Liespotting Summary

A quote by Hitler in Mein Kampf explains “if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”. I recently attended a lecture on fraud and forensic accounting, with a focus on lie detection techniques. The lecture was presented by Pamela Meyer, the author of Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Meyers is a fraud examiner and the CEO of Calibrate, an institution that trains organizations in lie detection. Meyers presentation began by giving several truths about lying, such as: lying is an attempt to connect wishes and fantasies. She also gave facts about lying in the workplace, highlighting that there is an annual global fraud loss of $3.7 million. As the lecture continued, Meyers focused on two types of lying: verbal dodging and body language. Meyers presentation emphasized on the idea that adults lie constantly. After the presentation, I began questioning the prevalence of lying in society, and the relationship between

group and societies as well as the damage of lying, leading me to question the relationship between lying and ethics. I was thinking about catastrophic events such as 911 or the Holocaust, and how causes and effects impact defining as well as upon everyday life.
Is lying an inhibited characteristic into society that is an unintended catalyst for unethical actions preformed by people in everyday life? Is lying an inevitable action? What is the relationship between lying and ethics? Can catastrophic events be prevented or are they inevitable events caused by exogenous social, political and economic forces? Recent research conducted on the emergence of lying in young children found that children develop the ability to lie as young as 42 months old. As they become older, they begin telling more lies that become so complex, suggesting that lying is an inevitable skill (such as learning how to read or write). Lying affects any aspect of society, as even if people know they are being lied to, they chose not to confront it. It can be assumed that lying plays a major role in ethics, as people often lie to hide an unethical act committed. Children lie to conceal aggressions, while adolescents may lie to cover up dishonesty in the school environment, and adults conceal the truth in the workplace or through personal relationships.
Similar research conducted by psychologists found a relationship between children’s cognitive skills and deception. In the Emergence of Lying in Very Young Children, researchers Kang and Lee studied sixty 2 and 3 year olds. The children were asked to not look at the toy when the experimenter wasn’t watching. The researchers found that 80% of children peeked at the toy. When the children were asked whether or not they had peeked at the toy, the researchers found that the younger children were, the more likely they were to be honest. However, as they got older, children were more likely to lie. These research studies show that lying begins at such an early age, it is a naturally acquired skill, and perhaps even inevitable that people will always lie. The recent studies on the emergence of lying in young children is extremely useful as it questions whether lying can be stopped, as people learn to lie at such an early age, lying is an acquired skill the same way reading or speaking is.
Researchers Feldman, Tomasian and Coats studied “Nonverbal Deception Abilities and Adolescents’ Social Competence”.

The participants in the study were 11 to 16 year olds who were asked to pretend whether or not they liked a drink. The researchers found half the time, participants were being truthful, while in the other half, adolescents were deceptive, leading the psychologists to conclude that as children get older, they are more likely to lie, and adolescents lie through a series of blinking and shrugs. The results from research conducted in the studies show that children develop the ability to lie at such an early age, a fact that most people, especially parents are not aware of. When it comes to the topic of the emergence of lying in young children, most people would not think that children start lying as young as 2 years old. Since young children develop the ability to lie at such a young age, would a change in parenting techniques affect future actions that their children commit in later

years?
Academic cheating has become a rising problem throughout primary and secondary education. Academic cheating is defined as “representing someone else’s work as your own… students who cheat often feel justified in what they are doing… cheating may begin in elementary school when children break or bend the rules to win competitive games against classmates” (Stanford University, Perspectives in Assistive Technology). The fact that student’s feel justified in cheating, is similar as to how people say lies because they feel that they are justified in doing that action, such as a child may feel justified to lie to their parent about eating a snack before a meal.