How to tell if someone is lying

Welcome to the Body Language Videos! These series of videos will show you how to read other people's body language, and use yours to succeed in a variety of situations.

Loaded with practical tips, Robert Phipps, TV's #1 Body Language expert and author of Body Language: It's What You Don't Say That Matters, will help you to decode the body language you notice, and pick up on the subtle things you might miss, to lead to success in business and life!

Want to know if someone is telling you the truth? In this video, learn how to be a human polygraph and decode people's gestures and behaviours to tell if someone is lying. This is fascinating yet easy-to-use stuff that'll help you understand the secrets of body language and use them to your advantage.

[tortillaman]

Its easy to lie if u honestly dont care...

[wmonger]

I normally find out who is lying to me by holding them down and beating the truth out of them. This way is good guess.

[hulyaesraorhan]

These are good techniques during business meetings in order to see if someone is lying to you.

When it comes to personal relationships, it is quite easy to spot someone's lies if you are perceptive enough.
Read the signals on which you have a suspicion; keep in mind his/her past and current conversations and detect any ambiguity, inconsistency & contradiction between those conversations within the “story line”. Confront the person about the relevant subject, patiently listen to the person and observe his/her reactions. There you have it! :)

A liar cannot outsmart a perceptive, observant, honest person.

[vladimirisokov]

I came here to learn how to lie better, anyone else do this too haha

[Tomkend]

I'm Johnny Roche. I can always tell when people are lying to me. Their lips move and words come out.

[brettsmith]

my girlfriend does these things a lot... Im glad I saw this

[tanyamason]

Body Language is a good tools to know, HOWEVER, be careful by judging other people just based on this! There are much more to understand a person as well as it is all depending on a culture where they raised... Since we are living in a deserve society.... body language is usually very much misinterpreted in these days...

[extrastype]

Someone telling truth will pause and look up and right.. Lier down and left as they reply to your questions.. Pausing before answering is a sign of truth..they haven't rehearsed the answer...

[awoken]

I have behaviourism. I know when someone lies, very simply. Stumbling means they are lying if they don't already naturally stumble. Their blink rates increase if they lie. So simply.

[hildcit]

I don't usually like to have eye contact all the time, and sometimes when I'm talking with someone and we have had "to much" eye contact, I feel that I have to look away for a while... It doesn't mean I'm lying, but I feel uncomfortable sometimes with eye contact...

[emilywilliams]

Liars may hesitate in speech and give you more unnecessary information, their speech is usually formal. Also they might trail off in what they say.

[MisterStomper]

These are all situational and cannot be guarantees in all situations. Some people are simply nervous when dealing with other people and will do half these things because of the stress of human contact. Learn to recognize the TYPES of people you will be dealing with and these tips will be that much more useful.

[mattsvideoart]

I am fascinated by non verbal behavior from a variety of angles (poker, medicine, and life in general). I have a suggestion that you do a video analyzing the nonverbal behavior/microexpressions of US attorney general Jeff Sessions when he lied during his testimony to the Judicial senate committee (during senator Al Franken's questions. This is incredible to watch. It show great non verbal behavior and it show him answering a question he wasn't even asked with a lie. This analysis is needed in the public sphere to be seen by all, and I believe you will have a massive viral video in your library. Good luck. Hope you consider this.

[rich]

Showing open palms can also be a sign of lying, especially if they show them while moving them away from you. It's a natural gesture to show your palms when shrugging to imply you had nothing to do with something, but someone doing this gesture while being deceptive will pull their hand toward themselves while leaning away from you.
The best way to question them is to ask them about their day from end to beginning. People will get confused if they have to construct a lie in backwards chronological order, and get tripped up.

[dihsh]

Oh dear. I have lipoedema & lymphedema in both legs & arms.
To minimise my elbow, arm & shoulder pain I have to lean my arms on a table or keep them crossed which people sometimes read as closed or defensive.
Its essential for me to move my feet constantly as he's shown here or my lymph fluid stops draining, leading to swelling, hardening of the lymph fluid & my legs can actually seize up completely, causing great pain & meaning I cannot move.

Anyone having watched this would think someone like me is constantly lying to them which would be an inaccurate assessment, as I make every effort to be accurate, honest, open & enjoy connecting well with others.
It's not that he's generally wrong but these interpretations are not always accurate. You do also have to be aware of other factors which could also account for similar body movements & gestures.

[armourer]

Absolutely correct. When someone changes their behavior, you have to analyze why it changed. Did the temperature change? Did someone else walk by? Did a lingering thought enter the subject's mind that has them worried, totally unrelated to what you are talking about? Or simply are they feeling stress and anxiety. These changes are observed, analyzed and revisited to gauge if it was the topic or other factors that created that change. Deception detection is extremely in-depth.

[armourer]

That TED talk is an amazing starting point. The problem is, if you study for decades, you will have only scratched the surface of being able to read people. I do it for a living and instruct others on how to do it as well, but it's far more difficult than all of this. The environment changes everything. We as humans are the only species to adapt to the environment as quickly as we do. Other species migrate or die off. Our environment changes everything. Background, culture, etc.

[jadejensen]

I was jiggling my feet up and down while watching this video...

[VoidDankest]

What if someone just needs to take a shit? I would do the wiggle motion with my feet in such a situation..

[vipersrt]

best way to find if a person is lying or not is by having all the information associated between you and your conversation partner down. These tips may not only apply to liars but actually to commitment probability. A person may be honest and is telling their real intention but there is a higher chance or not wanting to continue with the decision in the future. self comforting body language as mentioned in the video might mean that the person was irritated somehow by the decision made in the situation. If the decision is uncomfortable for the person, the person might give a second thought to it and may not inform you about their feeling until it is too late. Some business people hide their feelings so well some call it "being professional." An intentional lie would be harder to predict most of the time.