Separating Truth from Lies

By Brandon Peterson, Marketing —

How is it that in important matters of determining honesty, people are barely more accurate than a coin flip?

How good are you at separating truth from lies? Studies have shown that people struggle to distinguish between the two—the average individual has a 50% chance of accurately identifying truths and lies. Even professionally trained individuals struggle to accurately detect when someone is lying. There are body language signals to look out for, but in the end, humans are incapable of always uncovering lies.

Contrast this with the importance of honesty and integrity and how they come into play in our everyday lives. Nobody wants to do business with a dishonest individual. Hypocrisy can sink a political career. Relationships with family and friends are ruined when one party is dishonest.

How is it that in important matters of determining honesty, people are barely more accurate than a coin flip? More importantly, what can we do to improve this?

Strength in Groups

A recent study on lying conducted by the National Academy of Sciences yielded an interesting result—group discussion improves lie detection. In an experiment, groups of just three people identified almost 61% of lies, compared to just under 54% detected by individuals. Group discussion also reduced truth and confirmation biases when compared to individuals. A truth bias occurs when someone inherently assumes someone has made a truthful statement, while a confirmation bias reinforces someone’s preexisting opinion regarding the truth or falsehood of a statement. Both of these biases decrease accuracy when trying to determine what’s true and what’s not.

How did the groups increase their accuracy? Sharing important information and observations allowed individuals to use their group members’ observations, not just their own, when deciding fact or fiction. Because different people remembered different critical details, sharing observations allowed the group to increase their collective accuracy.

The Revolution of Lie Detection

Despite the improvements in deception detection shown in groups, group detection is still much less accurate than traditional solutions like a polygraph test. These tests have drawbacks, however: time, money, and the stress experienced by individuals as they are examined. Fortunately, there is a new solution on the market: EyeDetect. This revolutionary new product tracks involuntary physical responses humans have when attempting to lie. EyeDetect could revolutionize separating truth from lies by tracking and analyzing minute human behavior unrecognizable by the human eye.

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Photo courtesy of Jintae Kim. (No changes were made.)