As I have discussed before, being able to tell when your partner is lying to you is much more difficult than you may think. Specifically, we have touched on the biases we have when trying to uncover the truth - now, we're going to look at the type of questions we ask when looking for the truth, and how they are ineffective.
To be to the point, when trying to find out the truth, people generally ask probing questions. That would entail, "What?" "How did that happen?" "When did you do that?" "Are you positive?" And so on. Although probing questions are intended to get at the truth, forming your questions that way actually has the reverse effect and makes it harder for you to tell if you're being deceived or not. Every study brings the same results: asking probing questions hinders your judgment.
So why, and how does this happen? (If you've been paying attention, you'll know that those are probing questions) There are two rationalizations.
Primarily, asking probing questions helps the potential liar - it gives them the heads up that "Hey! I don't think you're telling the truth!" From there, they can change their behavior to seem more sincere, or honest.
In addition, it hurts those who are trying to discover the truth because it impacts your ability to make a decision. When you ask your partner "What happened?" And they respond with "I told you I went to Larry's house. I wouldn't lie to you" The person probing takes that and says to themselves, ‘well, he must be telling the truth because he wouldn't lie to me, and if he were lying I'd be able to tell.' It's a combination of people putting too much faith in their ability to detect deception, and putting to much faith in their partner.
People assume that they are able to tell when their mate is lying to them because after they ask the question designed at getting to the truth, they don't see any indication that their partner is lying, and assume that they are not. That occurrence is called, the "probing heuristic." Overall, every study shows that asking those types of questions of a partner is unsuccessful at getting at the truth.
Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to try and "get at the truth"? One can dream.
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