If someone is shifty-eyed or is looking down and to the left while he’s talking to you, he’s lying, right? Wrong, says former military interrogator Gregory Hartley. In “How to Spot a Liar” (Career Press, $14.99 paper), Hartley and co-author Maryann Karinch say the art of detecting fibbery is much more complicated than that. When people look up-left, down-left, up-right, down-right, they’re simply accessing different parts of the brain for what they need.
Establishing a person’s baseline of behavior is the key to figuring out who’s lying, Hartley says. You have to know how a person operates when he’s not under stress, and that includes knowing his Myers-Briggs personality profile and how he sorts information. Then you can see how people react as they’re being questioned–and that includes changes in hand and foot movements.
Most helpfully, Hartley gives tips on how to use these skills in a job interview, on a sales call, at the car dealer or in a relationship (though he admits that last one can be a touchy situation). Though the book could have used better proofreading and editing, Hartley’s expertise makes this intriguing.
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