Become a Behavioral Profiler

Learn to Tell the Truth from Lies

By Carol Forsloff

With everybody trying to sell you something, or making promises, how do you tell what’s true and what’s false anymore? Do you just trust your instincts and hope for the best? Or are there some clues you can use to decide what to do. Do you believe the salesmen’s pitch about that sewing machine or walk out shaking your head and moving on to look for what you want somewhere else? Or maybe you have to hire someone for a very important job and want to go beyond the printed resume to find out what you need to make the right choice for a vacancy. There are some tricks of the behavioral profiling trade that can be applied to helping you make decisions and avoid the traps that liars set so often and that can keep you wondering who you can and cannot trust.

Research shows that attempts to determine lies from truth through nonverbal and verbal behavior are correct only about 50% of the time while handwriting analysis and polygraph tests have mixed and sometimes controversial results. But using behavioral profiling principles allow investigators, and you, Joe citizen, to be right much more often. Detectives use behavioral profiling techniques to help them figure out whether or not some suspect is innocent or not. You can use them in your daily life to help make decisions about whether to move forward or not on a relationship or to buy that product from some guy you just met and don’t know anything about.

Behavioral profiling requires that one look at a number of different aspects of a person to decide what type of behavior to expect or whether or not what you see and hear is a lie or the truth. There’s something to that “trust your gut” feeling, but it’s not enough. You must look at a number of behaviors over time to increase the value of a profile.

First of all, you have to determine normal behavior from unusual behavior for a given individual. In other words, just like a scientist does, a baseline has to be established from which to proceed. Get that salesman to talk about some ordinary event—the weather or sports. Watch the face, the hands, the gestures, and the way the eyes move when speaking, the tone of the voice and inflections. Some people are typically outgoing; others aren’t. A little warm up talk will help you figure out what might be typical and what’s not.

As you’re listening and watching, the first time you wonder whether you’ve heard a lie, think about what was said and the tone that was used. Then change the subject, and go back to the topic later. You do that because the lie will be accompanied by a combined set of behaviors that are repeated. Watch and listen for contradictions between the topic, how it is discussed, the behavior and what’s going on at the same time a story is told. The fellow who sounds irritated while showing the sewing machine at the outset may have just got off the phone after an argument with a customer. Change the subject; talk about something relatively mundane. Then ask for the explanation about some part of the machine again, and watch to see if the behavior and the words you heard the first time are the same as what you first observed.

Lies have certain attributes and mannerisms that often accompany them. Changes in speech patterns, to include softer, louder or different tones and pitches, repeating the question, using long pauses, or a redundancy of flattering words can be that liar’s bag. Silence can also be used to deceive, so don’t help the person along by filling in the silences. Allow the person to talk; he or she will often lead you straight to what you need to know. Eyes that blink too much, hands that fidget, feet that move around, and a whole body that has trouble being still are behavioral red flags that should be observed at the same time. Watch how the person moves the eyes, up, down or to the side and whether or not the pattern is the same during small talk as well as during topics where a decision must be made. Watch the nonverbal signals, crossing the arms or the legs in a defensive posture or raising both arms and lowering them vigorously and repeatedly in a defiant gesture while repeating words or phrases, both of which are clues to potential behaviors and what the person might be thinking when in that proverbial “tight spot.”

Just as establishing a baseline behavior will help guide you in making the right decision about a person, you can create an unusual event that can help you determine how a given individual might behave under stress. While interviewing Richard for that administrative assistant position, toss him your keys and ask him to move your car someplace. Or give Betty the assignment of turning off a computer on the other side of the room right after you’ve asked some relatively routine questions about her educational background. In each case observe what happens next because that will tell you how Richard or Betty will behave when confronted with the type of change that often occurs in a work environment.

Handwriting by itself won’t tell you what the person is like or whether he/she might be lying. On the other hand, if all other signs indicate deceit, examine how the person signs his/her name and match that against the baseline or body of writing. The degree of difference or exaggeration can suggest discrepancy between what the person appears to be and the person he/she really is.

Now you’re ready for your practice work. Don’t do this with your husband, wife or close friend as practice. Just observe the people you don’t ordinarily work or relate with, and use this information to make tentative choices or decisions. Then come back later and check out your hypothesis. The more practice you have, the better you’ll get. And that will help you avoid traps that can interfere with your moving ahead to what you need or want to do.