TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCESTHE SECRET IN THE EYES
In a New York City department store, a young Hispanic girl
was fired because the manager suspected her of pilfering. "She
wouldn't meet my eyes when I questioned her," he told a union
representative who came to her defense. "I knew she was lying."
The representative, himself Hispanic, shook his head. "What
you don't understand," he explained, "is that a well-bred Hispanic
girl will not make eye contact with a man who is not a relative.
It's just considered too bold. If she's well brought up, she'll look
away or drop her eyes."
An error was averted thanks to the representative's good sense,
but most people believe the eyes can betray the truth. How many
parents have told their children, "Look me in the eye and I'll
know if you're lying?" Unfortunately for lie catchers, the eye test
is not foolproof. We avert our eyes and refuse to make eye contact
for a number of reasons. Social propriety, as in the above example,
is one. We may look down with sadness, down or away with
shame, and away with disgust.
A liar, however, if at all accomplished, will meet the eyes of
the person he or she is talking to with a clear-eyed, steady gaze.
As a child, I learned quickly that in order to lie proficiently to
adults all I had to do was stare them in the eye. My clear, innocent
gaze assured them that I was telling the truth, no matter how big
my lie was.
It is, indeed, very easy to control the direction of your gaze.
It is harder to control blinking. You can blink voluntarily, but it
is also an involuntary act when you are emotionally aroused. Here
is a physiological clue you can pick up just as the polygraph
picks up excitation. However, it is still only a clue to emotional
arousal, not necessarily to lying.