The Pinocchio Effect: How to Spot a Liar.

pinocchio effect and how to spot a liar now let’s begin have you ever heard of pinocchio that’s the puppet who comes to lifewell most of us encountered pinocchio for the first time in disney’s animated movie their rendition of pinocchio wasreleased in the 1940s but the characteris over60 years older the playful puppet wascreated by an italian author named carlocolottipilate’s 1883 novel the adventures ofpinocchiodescribes an obnoxious puppet who likesto bend the truthhe’s not nearly as charming as thecharacter in disney’s retellingbut both versions of pinocchio share thesame crazy quirkwhen pinocchio lies his nose gets longernow pinocchio’s nose may seem ridiculousbut there’s a kernel of truthburied inside this old fairy talepinocchio’s nose describes a uniquephenomenonwhen people bend the truth kaladi wouldsay they add to their true nosea paper mache nose in real lifeour noses don’t grow longer but yournose does change when you lie in 2012 a study fromthe university of granadadiscovered a phenomenon they dubbed thepinocchio effect now the pinocchio effect goes somethinglike thislet’s say you’re meeting your friend forlunch you arrive at the restaurant righton timebut your friend is nowhere to be seen 30minutes later they walk into therestaurant and act like nothing happened so you asked them wewere supposed to meet 30 minutes agowhy are you so late they don’t want totell you the real reason why they wereso lateso what do they do they make up anexcuse they sayuh sorry i was stuck in traffic but how do you know if they’re telling the truthor lying to your face when a person liestheir body temperature changes theyexperience a sudden rise in temperaturearound their noseresearchers have measured this starkchange in temperaturewith thermographic cameras they foundthat sudden temperature increases aroundthe noseare reliable predictors of deceptivebehaviorin other words you can use temperaturelike a lie detectorif the temperature of someone’s nosechanges well it’s probably a lieif not it’s most likely the truth butthat’s not really useful to you is ityou don’t have access to thermographiccameras all the timelies are the most common in socialsettings like group events and the work place in those environments it’s impossible tonotice something as small as a change intemperaturethese things are much too tiny to seewith your naked eyeso how do you use the pinocchio effectto spot a liar in actionif you don’t happen to have athermographic camera what should youlook forthe importance of the pinocchio effectisn’t the temperature change itselfwhile heat around the nose is a sign oflying you should keep your eyes peeledfor something elsethink about what happens when you feelembarrassed your body gets restless andyour body languagechanges you start touching or hidingyour face you try to comfort yourselfwith self-soothing gestures you’re doingthese things to reduce your climbingbody temperatureto soothe your nerves and to relax yourbrain embarrassment is just one exampleof the way temperature affects physicalbody languagelying works the same way when a liarexperiences a stark change in nasaltemperatureyou can’t see the extra heat but you cansee the way they react to that changein temperature like embarrassment facialtouching is a common unconsciousreaction to rushes of heat in the neckand faceyou place your hands on your face tosettle or sue that part of your bodyin this case a liar will place theirhands on or around their nosewhen they lie they may scratch thebridge of their nosethey may rub the insides of their eyesthey may hold their nose between their finges somehow someway their hands will makecontact with their facebody temperature can also causegeneral discomfort imagine a rush ofheat shooting into your arm or your legthat heat would make you feel itchy andrestless and that discomfort would showon your faceso when someone is bending the truththeir expression becomesvisibly uncomfortable their mental stateis responding to their physical stateand vice versachanges in one create changes in theotherif that wasn’t true the pinocchio effectjust wouldn’t existlying bothers you so your body respondswith a change in temperaturethat change in temperature bothers youtoo so your brain responds with visiblediscomfortyour cheeks turn red when you’reembarrassed for the same reasonif you’re not embarrassed your cheekswon’t turn red in the same wayif you’re not lying your temperaturewon’t changeso how reliable are these physicalsignalswhat other signs of deception can weidentify to sniff out the liars in ourlivesin 2012 a study by harvard universityasked the very same questionthis study addresses an unfortunatetruth which most of us have come toacceptpeople lie and they lie often somepeople lie to get what they wantothers lie to spare themselves troubleor make themselves look betteryou hear these lies in businessrelationships and friendshipssometimes their body language will givethem away but you can control your bodylanguagefor example you can stop yourself fromtouching your faceif that happens how do you know whensomeone’s lyingin this harvard experiment researchersexamined deceptive behaviors with a gamecalled the ultimatum gamethe premise is simple one player calledthe allocatoris given a sum of money the allocatormust choose how to split that sum ofmoney with a second player called thereceiverthe allocator can split the money evenlyor they can try to take more money forthemselvesbut here’s the twist the receiver canalways reject their offerin which case both parties walk awaywith nothingsince our harvard experiment istargeting lying behaviors they added asecond twist to the ultimatum gamenot all of the allocators received thesame amount of moneyeach allocator was given either thirtydollars or five dollarsto split with their receiver but thereceiver was not told how muchmoney their allocator received beforethe allocator decided how to split upthe moneythe receiver was given two minutes togrill the allocator with questionsduring that time the allocator couldspill the beansthey could tell the receiver how muchmoney they were given and then split themoney evenlyor they could lie they could say theyreceived five dollars when they actuallyreceived thirty dollarsand in that case the allocator wouldkeep most of the money for themselvesso what do you think people did didallocators lieto keep more money for themselves whenresearchers tallied up the resultsthey found that 70 percent of theallocators told the truthmost of them confessed the true value oftheir sum and split the money fairlybut if 70 of the people told the truththat means30 percent of the people tried to liesome allocators pulled it offsome didn’t but all of their lies gaveresearchers a valuable glimpse into thelanguage of deceptionthis harvard experiment revealed a newkind of pinocchio effectlet’s think back to our wooden puppetwhen he lies his nose grows longer rightwill harvard university notice somethingsimilar just like pinocchio’s elongatednoseour sentences get longer and longerwhen we lie but why do our sentencesgrow when we’re being dishonestthey get longer because we’re tryingharder we know that we’re lying so wemake a bigger effort to convince otherpeoplewe’re telling the truth according toharvard universitydeceptive people use a greater number ofwords andfar more third-person pronouns whenpeople tell the truth the oppositehappensour sentences like pinocchio’s nose stayshort and sweetyou know you’re being truthful and youhave confidence in the things you saythat confidence lowers your word countand encourages the use of first-personpronounsthere’s another way your speech changeswhen you lie in general lying is muchharder than telling the truththe truth can carry an emotional burdenit may require vulnerability ordiscomfortbut speaking the truth is much easierfor your brainlying on the other hand requires muchmore brain poweryou have to create something believableyou have to monitor your body languageand vocal tonesyou overthink every tiny thing and thatplaces a heavy burden on your brainnaturally that burden influences the wayyou speakour harvard experiment found a hugeincrease in one category when welie that category is profanitywe overuse profanity because we haveless space in our brainsyou stop minding your manners becauseyou’re paying too much attention to thelies coming out of your mouthwe also rely on profanity to add dramaand emphasiswe assume that curse words make ourspeech more convincingbut it’s actually just the opposite themore swear words you usethe more deceptive you appear the pinocchio effect for physical cues and changes inlanguage demonstrates to us a consistent truth about humanity we are not built to lie it makes usitchyhot and uncomfortable by changing our body temperature it changes our speech and overburdensour brainsjust like pinocchio and his growing nose subtle changes give awaylies and acts of deception people try to cover them up but the signs are always there they’re sneakier than a puppet’s nose growing twice its normal size but if you look closely you can recognize a liar anywhere anytime.