How to Spot a Liar: Why People Don't Tell the Truth And How You Can Catch Them

by Gregory Hartley, Maryann Karinch

A decorated military interrogator counsels readers on how to know when someone is lying in personal and professional scenarios, covering such topics as negotiating a worthwhile salary, moving a prospective client toward a desired outcome and ending a relationship.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Reference, Recruitment, Deception

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Gregory Hartley's expertise as an interrogator first earned him honors with the United States Army. More recently, it has drawn organizations such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, Navy SEALS, Federal law enforcement agencies, and national TV to seek his insights about "how to" as well as "why." He resides near Atlanta, Georgia.

Reviews

[Karina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this would be an interesting insight into human behaviour - instead, it read like the crassest apologia - sans apology - of torture I've read in quite some time. At one point, to illustrate how he can break someone, a civilian, down, he makes her assume 'stress positions' for several hours. 'Stress positions' were refined by the British Army in the 1970s in Northern Ireland as a method of torture that left no marks, along with other delightful techniques such as white noise (also cited in this book) and pretending to throw the blindfolded prisoner out of a helicopter from a great height. They threw the prisoners out all right, just from a height of six or seven feet. This is an absolutely abhorrent book, and I still can't understand how ordinary US citizens seem to shrug their shoulders on the subject of torture administered by their troops and go all waronterror about it. Does no one care about the Geneva Convention anymore?

[mookie kong · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should be retitled to "How to Use Military Interrogation Techniques Against Your Loved Ones, Friends, Co-Workers and Current/Potential Employer". Not much of the book would be useful in regular life and a lot of it is pretty creepy - like it suggesting to digitally stalk people before confronting them and also trying to draw a comparison between surgically removing something from a human body to removing information from a human. Icky.

[Yara Yu · Rating 2 out of 5]

ولأن أهم صفه في علاقاتنا البشرية ببعضنا هي الصدق ولأن الكذب قادر علي هدم الثقه بين الطرفين
فالكتاب يستعرض طرق كشف الكذب للشخص أمامك إما من لغه الجسد أو تصرفاته معك ...

[Amar Pai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. The book is first of all icky due to its provenance. The guy who wrote it is a trained military interrogator and the book reads like a guide to interrogating prisoners of war (with all the connotations of torture and suffering that implies)

Furthermore it has very little content that would in any way surprise you. People dart their eyes, twitch, and reveal their intentions through a host of unintentional body cues. To get them to talk you need to research your subject, keep them off balance, employ fear, cajoling, etc. You have to calibrate against their baseline-- maybe they always twitch.

There are interesting tidbits here and there (is it true that people tend to look in a particular direction depending on whether they're constructing a visual memory and another when they're fabricating?) but in general this book will not teach you anything ground breaking.

It does half-inspire me to pay more attention to the subtle cues present in all conversations, but a lot of times we want to be lied to and a lot of the time we don't really want to know the truth. As for being a better liar, I think it's best to aim for perfect knowledge situations (or at least improved information in markets) that make lies/truth less relevant. In other words f*** bargaining w/ the used car salesman, just let me make a decision based on info.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the cover of this book purports to tell you how to spot a liar in your neighbourhood or close friends or family, it is really written apparently by a US army interrogator as a manual for other interrogators. It is an interesting topic - I came across this title whilst shelving it after another person's use - but as I read it I began to see my curiosity and the book itself as a little bit distasteful.
I'm not interested in arming myself against the lies of those around me really - it just sounded like an interesting read - and few of us actually would hang around people that we suspected of habitually lying to us - and it seems kinda dishonest to employ the techniques (even down to setting the scene for the interrogation) of a professional on my friends or family. I guess if you are a bit sensitive and know your subject, you can see when they are discomfited by your questions and, instead of enthusiastically employing what you have dedicated yourself to learn in this book, you might change the subject and respect their wishes, or if it's important, try to establish why through more honest talking. But I know we don't all live in such a perfect world that this is possible, and this book is certainly an interesting bit of ammunition in our armoury of psychological understandings to try on those in our lives, if that's your want or need.
But you'd really have to be a bit of a sociopath yourself, I reckon, to find many of the details with which the Hartleys regale us useful in any practical way, as they are very manipulative and artificial. In the end, I decided not to read on, as the distastefulness and, to be honest, lack of usefulness started to reveal itself to me.

[Kari Olfert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't aware that How to Spot a Liar was written from the angle of an interrogator, this made the book super interesting. The last chapter teaches how to recognize if someone is trying to manipulate you. Great little read.

[Tj · Rating 2 out of 5]

I originally started reading this book in March, but I had to put it down; it informs the reader about observational lie-detection skills used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Needless to say it started to creep me out. This isn't just a book, it's a weapon. By studying the methods and techniques in this book, one could use them to manipulate people. I'm in no hurry to become a sociopath, so I needed to put this down. I would like to pick it up again at some point, just to finish it, but I'm saving it for when I'm less busy and have time to read cautiously and responsibly.

[Scott Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a nutshell:

• Decent, but boilerplate information about the neurolinguistics of body language. Could have picked up the same information from any of a range of tomes on NLP.

• Gregory Hartley is a right-wing asshole...and politically illiterate. He recounts how he once said in a job interview that he doesn't discuss his weaknesses, because it's "Communism." No, dipshit, it is not. What you are describing is the type of sociopathic narcissism of a Randian anti-hero.

• At least twice, Hartley recounts stories of interrogating a subject as to whether or not they were a "homosexual." I'm just going to leave it at that, and let the march of progress and time leave Sergeant Sociopath in the dust.

Book gets 3 stars for information. Author gets 0 stars for his dipshitterocity.

[Amy Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still reading this one, so I'll have a better idea of how good it was after I'm done. The author used to work as an interrogator in US Intelligence which included both service in the field and later teaching at SERE. He then applied those skills to a career in corporate America. He does stress that these skills are not to be used in personal relationships, unless you have reason to believe that someone is being deliberately dishonest with you.

[Kelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought he had some good points on how to tell if someone is lying. But I did not like his constant degradation of man kind as if they were one step above monkeys. I found it to be assaulting to man kind to think that. In his line of work he has to dehumanize the people he works on to get the truth out, so I can understand why he included it in the book, but I personally don't agree with the idea that people are essentially animals.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listening to on cd. It's just fun. They talk about body language and also touch on using inventories like Myer's Briggs and temperaments to help read people. The author uses his experience as an interrogator in the armed services.

[Fatmah · Rating 2 out of 5]

الكتاب يحتوي على نصائح جيدة لكشف الكذب لكن الكاتب عرضها بطريقة مملة جداً و خرج أحياناً من صلب الموضوع.

[Karen Cavalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave me a visceral sense of how we are all, to varying degrees, in captivity and how to manage the attendant macro and micro reality. In the beginning of the book Hartley offers a fictional scenario of a person being taken prisoner and how the experience breaks down then rebuilds the person into someone who adapts, as malaligned as that may sound. To bridge this example to the Everyperson reader, Hartley writes, "What does this have to do with you? ....you do understand captivity to some degree if you live in this civilized society. We are trapped by things our parents taught us. We are trapped by society's rules. We are trapped by everything we know" (p. 23-24). This was a watershed moment for me. Initially I started reading the book to understand more about how I was recently duped and how to avoid it happening again. This book did that but it also rearranged my notions about freedom and captivity. Viewed through this new lens, the issue of captive versus free became much murkier and subtle, and Hartley's approach to immerse the reader in all applicable details around the topic of how to spot a liar seems exactly right. It was sometimes slow going for me but worth it. It pairs well with Chase Hughes' "Six-Minute X-Ray," which I read earlier this month. Hughes' book is a great quickstart guide; Hartley's book provides the foundation. The only reason I'm giving Hartley's book four rather than five stars is occasional point of view (POV) switching which meant I had to stop and sort out whose POV we were in, the receiver or deliverer of deception; for example, third full paragraph on p. 244. There were also a number of typos. The book is coauthored by Maryann Karinch, but I don't know who edited the book. I read the version published in 2007 by Castle Books; the original was published in 2005 by The Career Press. Next up: Mark Bowden's "Truth and Lies: What People are Really Thinking." (And, following that, Scott Rouse's "Understanding Body Language." In case you've detected a theme, that is, books by members of YouTube's The Behavior Panel, you would be spot on."

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe, if we all read some stuff like this, we could separate the wheat from the chaffing and hold each other up to higher standards?
-Yeah, of course there's more to it than that.
Well, it isn't exactly science and it isn't exactly the subject I think most of us are willing to take a serious look at: If we were, terrorist might be more afraid of us than we are of them. I'd be glad to receive discrete messages on the subject, if anyone has read similar insightful material on the subject of deception.

[Willian Molinari · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm migrating all my reviews to my blog. If you want to read the full review with my raw notes, check it here: https://pothix.com/howtospotaliar/

I've used the Audible Abridged version for this one. The narration is not good as the other audiobooks I'm used to listen.

The book content is not good to follow as well. It is focused on interrogation and this is not my goal for reading it.

But it is not all that bad. I got some interesting tips on body language and these kind of stuff.

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written for those who want to know if someone is lying in an interrogation session. While interesting, the techniques given in the book are not the most practical for every day situations/relationships. With that said, I did finish having some good tips, but don't expect it to easily translate into your life.

[Hanan Altukhaifi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strong strategies, very boring style of writing.

[Jiahe Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

practical and handy

[Badriya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought the book in Arabic and I didn't really finish it. Maybe only 100 pages and I was bored already.

[James Hatton · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, this is fun, too. I would never be good at spotting a liar. But you may be good at it, if you know what to look for.

[Viraj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapters 9-11 are worth listening to again.

[Paiman Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When engaging in argument, only argue about what you know. Don’t yell or respond to yelling, and avoid personal attacks.

[Craven · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is written by complete maggot slime. This worm is a complete psychopath who's spent his life torturing prisoner's and wrote a book about how you can the same strategies in your personal and professional relationships. It's offensive and nauseating from it's flip banality of evil tone to it's sheer tone-deaf, here's-the-way-I-tortured-and-manipulated-prisoner's-and-how-you-can-use-it-on-your-friends-and-family advice. I was repulsed by this walking turd and his vile book....HOWEVER....READ THIS BOOK!

Why?

This book breaks down the way leaches of society like cops and feds think. Tricks they'll use on you, etc. If you're doing something like political activism where you might see yourself get arrested, READ THIS BOOK! It will allow you to see the schema of the way police work and remind to NEVER, NEVER, TALK TO COPS!

Interrogators can't rely on stuff like nervousness to make someone guilty, they know simply talking to them will make people uneasy (but of course, that sort of power trip is why they took the job), so they get a "baseline", as in, they start doing things liking asking simple questions to see how you'll react. Then they'll use things they learn in these questions to learn to trip you up and make you say something incriminating. For instance they'll glean that you are a punctual person who respects time and will use that knowledge to trip you up. You'll learn all about this stuff in this book. He wants you to use it on your friends and family and employees, but the real purpose of this book is learn about manipulative shitheels like him and how to understand them.

Let me pivot a bit with a story from my own life and dealing with the police. I once worked in a restaurant at a resort. the manager (well, a higher up manager, my manager's manager) stopped me and dropped a bomb on me asking if I'd seen anyone stealing. I immediately got visibly nervous, really, nervous. I stammered out a no and he said to let him know if I did.

I hadn't done anything and the manager was a good dude from what I gathered in my 3 months of working (aside from when he was "forced" to question his employees), but I still freaked out. Why? Well, I have childhood and police trauma. I was scared they thought it was me, because I have OCD, PTSD, i.e., mental illnesses that make me catastrophize. I distrust authority. I distrust the compassion and ethics of a resort that holds conventions for the slimiest of Wall Street billionaires. I liked my co-workers and though I didn't know anything, I was scared of saying something that somehow might implicate them. Innocent or not, I liked them better than this slimy, 1%-felating resort.

Anyway, the next day, they had me go in the back to talk to a cop. I refused and asked if I was free to go. He told me I was free to go, but asked to see my I.D. I ignored him and stormed out.

After reading this book, I realized that him asking for my I.D. was a strategy called "minimizing". When they have someone who isn't cooperating, they ask you to do a small action or answer a quick question. After doing this small compromise, it's easy for them to ask you to consent to more.

If you learn this stuff you'll be less susceptible to being manipulated by toxic people and authority. If you're a halfway decent person, it won't be an easy read, but there's a lot to be gleaned from it.

[Goktug Yilmaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

- Mirroring is a natural way to show a connection to a person who you’re talking
- Access sense: Primary information channels are visual 75%, auditory 25%, kinesthetic 5%
- Women looks vulnerable when lying
- People can be time driven, event driven, sequence driven
- Under stress men rubs their skin, women flip hair, tilt head, touch neck
- A woman's language while deceiving and seductive behavior is almost the same. When seducing, lips get blood and plump up, the whole face gets a softer fuller look. Under stress blood leaves lips and goes to muscles
- Few plans survive first contact with enemy, enemy has less chance of surviving if you have a plan for first contact
- In interview create a positive rapport first, that contextualizes the conversation

Question types
- Direct question:
- Control question: You know the answer to. Part of baselining process
- Repeat question: You’re not sure if it was truthful, so ask again in different words. The more you ask a repeat question from different angles, more chances to catch deception
- Leading question: Journalists use this to trap you and control the conversation. You ask to pass a logic the person could have an issue with, leading question tries to get perspective despite the issue
- Compound question: Asks 2 or more questions at once and try to get emotion. But can create confusion


- Good questions are clear and concise. They require a narrative response, not yes or no. Use who, what, when, where, why, how, huh

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title doesn't match the contents.
However, one thing I found really accurate was how the author described the psychology of an abusive husband and the victim. I got the jitters because for people who weren't abused it is hard to understand why the victim stays longer than they should with the abuser.
Other than this, the book is more of a set of tips for interrogators, not really what I expected it to be.

"The abusive spouse sets up unrealistic expectations and then, through the companion treatments of kindness and manipulation, creates unease, so the person cannot know what to expect next. Entitlements in the relationship, such as honesty and the expectation that well-intended gestures will not earn physical or emotional torture, are violated."

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book, but only time will tell what I have learned from it. I admit, in the beginning I was skeptical as most of the examples in the beginning used fictional characters. However, once I got to the meat of the book, I found a lot of very useful tools, the most important being ways of keeping my emotions out of it. If nothing else, just thinking about this book when I'm in an emotional situation might just help me keep myself in check.

[Frillsnfrostbite · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book. It describes methods used in an interrogation room as well as situations when you might use such methods. I especially enjoyed the last few sections of the book outlining how you might use these techniques in a corporate environment and how to avoid having these interrogation techniques used on yourself. I will definitely he rereading.

[Hades · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a valuable resource for individuals who are seeking to enhance their ability to detect deception, obseerving stress indicators, inconsistencies, and behavioural cues. However; I was looking for more in depth theoretical analysis.

[Pollies · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listen to this book every night as I fall asleep. The narrator's voice is calming and I find the subject matter interesting. This is not a boring book. It is very well written and narrated.

[Faisal Adnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt long in relation to number of pages...