Dr. Mark Frank, professor and Department Chair at the University of Buffalo, who is so generous with his knowledge said it best in a conversation with me years ago, “Joe, there is no Pinocchio effect.” And there isn’t and there has never been. There is no single behaviour indicative of deception, not one. Even to those who say, "well we look for clusters of behaviors," they would also be wrong. There are no clusters of behaviours indicative of deception. Not really, not if we are honest.
In 2016, I wrote an article for readers of Psychology Today, looking at over two-hundred DNA exonerations. People on death row exonerated after definitive DNA tests confirmed they were not the culprits; it was not their saliva, blood, sweat, or semen found at the crime scene. What was startling when I burrowed deep into all these cases, in each and every instance, the law enforcement officers were sure the suspect was lying, but not one officer could detect the truth. Not one officer believed the suspect when they claimed they did not do it. In other words, and I repeat, they could not detect the truth, but they were certain they could detect deception. This wasn’t just embarrassing—lives were at stake—it was shameful.
And the truth is that we humans are no better than chance at detecting deception. We have known this since Paul Ekman’s best-seller, “Telling Lies:Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage” came out in 1985. That we need to stop associating behaviours indicative of psychological discomfort with deception and acknowledge them purely for what they are: signs of stress, anxiety, apprehension, despair, suspicion, tension, concern, nervousness, etc., but not deception.
Everything that upsets a daily routine, from being called in by a manager about the missing money from the break room, to being confronted on the street by two police officers their weapons on display, is enough to cause most people to display psychological discomfort. And if the questioning is in any way intimidating, or if the person is shamed in public, you can anticipate pacifying behaviour and displays of psychological discomfort from the most innocent. Remember: abnormal displays during abnormal circumstances are normal.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/spycatcher/201807/the-end-detecting-deception
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