220 W H A T EVERY BODY IS SAYING
(7) Ask, pause, and observe. Good interviewers, like good con-
versationalists, do not machine gun questions by firing one
right after the other in a staccato fashion. You will be hard-
pressed to detect deception accurately if your impatience or
impertinence antagonizes the person with whom you are
speaking. Ask a question and then wait to observe all the re-
actions. Give the interviewee time to think and respond, and
build in pregnant pauses to achieve this objective. Also, ques-
tions should be crafted in such a way as to elicit specific an-
swers in order to better zero in on facts and fiction. The more
specific the question, the more likely you are to elicit precise
nonverbals, and now that you have better understanding of
the meaning of subconscious actions, the more accurate your
assessments will be. In law enforcement interviews, unfortu-
nately, many false confessions have been obtained through
sustained staccato-like questioning, which causes high stress
and obfuscates nonverbal cues. We now know that innocent
people will confess to crimes, and even give written state-
ments, in order to terminate a stressful interview wherein
pressure is applied (Kassin, 2006, 207–228). The same holds
true for sons, daughters, spouses, friends, and employees when
grilled by an overzealous person, be it a parent, husband,
wife, companion, or boss.
(8) Keep the person you are interviewing focused. Interviewers
should keep in mind that many times when people are simply
talking—when they are telling their side of the story—there will
be fewer useful nonverbals performed than when the interviewer
controls the scope of the topic. Pointed questions elicit behavioral
manifestations that are useful in assessing a person’s honesty.
(9) Chatter is not truth. One mistake made by both novice and
experienced interviewers is the tendency to equate talking
with truth. When interviewees are talking, we tend to believe
them; when they are reserved, we assume they are lying. Dur-
ing conversation, people who provide an overwhelming