Conquering Deception

by Jef Nance, Frank Barton Hill (Editor)

Ever wonder if you’re hearing the WHOLE story in a conversation? Conquering Deception delivers the tools to recognize the hidden meanings of what others say using principles originated by America's savviest police investigators. Conquering Deception adapts these principles for use in any setting--business or personal--to be used in an informal and non-confrontational style. A handbook for the savvy conversationalist that is practical, effective, and one-of-a-kind. A few interpreting eye movements, ways to pose questions that always get honest answers, dispelling myths of lying, using agreement to our advantage in conversation, the amazing significance of hearing a person say "I think...," techniques for influencing others, using silence as a 'weapon,' recognizing nose gestures, judging deception without being accusatory.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

215 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2000

Reviews

[Tanuki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before beginning this book, I expected that it was going to be more of a guide to detecting deception. I thought it would a manual for reading someone's poker face – identifying tells, reading between the lines of what is said. This was my expectation, and the back cover of the book reinforced that notion, with bullet points like "What can we really learn through watching the eye movements of others?" The title is Conquering Deception, though, and the book's real theme is conversational strategy. There is much less in here about how to read people, as opposed to how to dominate other people with speech.

It's no secret that this book is written by a former police officer (narcotics agent and trooper with the Missouri State Highway Patrol) Jeff Nance. But Nance's advice never generalizes beyond the interrogative mode of police work. Much of his advice is how to pump strangers for information: step 1 build a phony rapport with them, step 2 earn their respect and gain credibility, step 3 use their first name a lot in conversation and always make eye contact while talking to them, step 4 pretend to be like the person you're talking to because people like people like themselves, step 5 mirror the other person's body language, etc. This is all regurgitated wisdom from Dale Carnegie and Niccolò Machiavelli, and while I am sure it is as effective as ever, I had zero interest in reading dozens of pages about how to be a basic phony, about how to be a manipulative person with ulterior motives and concealed objectives for every conversation. But surely, that is what it means to be a police officer. It's no mystery why law enforcement is an insular community. If someone ever behaves like this to me, and I've met people like this from time to time, my guard immediately goes up. If you want to ensure that we never become friends, please, try this garbage on me. Nance has an officer's natural disrespect for people, because most of the people he has met in his line of work are society's dysfunctional members: criminals – liars, and often not too intelligent.

Anyway, he follows that material with a short chapter on a very politician-like perspective on arguments and debates (never go the defensive, dodge and reframe questions as you see fit, control the conversation with questions); a very elementary chapter on introverts vs extroverts, a chapter about learning types (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). This is all pretty useless stuff.

Nance's clear disrespect for and lack of understanding of introverts is ironic (that we are more emotional, for instance, or that lack of eye contact is somehow disrespectful), considering he opens one chapter by quoting Carl Jung on introverts and extroverts, "Since we all swerve rather more towards one side or the other, we naturally tend to understand everything in terms of our own type." Nance is no psychologist, and his analyses seem to all be based on anecdotal evidence alone. There are no footnotes, no bibliographic references cited. Nance never takes a scientific perspective on any of the claims he makes. I have a feeling that some of the folksy things he says may have even been debunked in research literature by this point. Nance is a story-teller. At times he describes phenomena and rhetorical techniques that psychologists already have terms for – like priming – but by not using those terms he reveals that he is not well read on the techniques he describes.

It isn't until halfway though, at page 100, where the book starts to deliver advice for spotting lies (before falling back to more chapters about choosing the right questions and proper delivery). But in the chapter on "eyes" I can't help but be skeptical of his claims. He says that when the speaker breaks eye contact, the direction that they look (left or right) is related to left or right-brain thought. Claims like this require clinical evidence for me to take them seriously, but he makes them sound matter-of-fact. A good cop would have used this chapter to mention that eyes betray thought in other ways: a friend of mine in college once lied to an officer about possessing something while his eyes subconsciously glanced to where he usually kept that thing. That cop knew immediately where to look (unfortunately the thing in question had been moved and hidden elsewhere, and the cop immediately realized that too) – that was one of my first lessons in life on how difficult it can be to effectively lie to a trained police officer. I imagine this is basic stuff for cops, but Nance doesn't even mention it.

Where the book was interesting to me is in some of the strategies evident in Nance's cop stories which he never actually focuses on: asking questions that imply more knowledge than you have, even if you must present false evidence to the accused in order to elicit a confession. "Come from a position of knowledge" should have been a whole chapter unto itself. Bluffing is a fascinating method for detecting lies, but it gets short shrift here. If Nance were honest with himself, he would admit that his entire book is how to conquer deception by being deceptive yourself. This is as much a book about how to deceive, as anything. In the end, that is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Who should read this book? Aspiring low-level criminals, definitely. This is the beat cop's playbook for interrogations, and if you plan on lying to the cops you should definitely learn and consider the methods they use to get confessions. This might also be the book for you if you're the kind of person who frequently encounters strangers and wants to "size them up" (evaluate how you can dominate them), i.e. you need a little help being an authority figure, spy, or other kind of sociopath – but there are probably better, more comprehensive books for that.

The reading level of the book is basic 8th grade literacy. Nance never uses big words or long sentences. Fairly large font and generous line spacing make the book about twice as many pages as it really is. There are small spelling mistakes, like "eery" where he meant to say "eerie."

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Experienced police interrogator and amateur psychologist puts it all together. Some dreaded left brain - right brain mumbo-jumbo tempered with the usual 'but there are gradations' and 'sometimes things are reversed'. However, much valuable information. And, don't say "To tell you the truth...", it is a sign of deception.

[Jeff Yoak · Rating 2 out of 5]

This comes off as a collection of war stories from a police detective. I get the impression that the guy is good at what he does, but it is of limited value for learning.

[Stephen Chung · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of the techniques

[Maxo Marc]

Practical tips for uncovering deception.

[VIXEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It's one I read over and over. Sometimes you have to refresh your skill.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to do a lot of behavioral interviewing. Forget the tricks -- but use them.