The mini section in the book about lie detection, which serves as the title of my blog, summarizes lie-detection in many forms. Examples of such would be a person's voice or his or her nonverbal behavior. I will admit that my voice does change when I am lying, which obviously has been proven. I'm a really bad liar. My voice, as you know from lecture, does get higher, but not only that I will always look around, play with my hair, and tilt my head. I'm totally giving myself away, but watch me try and get out of something and you will see how easy it is to spot my signs. For example, today in the office a student had come into the office offering involvement in an organization and I totally said that I would...I know I won't. Like it's my last semester. If I'm not already in it, I'm not joining it for three months. I think that would be dumb, especially since I have a ton of things to do this semester.
Another example would be one of my guy friends. He is an "entrepreneur". Basically, he has not gone to college and has no plans to attend at the moment because he has made enough money to do whatever he wants. I met him a year ago, and he is a really good friend. I actually met him through a guy I don't talk to anymore. Not awkward at all. Anyways, I'm going to assume he comes from money because he has had very few jobs and was raised by a single and absent father. I know he means well with people he cares about, but when I see him interact with people he needs for whatever task he is pursuing at the time it's like he's a completely different person. He's professional for one, but he is also someone who knows he's charming, so he uses it to his advantage. He'll always smile to his left when he's trying to get you to do something he knows you don't want to do, but that same smile can be for when he's hiding something that he isn't willing to share. Then he'll look down to his right and gesture with his hands while he speaks. I've interacted with him enough times to know that he doesn't behave this way unless he's trying to persuade you to do something, like buy a cell phone (sucker).
My mother is currently laid off, and she has been for over a year now. She kept this from me for a month. She would always call or text me but I just attributed it to her missing me. However, I then realized how much time she was spending with my dad at our farm. I just thought she was working from home, which she did often because she worked for corporate, which - for her company at the time - is housed in New York. Then when I went home for a break, I noticed that her usual work items weren't out and that she wasn't receiving as many phone calls. She had more junk she had bought in her room and the clothes she had out (she throws her recent clothes on a chair) weren't work attire. I was puzzled by the lack of professional clothing and sudden increase in decorations (things she didn't have time to shop for in the past), then we were having dinner one night and she mentioned going to spend more time with my dad. I was even more surprised by this because her and my dad didn't spend a lot of time together (they're married, but my dad lives on our farm in East Texas whereas my mom lives in our home three hours away). So I asked her about how she found the time for that and why she had all of these new things. She finally confessed that she had been laid off from work over three weeks prior and didn't want to tell me with school going on. I wish she had told me so that I had found a job sooner. I got a job two weeks later, but it still made me feel bad that I was still getting money from her. All the money I had from my summer job was running low, so I had to ask her. I do not like asking my parents for money at all, especially now since I have rent and bills in addition to expenses. Fortunately, I haven't had to ask. Tangents. My mom was lying to me, but to help me, protect me, and I did not even notice. If it weren't for all the time she was spending with my dad who knows if I would have ever figured it out.
Lying is something that we all do often, and we do it well (most of us anyways). We all lie about what we're doing, what we think, how we feel, who we've seen, what we buy, what we like, and what we don't like. We lie to make ourselves look more attractive, to get out of situations, to impress an employer, or even for the thrill of it. Lying is the number one way to help guide a person to develop your desired opinion of how he or she sees you. It's genius and ridiculous at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment