Paul Ekman Psychology of Lies

Probably many have seen the American television series Lie to me. It spreads on beat torrent trackers under the name “Theory of Lies”, and the first channel shows it for some reason under the name “Fool Me”. The series tells about a team of superprofessional psychologists engaged in investigations of various kinds: from marriage affairs to the capture of a killer maniac. Only one thing unites these investigations: you always need to identify the liar, find out what he is lying to, what he is hiding, and thereby solve the case. Recognition of lies is the professional field of the heroes of the series, it is for the solution of this problem that the FBI, the police, firefighters and many others hire them.

However, few who have seen the series know that Dr. Cal Lightman, the protagonist brilliantly performed by Tim Roth, has a very real prototype - an outstanding psychologist, professor at the University of California, Paul Ekman. Manipulations, microexpressions, lie detection techniques, so vividly demonstrated in each episode, became known precisely thanks to the many years of research by Dr. Ekman and his colleagues. In 1985, he wrote the book “Telling Lie”, in which he described in detail, almost scrupulously, his works, sorted out the types and classified signs of lies, outlined techniques for detecting fraud in a wide variety of circumstances: everyday life, criminal investigations and politics. As it turned out, in closed and secret organizations, such as the CIA, NSA and the FBI, they did not especially read psychological journals, and the book, on the contrary, became known, and with it its author. Doctors Ekman began to invite for training and seminars; it turned out that people who stand guard over national interests understand lies no better than you and me. Those. they, like most ordinary people, think that they are able to detect fraud, but in reality their results are on average no better than random guessing, moreover, they often just don’t know where to look - these are the results of studies by Ekman and his colleagues.

In 1992, Telling Lie was reprinted and supplemented based on experience with the secret services, and in 2009, the publishing house Peter published this book in Russian translation under the title Psychology of Lies. You can find the book, for example, at ozon.ru.

The book consists of 9 chapters, an introduction, an epilogue, applications in the form of summary tables and questionnaires, as well as a preface and an afterword by the authors of Russian psychologists.
In the first two chapters, Ekman talks in detail about the types of lies (and he also considers concealing the truth to be one of the types of lies), analyzes the emotions that a liar experiences, how these emotions can manifest themselves and what major mistakes are made when interpreting the noticed signs. The whole narrative is accompanied by extensive examples. Several examples are used throughout the book. For example, a story about a patient in a psychiatric clinic Mary, who managed to lie to her doctor about her health in order to make another suicide attempt. The same story is also used in the series, there, however, it was given tragedy: it is alleged that that woman died. According to Ekman, suicide failed. Nevertheless, her fraud was revealed, which made the video of the conversation with Mary a good material for research. The third and fourth chapters are devoted to actually detecting deception: by voice, gestures, reservations, facial expressions. Including microexpressions advertised in The Theory of Lies. In fact, microexpressions are a relatively rare occurrence; blurred microexpressions or even fragments of them are much more common. The fifth chapter is rather short, it once again details the already mentioned errors of interpretation.
The sixth, largest chapter in the book is devoted to discussions about the possibilities and limitations of lie detectors. Strictly speaking, these devices should not be called lie detectors, because they will not recognize a lie in any case. They recognize the reactions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS): pulse, sweating, respiratory rate. The ANS reactions indicate the presence of some kind of emotions, but what kind of emotions are these and whether these emotions are associated with a lie is a big question, as is the case with behavioral symptoms. Moreover, a trained person may well imitate the necessary reactions of the ANS. Ekman himself, apparently, did not study polygraphs, therefore he mainly cites data from various reviews, the opinions of polemic colleagues, and talks about cases of successful and unsuccessful use of detectors. Emphasizes that there are practically no scientific papers on the effectiveness of polygraphs. The seventh chapter is called "The technique of detecting lies" and is a kind of summary of the past. In general, the book contains a lot of repetitions, self-retelling, which on the one hand, of course, tires, on the other hand, consolidates the knowledge gained. “The technique of detecting lies,” as you can understand from the text, was the last chapter of the first edition. The eighth and ninth are added in the 1992 edition. They describe the author’s experience with public services and analyze several specific examples of lies in politics and public life: a lie about the Vietnam War, self-deception that led to the death of the Challenger shuttle, etc. which on the one hand, of course, tires, on the other hand, consolidates the knowledge gained. “The technique of detecting lies,” as you can understand from the text, was the last chapter of the first edition. The eighth and ninth are added in the 1992 edition. They describe the author’s experience with public services and analyze several specific examples of lies in politics and public life: a lie about the Vietnam War, self-deception that led to the death of the Challenger shuttle, etc. which on the one hand, of course, tires, on the other hand, consolidates the knowledge gained. “The technique of detecting lies,” as you can understand from the text, was the last chapter of the first edition. The eighth and ninth are added in the 1992 edition. They describe the author’s experience with public services and analyze several specific examples of lies in politics and public life: a lie about the Vietnam War, self-deception that led to the death of the Challenger shuttle, etc.
The ninth chapter ends with the paragraph “Country of Lies”. In it, the author writes ... about our country. I must say that Ekman was several times in the USSR and in Russia. On one of his visits, in 1979 he even gave a month-long lecture course at Leningrad University. And at the end of his book he writes about Russia: that, of course, there are a lot of lies in the USA as well, but in the USA all the same lies have consequences, presidents, generals, advisers resign; in Russia, a lie is the norm, no one not only expects honesty from some politician, but does not even consider such honesty possible (!). And this, unfortunately, is the bitter truth.

When the series Theory of Lies appeared, they immediately began to compare it with Doctor House. Comparison is, in my opinion, it’s not entirely correct: yes, the slogan themes are close, but if the House itself is primarily attractive, then the Theory of Lies attracts primarily information about the identification of lies. After all, everyone wants to remain unrevealed by deception and at the same time not become a victim himself. And the series offers the opportunity to learn this. This possibility, of course, is illusory. Just as it is impossible to learn medicine from House, it is impossible to learn lie detection from Lie to me. But according to Ekman’s book, it’s also unlikely, although it was written primarily for verifiers, “lie hunters”. Ekman constantly emphasizes that no universal signs of fraud exist. There are signs of emotions, but they are, firstly, not always universal, and secondly, do not always appear. Even a trained lie specialist works most often with some probabilities of one interpretation or another. What to speak about you and me?

Nevertheless, the "Psychology of Lies" can be safely recommended - just to learn how to look more closely at each other.