Brokaw Trap and Lie Recognition

[Brother]

People have one mostly not very pleasant feature that each of us has to deal with quite often. It consists in the fact that a person often lies in pursuit of his goals, and regardless of whether these goals are good (for example, when they lie to us to calm or protect us from something) or bad (they are more often such), our task is be able to recognize lies. However, doing this, we with an enviable frequency fall into the trap of Brokaw. Today we will tell you what it is, and also talk about the ability to distinguish truth from lies and determine the degree of truthfulness of other people's words.

What is a Brokaw trap​

Brokaw's trap is a phenomenon when a person ignores the individual behavioral and speech characteristics of the interlocutor, determining how truthful he is. This term was first used in 1985 by the famous American psychologist Paul Ekman in his sensational work "The Psychology of Lies", referring to the reasoning of Tom Brokaw, a popular journalist in the United States and a luminary of television interviews, about how he defines the sincerity of his interlocutors.

In the book, Ekman writes that any manifestations of people that most often indicate deception can be perceived by other people as part of normal behavior. And he calls the probability of an incorrect assessment of such people a Brokaw trap. A verifier (one who evaluates a person's sincerity) can always fall into this trap, especially if he does not know the interlocutor well and does not know how he usually behaves.

In simple terms, the Brokaw trap is an ignorance of individual differences in human behavior. It is important to understand that not a single sign of deception, for example, changes in facial expressions and micro - expressions of the face, voice, posture or words , cannot be considered 100% proof of a lie . Changes in the activity of the autonomic nervous system, which the lie detector detects, by the way, also cannot be considered evidence of deception.

The situation is similar with the definition of truthfulness. Many mistakes stem from the fact that some people generally do not commit any miscalculations and mistakes during a lie. There are not very many such people, but they are, and they are born liars, people with serious mental disabilities and those who have mastered Stanislavsky's system for lying - liars who sincerely believe in their lies. Therefore, even if there are no signs of deception, there is no absolute guarantee of truthfulness either. However, the presence of the above signs often misleads people, forcing them to make another mistake - not to believe the truth and accuse truthful people of lying.

Such knowledge is used by fraudsters - they convince their victims that they allegedly saw through them and caught them in a lie. They are also used by professional poker players, giving "false signals". For example, a poker player coughs cautiously and for a long time, pretending to be bluffing. The opponent, who is confident in his discernment, associates this with a bluff, and this turns out to be a mistake. When passions in the game are heated to the limit, the deceiver coughs again, but at the same time he no longer bluffs. As a result, this allows him, at the most unexpected moment, to turn the tide of the game and win.

Because of Brokaw's trap, a lot of mistakes arise when defining a lie, and in order to minimize them, you must try to draw your conclusions based on changes in human behavior. It is necessary to compare normal behavior with behavior after you have expressed doubts about the veracity.

Many fall into the Brokaw trap when first communicating with a person, because have no idea about his usual behavior, which means that they cannot notice the changes either. For this reason, they begin to make absolute judgments, for example, they see that a person is fussing and makes a lot of awkward movements and come to the conclusion that he must necessarily hide something. Such judgments often turn out to be wrong.

But there are relative judgments. For example, seeing that a person is still fussing, one can understand that for some reason he is not very comfortable in the current situation. These judgments are the only way to reduce the number of errors in determining a person's sincerity or insincerity based on changes in their behavior.

And when you need to draw conclusions at the first meeting, you need to try to communicate with a person longer, so that there is an opportunity to observe how he behaves and communicates in normal conditions. Experts advise for this at the beginning of communication to talk about some calm and neutral topics.

Of course, it also happens that there is simply no opportunity to conduct a casual conversation (due to lack of time, unwillingness to communicate with the interlocutor himself or for some other reason). In such situations, you need to keep in mind that the probability of getting into the Brokaw trap increases significantly. But you still need to try to analyze a person's behavior and note all changes in it, because they signal changes in the internal state, and these changes can often indicate lies and insincerity.

In addition, in the process of detecting a lie, the verifier can make a number of mistakes. We'll talk about them later, but for now, let's see this small fragment from the movie "Catch Me If You Can". Try to determine why the hero of Tom Hanks falls into the trap of Brokaw while communicating with the hero of Leonardo DiCaprio, and what mistakes he makes.

Basic Verifier Errors​

Determining lies is not an easy task, especially when you have to communicate with people who really know how to skillfully lie. But this is not the only problem, since there is a possibility of making all sorts of mistakes. In order not to fall into Brokaw's trap, and indeed, in order not to mislead yourself, check out the following errors of the verifier:

• False accusation. The reason for this error is the lack of confidence of the interlocutor and the presence of several evidences that indirectly indicate that he is not telling the truth. It is important to keep in mind both the emotional state of the other person and his feelings. Don't jump to conclusions. It is necessary to take into account all the reasons that cause certain emotions and manifestations.
• Lack of security. If your interlocutor feels that you in one way or another pose a threat to him, you simply will not be able to understand his usual behavior, because fear will seriously distort him, and you simply will not be able to determine whether he is lying or telling the truth. Try to radiate safety, avoid aggressive attacks and negative language.
• Help the interlocutor. When communicating with a person and trying to understand whether he speaks sincerely, you can never supplement his thoughts and vision of the situation, voice your own assumptions. You must actively listen, observe and analyze what your opponent is saying and doing.
• Subjectivization of experience. You do not need to project your own behavioral model onto the behavior of another person, and also consider his personality as bad or good. All people are different, have different habits, tastes, preferences, etc. And if they do not coincide with yours, this does not mean anything. You cannot rely only on your personal criteria. It is necessary to assess human behavior as objectively as possible.
• Making a decision based on one attribute or a minimum set of attributes. It should be understood that there is no one sure sign of a lie, and this is confirmed by numerous studies of polygraph examiners. It is possible to determine a lie only by the maximum set of signs, as well as with the help of verification and control questions.
• Rejection of non-standard situations. It is a mistake to believe that a lie can obey some uniform principles and algorithms. Practice shows that events can develop according to completely different scenarios, and even if it seems to you that you are well versed in the psychology of people, always leave a place in your mind for something new.
• Emotional reactions. You can draw correct conclusions only if you remain in the position of an observer. This means that during communication it is necessary to evaluate not what the person does and says, but how he does it and speaks. Likes and dislikes shouldn't play any role either. Emotional involvement destroys objectivity and prevents you from drawing the right conclusions.
• Lack of self-control. The ability to identify lies is also the ability to control oneself and quickly adapt to the surrounding conditions and the peculiarities of the situation. You cannot give in to provocations, give vent to feelings, allow the interlocutor to change your state. Only calm, collected and cold-blooded people can achieve success in identifying lies.

It should be noted that we did not talk about all the mistakes people make when recognizing a lie. We also need to clarify that we took the material from Paul Ekman's book "The Psychology of Lies" as the basis for information on the topic of errors . If you want to explore these issues in more detail, be sure to read it.

Next, we want to talk about the baseline of human behavior and give some recommendations on how to determine it. This knowledge will help you not to fall into the trap of Brokaw and save you from wrong conclusions when you need to make sure of a person's sincerity.

Defining a baseline of behavior​

Basic behavior (baseline of behavior) is the usual behavior of a person in a familiar and usual environment for him, as well as during conversations on neutral topics that do not cause violent emotional experiences and stress. How can defining basic behavior help you avoid Brokaw's trap?

As we have already said, based on the words of Paul Ekman, already mentioned by us, any one sign of a lie may well correspond to the basic behavior, and its presence will not at all mean that a person is lying. If you consider this sign an indicator of deception and insincerity, you will just fall into Brokaw's trap.

That is why it is so important not to isolate individual signs from the interlocutor's behavior that can be interpreted as false, but to create a holistic picture of how a person usually behaves in order to understand later what discrepancies appear in his behavior.

As a rule, it is necessary to determine the basic behavior of those people with whom you communicate for the first time, with whom you have never had to talk with until now, about whom you cannot say anything concrete. Why exactly with these people? The point is that if your interlocutor is someone from your family, friends, well-known colleagues at work, or in general someone with whom you often communicate, you do not need to define his basic behavior. You already know this person enough, his demeanor and speech, habits, etc., so that with a certain amount of attentiveness you can understand when he is not behaving as usual.

However, there are people who, even with prolonged communication with other people, do not know their usual behavior. The reason for this may be, for example, banal carelessness. In this case, it will also be necessary to determine the basic line of behavior in order to be able to recognize lies, deception and insincerity in time.

Professionals say that establishing basic behavior is most effective from the first minutes of communication. But this condition applies more to strangers. In situations with familiar people, you can define basic behavior at any time. The main thing is that the atmosphere is normal and calm.

Determining the baseline of behavior requires paying attention to everything that a person does. To make it clearer, let's look at the points.

Micro Facial Expressions:

• Eyebrows and forehead - it is necessary to establish the origin of the movements of the eyebrows and forehead during the conversation, their location, the presence or absence of wrinkles.
• Eyes - It is very important to notice the "standard" position of the eyelids, the size of the pupils, the frequency of blinking, the direction of the eyes.
• Mouth - the shape, thinness, plumpness of the lips and their location (how the lips are located relative to each other), the shape of the mouth (are there any bright features, for example, some people may have a slightly curved mouth, etc.)

Pay attention to the face in general: how it looks when the person is emotionally neutral, when it expresses positive or negative emotions, how it reacts to your words, etc. Keep in mind that some emotion in a person may be basic, but this does not mean that he is experiencing it. In addition, some kind of emotion can manifest itself on only one part of the face.

Your task is to find as many characteristic signs as possible by which it will be easy to recognize inconsistencies in the future. In general, defining microexpressions is perhaps the most difficult task in establishing basic behavior. But with due diligence and systematic "training", you can master this skill.

Non-verbal communication cues:

• Gestures - Track what gestures your conversation partner uses when you have a casual conversation. As a rule, each person has their own standard set of gestures.
• Poses - everything is exactly the same as with gestures: you need to understand what postures a person most often takes in a relaxed atmosphere. Most likely, he has one or more favorite positions in which he feels comfortable.

Tracking and understanding what gestures and postures a person takes in ordinary situations is already much easier than micro-expressions. It is also much easier to notice changes in gestures and postures. This requires a minimum of effort and observation.

Speech and Voice:

• Speech - you need to understand the characteristic features of speech, for example, intermittency, stuttering, uncertainty, high speed, etc., and also pay attention to whether a person is choosing words when trying to say something, how saturated his speech is with parasitic words, such as "well", "like", "shorter", etc.
• Voice - the most important thing here is the volume of the voice, its tone and intonation with which a person speaks. They very clearly show how sincere a person is with you.

The speech and voice of most people instantly change if something starts to go not according to their usual scenario and there are changes in their emotional state. No matter how much a person wants to disguise a lie, subconsciously he will still understand that he is not telling the truth. This fact will give him discomfort, and this will already manifest itself in the volume of his voice, the intonation with which he pronounces words, and other signs.

We hope that these tips will help you avoid falling into the trap of Brokaw and learn to understand faster when you are being lied to. Well, in order to replenish your arsenal of the verifier, we propose to adopt a few more recommendations that can be followed in everyday personal and professional communication.

How to identify a cheater​

In ordinary life, nine out of ten people who tell a lie will commit at least one of the most common mistakes liars make. Again, you can find a lot of these errors, but the next "ten" is the top one:

• Control of the right side of the body. Non-verbal signals say much more about a person than speech and words. As we know, the vast majority of people are right-handed, and they have better control over the right side of the body. To understand if the interlocutor is telling the truth, look at the left side of his body - it will reflect his real emotions and feelings, for example, the left hand will be at the mouth, make unnecessary movements, etc.
• Hands on the face. The obvious signs of lying are a mouth covered with a hand, rubbing your nose, rubbing or touching your neck, closing your ear. If a person does this with enviable consistency, the likelihood that he is lying is very high. However, keep your baseline in mind and keep in mind that your neck or nose may actually just want to scratch.
• Confusion of speech. Many people, when telling a lie, will not say something, their speech will be crumpled, and its speed will constantly change. There are also many pauses and hesitation in the speech of a liar. And when a person speaks the truth, his speech is natural, laconic, he speaks with enthusiasm, but mostly with the same speed.
• Withdrawal of eyes or gaze. Contrary to popular belief, liars do not always try to look away when asked about something (but this should also be a signal to you). It also happens that a cunning person, on the contrary, glares at the interlocutor, being sure that this way he looks more convincing. Keep in mind both of these manifestations.
• Belated emotions . Real emotions are always expressed simultaneously with speech, but deceitful emotions appear a little later than words. For example, a person may say that he is glad to meet you, but the joy on his face shows only a moment later. If you notice such a feature, you should be wary and treat the words of a counterpart more carefully.
• Brevity . Most often, liars, when thinking over their speech, seek to shorten it as much as possible in order to make it more concise. Detailed and detailed stories are very rare for people telling lies, because the details need to be thought out. Having said something briefly, the liar will try to gauge your reaction. And if you did not believe it and pointed it out, the following error is possible.
• Excessive detail. Doubting that you believe him, the liar may begin to supplement his story with unnecessary details, which could well be dispensed with. This is done to make the lie believable. Pay attention to what exactly the person begins to detail. Think about whether these details are really that important, and whether they sound natural with them.
• Departure in defense. As soon as the liar realizes that you do not believe him, he may begin to actively defend himself, for example, asking why you do not believe him, what reason do you have to doubt the veracity of his words, he may even begin to resent, get angry and take offense at you and etc. Another option for defense is jokes, sarcasm, witticisms as an attempt to disguise a lie.
• Ultimate attentiveness . Some people, when they lie, actively monitor the interlocutor and his reactions. If suddenly you somehow show that you don’t trust the person’s words, or he decides that he has already twisted you around his finger, he will immediately begin to change tactics - he will defend himself or, on the contrary, relax. Remember that whoever is telling the truth is more interested in their story than in your reaction.
• Confusion . A good technique is to ask the other person to repeat what he said, but in reverse order. A truthful person will do it without any problems, and the liar will start to remember something, ponder, get confused, because the information is not fixed in his memory. Another example of confusion is inconsistencies in locations, dates, and times of events. To notice them, you just need to be careful.

But let us remind you once again that you should never draw premature conclusions. One or two signs of a lie is not an indicator that they are telling you a lie. The most correct and effective approach is to assess the totality of the signs of a lie, which gives a more reliable result.

Practice observing people and hone this skill. Study micro-expressions, non-verbal communication cues, speech and voices of people, learn to identify basic behavior. Never directly accuse a person of lying, even if you are 100% sure of it. Bring him out to clean water with the help of clarifying and special questions.

In general, if you want not just to learn not to fall into Brokaw's trap and avoid the tricks of liars and manipulators, but to become a professional in this, we advise you, firstly, to read our articles "Profiling" and "How to recognize a lie", but second, go through a specialized online profiling program, which literally from A to Z tells about the art of "reading" people.

We wish you good luck and more sincere and honest people around!