Cues to deception

Do people behave differently when they are lying compared with when they are telling the truth? The combined results of 1,338 estimates of 158 cues to deception are reported. Results show that in some ways, liars are less forthcoming than truth tellers, and they tell less compelling tales. They also make a more negative impression and are more tense. Their stories include fewer ordinary imperfections and unusual contents. However, many behaviors showed no discernible links, or only weak links, to deceit. Cues to deception were more pronounced when people were motivated to succeed, especially when the motivations were identity relevant rather than monetary or material. Cues to deception were also stronger when lies were about transgressions. Do people behave in discernibly different ways when they are lying compared with when they are telling the truth? Practitioners and laypersons have been interested in this question for centuries (Trovillo, 1939). The scientific search for behavioral cues to deception is also longstanding and has become especially vigorous in the past few decades. In 1981, Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal published the first comprehensive meta-analysis of cues to deception. Their search for all reports of the degree to which verbal and nonverbal cues occurred differentially during deceptive communications com-pared with truthful ones produced 159 estimates of 19 behavioral cues to deception. These estimates were from 36 independent samples. Several subsequent reviews updated the Zuckerman et al