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One of the best questions in the world is called a bait question. One behavior never indicates deception by itself. It never should. What's really important is being good at detecting change.
What are some things we look for to spot people who are lying? There are some indicators that are pretty well-known, and I'll give you a couple of those. But I think the biggest mistake I ever made in my life was spending 10 years learning all of those indicators. I built a periodic table of this stuff. So when it comes to these indicators, those are important. What's really important is being good at detecting change.
So the conversation starts normally. Where are you from? What do you do? Some basic information I'm getting out of this person. And then we get to the harder questions, and I'm looking for changes to their behavior. Are they answering questions the same way that they were a few minutes ago? Are their eyes moving the same way? Are their fingers doing the same thing? Are they breathing at the same speed? So looking for changes is more important than knowing what behaviors to look for. If I see a big pile of changes, I can be almost certain that this person is being deceptive without even knowing what I'm really seeing. So getting good at changes is the first and most important thing.
Then understanding context and clusters. Context means, oh, this person is crossing their arms, so they must be defensive. Well, what if it's 50 degrees outside and they're freezing cold? So there's context that lies in there. Then understanding clusters: I'm going to look for not just one behavior. When somebody says, "Oh, somebody scratched their nose or they touched their face, so they're lying," or "They looked away for a minute, so they're lying," one behavior never indicates deception by itself. It never should. You should always see a cluster of behavior. And sometimes someone is lying and those behaviors aren't there. They're just not there. And that goes into stakes. Are you good enough to ask questions to raise the stakes?
If I give you a picture of a duck right now and tell you to convince this person over here that you are looking at a picture of a horse, you're not going to show a lot of deception indicators. But if I do the exact same thing and say, "If you don't do this, I'm going to put a bullet in your head," you're doing the exact same lie in the exact same situation, but now the stakes are higher, so your deception indicators are increased. One of the ways we might increase stakes is something as simple as me saying, "Morgan, I like you as a person and I don't want you to get tripped up. So I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question. You understand?" Now the stakes go up. I've just pumped up your body language with just a little paragraph there.
Yeah. Then it's going to make you more sensitive to any sort of deceptive patterns.
Yeah, absolutely. Pumping up your brain before the question comes. And if you're innocent, your brain's not going to get ramped up. So if a murder took place and you know you're not the killer, you're going to be like, "Yeah, okay, fine." That question won't cause you any stress. It's just like this other question. We're talking about detecting deception. It's not just about behavior. It's about whether you can ask good questions. One of the best questions in the world is called a bait question. This is where, let's say, a crime happened. Let's say $10,000 was stolen from a grocery store, and I've got you in here as a suspect, and you did it. I might say, "Morgan, is there any reason you can think of that a video would have shown up from a black-and-white camera, maybe a security camera, that showed you took the money?" If you knew there were no video cameras, you'd say, "No," and you'd be comfortable, right? So then I make it more vague and I say, "Morgan, is there any reason somebody would tell me that they saw your car parked outside that store that evening?" And you don't know how many people I've talked to. The only time you will get nervous is if you were there. And you know that if you're going to commit to lying and I'm about to slam you in the face with evidence, you don't know if I'm about to do that. That's why the bait question is so important. It works with kids.
The second way to do a bait question is: "Is there any reason blah blah blah might have happened?" You never lead them. You're not saying "I have this evidence." It's hypothetical. "Is there any reason somebody would have told one of our officers or investigators that they saw you parked outside of that house, or they saw you there around a certain time?" The more vague, the better.
How would you use that with your children, in a completely different context, in everyday life?
Yeah, give me a lie and I'll tell you a good question.
Well, you have kids. What lies do kids say?
The things I used to say were things like, "I gave my parents heart attacks when we were growing up." Many times the police came to the door. I don't know. It was always, "It wasn't me. I didn't do it. I wasn't there."
Yeah. One thing is: "Is there any reason somebody would have seen you, or is there any reason someone would say that you might have been there?" That's great for kids. The best one for kids is called the punishment question. It's: "What do you think should happen to the person that did this?" This has been used in my life talking to predators, people who prey on children. I would ask, "What do you think should happen to the person that did this?" and the answer is always something like, "Well, definitely they should apologize to the family, they need some kind of counseling." Something really low. Ridiculous. They'll say things like, "Obviously that person's sick and they need help and some kind of counseling and therapy."
I used this on my kids before. When I was in the military, I came home one day in my camo uniform, and there was a little box of chocolate milk that had been opened and was lying on its side. All this chocolate milk was on our white rug, like an idiot. My two kids, Charlotte and William, were in there. They were probably five and six. I said, "Who brought this milk into the living room? You're not supposed to have milk in here, just water." They said, "I don't know." I said, "All right, Charlotte, living room. William, kitchen." Separately. I went to Charlotte first and said, "Charlotte, what should happen to the person that spilled this milk on the floor?" She said, "Spankings, no more Xbox, no electronics, can't go outside, can't play with friends, grounded." I said, "Okay." Then I went over to William and said, "William, what should happen to the person that spilled the chocolate milk on the floor?" He said, "Um, no more chocolate milk in the living room."
What's funny is that kids do this, but adults react the same way to that question because it's emotional. I'm trying to play it in my head: what would be happening? If I did it, I'd have images of it happening. I'm visually playing it out, and if I'm focusing on it, I'm going to feel it. Now if you raise the stakes and ask, "What should happen now?" I'm visualizing my punishment if I get caught. I'm freaking out. I'm thinking, "What if they do what they say they're going to do? What if they do what I say?" So that's the bait question and the punishment question. Those are really good. That's killer. Getting to the truth is really about the ways to get a confession, and that's where we go next.