Paul Ekman "The Psychology of Lies"

Probably many have seen the American TV series “Lie to me”. On the bit-torrent trackers it is distributed under the name “Theory of Lie”, and its first channel shows for some reason under the name “Lie to Me”. The series tells about a team of super-professional psychologists who are engaged in investigations of the most different kinds: from marriage matters to the capture of a maniac killer. Only one thing unites these investigations: you must always identify a liar, find out what he is lying, what he hides - and thus solve the case. It is lie recognition that is the professional field of the heroes of the series; it is to solve this problem that the FBI, the police, firefighters and many others hire them.

However, few who have seen the series know that Dr. Cal Lightman, the main character, brilliantly executed by Tim Roth, has a very real prototype - an outstanding psychologist, a professor at the University of California, Paul Ekman. Manipulations, microexpressions, techniques of revealing lies, so vividly demonstrated in each episode, became known precisely because of many years of research by Dr. Ekman and his colleagues. In 1985 he wrote the book “Telling Lie”, in which he described in detail, almost scrupulously about his works, sorted out the types and classified the signs of lies, outlined techniques for identifying deception in various circumstances: daily life, criminal investigations and politics. As it turned out, in the closed and secret organizations, such as the CIA, the NSA and the FBI, psychological journals were not particularly read, and the book, on the contrary, became known, and with it the author. Doctors Ekman began to invite for trainings and seminars; It turned out that people who stand guard over national interests understand lies no better than you and me. Those. they, like most ordinary people in the world, think that they are able to reveal deception, but in reality their results are no better than casual guessing, moreover, they often simply do not know where to look - these are the results of studies by Ekman and his colleagues.

In 1992, Telling Lie was reissued and supplemented with the experience of working with the secret services, and in 2009, this book was published in Russian in the Russian translation under the name Psychology of Lies. You can find a book, for example, on ozon.ru

The book consists of 9 chapters, introduction, epilogue, applications in the form of summary tables and questionnaires, as well as prefaces and epilogues by Russian psychologists.
In the first two chapters, Ekman talks in detail about the types of lies (and he considers truth concealment as one of the types of lies), examines the emotions that a liar feels, how these emotions can manifest themselves and what basic mistakes make when interpreting the observed signs. All the story is accompanied by extensive examples. A few examples are used throughout the book. For example, a story about a patient at a psychiatric clinic Mary, who managed to lie to her doctor about her state of health in order to make another suicide attempt. The same story is used in the series; there, however, tragedy is attached to it: it is said that the woman died. According to Ekman, suicide failed. Nevertheless, her deception was revealed, which made the video of the conversation with Mary a good material for research. The third and fourth chapters are devoted to the actual detection of deception: by voice, gestures, reservations, facial expressions. Including microexpressions advertised in “Theory of Lie”. In fact, micro-expressions are a relatively rare phenomenon, blurred micro-expressions or even fragments of them are much more common. The fifth chapter is rather short, the interpretation errors already mentioned are recited in it once again.
The sixth, the largest chapter in the book, is devoted to discussions about the possibilities and limitations of lie detectors. Strictly speaking, these devices should not be called lie detectors, because they do not recognize a lie in any case. They recognize the reactions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS): pulse, sweating, respiratory rate. Reactions of the VNS speak about the presence of some emotions, but what these emotions are and whether these emotions are connected with a lie is a big question, as is the case with behavioral signs. Moreover, a trained person may well mimic the desired response of the ANS. Ekman himself, apparently, didn’t study polygraphs, and therefore mainly presents data from various surveys, opinions from polemics, talks about cases of successful and unsuccessful use of detectors. It is especially emphasized that there are practically no scientific papers on the effectiveness of polygraphs. The seventh chapter is called the “Lie Detection Technique” and is a kind of summary of the past. In general, there are quite a lot of repetitions in the book, self-repersons, which, on the one hand, of course, are tiring, on the other, it consolidates the knowledge gained. "The technique of detecting lies," as you can understand from the text, was the last chapter of the first edition. Eighth and ninth added in the 1992 edition. They describe the author’s experience with government services and deal with several specific examples of lies in politics and public life: lies about the Vietnam War, self-deception, which led to the death of the Shuttle Challenger, etc.
The ninth chapter ends with the paragraph "Land of Lies." In it, the author writes ... about our country. It must be said that Ekman was several times in the USSR and in Russia. In one of his visits, in 1979, he even read a monthly course of lectures at the University of Leningrad. And at the end of his book, he writes about Russia: that, of course, there are a lot of lies in the US, but in the USA, lies have consequences, presidents, generals, advisers resign; in Russia, lies are the norm, no one not only expects honesty from some politician, but even does not consider possible (!) such honesty. And this, unfortunately, the bitter truth.
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When the TV series Theory of Lies appeared, they immediately began to compare him with Doctor House. Comparison of this, in my opinion , is not entirely correct: yes, the themes and slogans are close, but if House is attractive primarily House itself, then in Theory of Lie it attracts primarily information about the detection of lies. After all, everyone wants to remain unrevealed with deception and at the same time not become a victim himself. And the series offers the opportunity to learn this. This possibility is, of course, illusory. Just as according to House it is impossible to learn medicine, so it’s impossible to learn how to detect a lie according to Lie to me. But according to Ekman's book, it is also unlikely, although it was written primarily for verifiers, “lie catchers”. Ekman constantly emphasizes that there are no universal signs of deception. There are signs of emotions, but in the first place they are not always universal, and secondly they do not always appear. Even a trained specialist in lies works most often with some probabilities of one or another interpretation. What to say about us?

Nevertheless, the “Psychology of Lie” can be safely recommended - just to learn to look at each other a little more carefully.