Get the key ideas from
Spy the Lie
Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception
Spy the Lie reveals the typical strategies that liars use to try to deceive you, as well as the tools to help you detect them. This book draws on field-tested methods for lie detection developed by former CIA officers, which helps to spot the signs of a lie and ask the right questions to uncover the truth.
- Anyone who conducts interviews
- Anyone who works in sales, marketing or law enforcement
- Anyone interested in communication
All the book’s authors have worked for the US government in organizations such the NSA, the CIA and the US Army Military Police. All are recognized for their competence and experience in the field of conducting of interviews, interrogations and polygraph examinations and have worked all over the globe. They are also the founding partners of QVerity, a company offering deception detection training and consulting.
Go Premium and get the best of Blinkist
Upgrade to Premium now and get unlimited access to the Blinkist library. Read or listen to key insights from the world’s best nonfiction.
Upgrade to PremiumWhat is Blinkist?
The Blinkist app gives you the key ideas from a bestselling nonfiction book in just 15 minutes. Available in bitesize text and audio, the app makes it easier than ever to find time to read.
Start free trialDiscover
3,000+ top
nonfiction titles
Get unlimited access to the most important ideas in business, investing, marketing, psychology, politics, and more. Stay ahead of the curve with recommended reading lists curated by experts.
Start free trialJoin Blinkist to get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Spy the Lie
Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception
- Read in 18 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 11 key ideas
Synopsis
Spy the Lie reveals the typical strategies that liars use to try to deceive you, as well as the tools to help you detect them. This book draws on field-tested methods for lie detection developed by former CIA officers, which helps to spot the signs of a lie and ask the right questions to uncover the truth.
Key idea 1 of 11
Communication is hard to interpret because it is complex and non-universal.
When was the last time you told a lie? It probably wasn’t too long ago. In fact, we all lie about ten to twenty times a day! Despite that, we’re incredibly bad at recognizing other people’s lies. How can that be?
One reason we often fail to detect lies has to do with the fact that it’s difficult for us to precisely interpret what others are communicating to us – for a number of reasons.
First, we find it hard to concentrate on verbal and nonverbal communication simultaneously.
When we communicate with one another, we employ two kinds of communication: verbal, i.e., with our speech, as well as non-verbal, i.e., using body language.
However, we find it hard to discern the communicative styles of others, since our perception of the world constantly teeters between being dominated by the visual or by the auditory.
Thus, when we are communicating with someone, we focus our energy either on listening closely to what they say or watching for clues in their body language that might give us insight into their intentions or motivations.
Unfortunately, however, we aren’t very good at doing both simultaneously, and we therefore often miss crucial elements of people’s communication.
Secondly, communication is difficult to interpret because single behaviors can actually have many causes and be interpreted in more than one way.
What does it mean, for example, when your conversation partner breaks eye contact with you? You might suspect that they’re unable to look you in the eye because they’re deceiving you. Yet again, it could also simply be that they have bad manners, or lack the self-esteem, confidence or social sophistication required to hold eye contact.
So how do you know which it is? Well, you can’t.
Key ideas in this title
- Communication is hard to interpret because it is complex and non-universal.
- Humans are bad at lie detection because we have biases preventing us from evaluating information objectively.
- Don't be fooled by truthful behavior; lies can be hidden within.
- Liars try to avoid lying bluntly by either not answering questions directly or not answering at all.
- A liar might try to hide their mistruths in a web of details or by appealing to their upstanding reputation.
- Lying is a stressful activity that can show up in physical responses.
- Liars often display signs of deception; judging their timing and frequency can indicate whether you’re being deceived.
- Deliver your questions in a neutral way and pay attention to the suspects’ answers.
- Be non-confrontational when you suspect a lie and avoid making the liar repeat it, as it makes them more comfortable.
- Disrupt the liars’ game by coaxing more information from them than they’d planned to reveal.
- Final summary
