ahead and solve that. But it's going to be a different technique than if you're
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looking at a story, if you're looking at an alibi. But let's take your question in terms of you think
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that somebody may be up to something. So one of the biggest mistakes we make in trying to get the
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truth is we actually accuse the other person of doing something wrong. Now that immediately is
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going to put them on the defensive. If they are guilty of the behavior, they're going to say no.
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And if they're not guilty, of course, they're going to say no. And if they say yes,
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then any technique would have worked. So rather than accuse the other person, what you want to do
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is you allude to a similar scenario. And it works like this. Let's say that a hospital administrator
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thinks that one of her doctors may be drinking on duty. What she would say is, you know, Dr. Marcus,
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maybe you can help me out with something. We think that there's another doctor over at Mercy Hospital
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that may be drinking on duty. Any idea on how the hospital administrator there can best approach him?
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Now, all she has to do is gauge his reaction. If he's not guilty of the same behavior,
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he's going to become very interested, want to engage, offer his advice, be happy that it was
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sought out. But if he is guilty of a similar scenario, he's going to become very uncomfortable,
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look at the change, change the subject, and offer some sort of, you know, quick assurance that he
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would never do something like this. So again, if you think somebody may be up to something,
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rather than accuse them outright, bring up a similar situation, and then just simply watch how they
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handle it. Well, you give this other great tip if you're trying to figure out if someone is lying
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or not, is, you know, it's similar to what you just said. It's injecting an emotional stressor
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into the situation. And so you do this, you have like a neat little trick. What's that little trick
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you talk about in the book? You know, I'm trying to remember. I think it's the, okay, it's the one
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where you say, oh, I heard there was lots of traffic. Ah, right, right, right, right. So they're
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right. So when you're talking to somebody face to face, you know, one of the ways that we have to
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get somebody to be more honest or to gauge their emotional, you know, integrity is by taking a step
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closer. Because when you increase that physical proximity, it adds to their emotional stress.
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But when you're speaking to somebody and you're trying to get the truth, and maybe you're a thousand
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miles away, you don't have the luxury of stepping closer, you can introduce an emotional stressor.
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And it works like this. You know, if you think, let's give the example of an alibi. Once again,
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if you simply say, oh, you're really at the movies with your friend, person says, yeah, really? Yeah,
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really? You know, where does that go? So rather what you do is you want to confirm the facts and
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then you introduce a plausible, but not true fact, quote unquote fact. And it works like this.
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So taking the example of a person who says that they were movies with their friends,
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you'd say, what movie did you see? I saw, you know, Planet of the Apes. I'm dating myself here. I just
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happen to like the movie, but Planet of the Apes. And what showing did you see? The A30 on Main Street?
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Yeah, Main Street. And now once you've got the facts, you introduce a false bit of information.
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You'd say something such as, oh, eight o'clock on Main Street at about 930, I heard that there was a
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big water main break and traffic was backed up for hours. It must have taken you forever to get out
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of there. Now he's got a problem. But he's going to do the one thing that every single liar does when
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making up a story. And that Brett is hesitate. He's not sure how to answer. He's trying to figure
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out whether you're tricking him or not. But if the person was in fact there, you're going to get a
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very quick, what are you talking about? There was no water main break, but he's going to hesitate.
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Again, this is highly reliable, but once again, I encourage people to look at four, five, six,
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seven markers and use language in determining, you know, to gauge their response and how they answer
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and as how they express themselves. But that could be one very powerful technique.
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Yeah. One other, similar to that technique I've heard is, let's say you're a bouncer at a bar
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and you're checking someone's ID and you think this is probably fake. And you ask them, well,
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are you 21? They'll say, yes, of course. But then you ask them, what's your birthday?
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Okay. And if they're lying, usually they'd be like, oh, geez, I got to do the math. Like what
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would make me 21 or 22? And it'll cause some flustering, some fluster going to go on.
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That's right. That's right. People who lie generally have their pat answers ready to go,
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which is why, you know, whenever you're dealing with somebody who you want to find out whether or
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not they're being honest, you want to ask them a question that they're probably not expecting,
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but obviously one that's relevant to what it is you're discussing. So in that case, you know,
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you can also say something such as, you know, what's your horoscope sign? Now they may have
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chosen, you know, August down for the license, even though their birthday is in June and they're
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not going to be able to figure out too quickly unless they're into astrology, what their actual
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horoscope is. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
00:20:14.780
So you also talk about our language can reveal whether we're anxious or fearful or angry. And
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that can come in handy, you know, if you can, if someone sounds like they're anxious, it could be,
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you know, it could be they're just anxious about the thing, or it could be that they're,
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they're deceptive. Like they don't want someone to know the truth. So they're getting anxious.
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So how does our language change when we start to feel worried or anxious?
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Right. So once again, people use physical markers, which may or may not be practical,
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right? And if you can't see the person, clearly not. But even very small things,
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go back to pronouns again. And the pronoun me, for example, indicates inward orientation,
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as does a pronoun I. But because me is almost always used in a passive tense,
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meaning that something acts on the person rather than the person taking action.
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Me is indicative of feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. And when it's used superfluously,
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when it's used unnecessarily, the anxiety is even more true. So for example, this comes into small
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children a lot. A person can say, or a child, whoever it is, my stomach hurts, or my stomach hurts me.
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Why are you yelling? Or why are you yelling at me? Now, you don't need, it's superfluous to say
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the me at the end of my stomach hurts me. It's obvious whose stomach is going to hurt. Why are
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you yelling? You're obviously yelling at me. But when we use the word me because it's passive,
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it is inextricably linked with a degree of anxiety. So that's something to pay attention to. There's
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also something called linguistic qualifiers and retractors, where a linguistic qualifier is,
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I think, and maybe, or I believe, and a linguistic retractor is although and but nevertheless and so
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on. So a person who's very anxious is likely to pepper their language with a lot of qualifiers and
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retractors. And if you think about it, that's just how they sound. You know, I think this could be okay,
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
00:30:38.820
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
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,
00:33:23.440
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.
00:38:26.220
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
00:38:37.320
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.
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
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.
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
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artofmanliness.com. We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written over the
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years about pretty much anything you'd think of. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate
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if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot. If you've done
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that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member. You think we get
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something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay.
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Remind you on this AOM podcast, put what you've heard into action.