As much as we all love to believe that the people around us are sincere and true, how much and to what degree are we able to do so?
We, at UB, are required to take a module on communications which supposedly puts us on an advantage in judging if someone is telling the truth or not. What’s more, some of us have even taken a module on psychology. Doesn’t that allow us to judge people better? Judging meaning to see if they are trustworthy, speaking the truth, or even just behaving and saying something that is of contradiction to what they really are thinking.
We’ve learnt that there are non-verbal cues which will allow us to draw conclusions about a person whether he is being truthful or not and we’ve also learnt about psychologically affected behavior when one lies – The heartbeat increases, the liar feels uptight or even more energectic as blood flows to his brain faster as he attempts to cook up a wonderful lie. Sometimes, he may even perspire or feel that the room temperature has risen as a cause of increased activity within the body.
If we knew these at the tip of our fingers, then why is it that we can still fall for lies that sometimes may be so far-fetched?
The difference lies with the person who is telling you the lie.
Take for example, if you heard about something really far-fetched from someone you are close to or have known for a while, you’d probably just listen and then shrug it off if you know that is impossible given his/her character, looks, social status(of any sort) and lifestyle. However, if you are hearing this from someone you’ve only met, you would tend to give him or her the benefit of doubt that this ridiculous story MAY be true since although drama scripts may sometimes be very ridiculous and exaggerated, situations like that of in dramas can also be true depending on your luck and the people around you.
We have learnt that body language, coupled with oculesics and many others like adaptors can give away someone if he/she is lying, but keep in mind that if something can be built, it can also be destroyed too. What I’m really trying to say its that these can also help liars to curb the potential slip.
I never knew these were useful until I met a fellow student from the same institution. Apparently, if one is aware of how he/she will behave in times he/she experiences increased bodily reactions or stress, then he/she will know how to prevent these induced behavior so as to not give himself/herself away. Which by now, really explains how he managed to manipulate a few friends and I into believing his wonderful tale which cause us to fight amongst each other.
Although what is mentioned above may look like a good plan to cover up for oneself, I have learnt that it is still possible to find out if he is lying or not. By observing one’s actions after you have intentionally assured him of your trust in him, liars will tend to look around as an attempt to try calming oneself down. Many other signs I will explain in next post.
Sometimes, people also tend to believe someone whom they are not as familiar with to someone they’ve known for a long period of time because we tend to give them benefits of doubt. This generosity goes as far as even to situations where pieces of information provided by the liar do not match. Whereas to someone whom they are more familiar with, they would start developing the feeling of “how can he/she do this to me? I thought we’re friends.” and upon developing thoughts like this, friendship and trust goes out the window.
It has come to my realisation that although friends are supposedly those whom you can really trust, this is really not the case in some situations because having someone who you are unfamiliar with lying to you, you would have the tendency to believe him over your friend who may be telling you the truth due to human’s generosity of the “benefit of doubt.”
