An article in last week’s New York Times magazine contained the following amazing statement: “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”
Although the article had nothing to do with sociopaths, the statement made me think of my ex-husband, James Montgomery. Among his many lies, Montgomery claimed to be a member of the Australian military, a decorated Vietnam War hero, and a member of the Special Forces. None of this was true, but from what I can tell, he’d been making the claims since at least 1980 (we met in 1996). They’d been repeated many times, for many years—which apparently enhanced their believability.
Like most of us here on Lovefraud, I felt like a complete fool for being so totally deceived. Why couldn’t I see the lies? But it turns out that I have plenty of company. Psychological research indicates that in general, people can distinguish truths from lies only about 53 percent of the time. That’s not much better than flipping a coin.
No signs of lying
Some people believe that there are physiological signals that someone is lying—for example, extraneous hand gestures or averting eye contact.
In one study, scientists asked more than 2,000 people from all over the world, “How can you tell when people are lying?” The number one answer was the same: “Liars avert their gaze.”
This may be true for some people, but it is not true all the time, and probably not true at all with sociopaths. Here at Lovefraud, we all have stories of the predator gazing into our eyes while he or she lied through his teeth.
Some researchers believe that liars tend to move their arms, hands and fingers less, blink less, and have more tension in their voices. Still, these behaviors are not consistent—some people who lie display them, and others don’t.
The point is, in hundreds of studies, researchers have found no reliable signal that indicates when someone is lying.
I don’t know, but I assume that the studies were done on general populations, and not populations of sociopaths. If we can’t detect lying in normal people, what chance do we have with sociopaths?
Truth About Deception
The situation gets even worse in romantic relationships. The reason, quite simply, is that we want to believe and trust our romantic partners.
“As people become more intimate and more emotionally involved they also become less accurate at detecting their partner’s deception,” states the website Truth About Deception. “People are too willing to give their romantic partners the benefit of the doubt.”
The Truth about Deception website is dedicated to explaining lies in romantic relationships, and the information presented is scary. For example, it states, “Most people think they are really good at telling when their partner is lying, but research shows that thinking you are good at detecting deception does not make it so.”
This creates, according to the website, a dangerous situation:
- As intimacy increases:
- People’s confidence at detecting deception increases
- People’s actual ability to detect deception declines
- Partners have more reason to lie
The website suggests that the only real way of determining if a romantic partner is lying is through some type of monitoring or surveillance.
Awareness, intuition, evaluation
So what’s the answer? How do we know when someone is lying?
The first step is to realize that people do, in fact, lie. That’s how honest, trustworthy people get into trouble—we don’t lie, so we don’t expect people to lie to us. This is a dangerous blind spot.
Our initial clue that someone is lying will probably come from our intuition. If we get that hit, that inkling, that the truth is not being told, we need to pay attention.
Then, we need to critically evaluate what is being said, along with evidence that proves or disproves the statements. When facts are irrefutable, we should believe the facts, and not the pleas of the liar.
Narc Attack : )
This is in response the mother who found out her son was driving with a radar detector. So what? This is what you have to complain about? Look, you and I can have differences of opinion about the vericity of radar detectors, but ultimately its small peanuts. Learn to gripe about the big things. OK, I would hate for the deception to take place, and yes, I would take that lie in the greater context of lying that takes place throughout the bad marriage, but really, this is your big example? Come on, get real. This is the type of difference of opinion that could actually be healthy in a relationship. I know this was just an example, and I’m not right in taking the other side, but this is actually a healthy action taken by 100’s or 1,000’s of healthy parents every day.
So what if you two disagree. Embrace disagreements and be natural about the result. What’s the reality check? Do all parents who accept radar detectors in their childrens cars deserve to be admonished? The lie is the lie, and that sucks, but where is the perspective?
OxDrover said “And, by the way your “getting caught in an innocent lie” wouldn’t get you by my P-dar detector now, because at the FIRST lie about anything except “do these pants make my butt look big?” would make me totally distrust you.”
So, you’d totally distrust me if you caught me in a lie about a surprise birthday party? Or about, let’s say, going cheap on valentines day presents this year, or some other such thing?
There are plenty of opportunities to lie in a /good/ way, besides unflattering pants.
SecretMonster
Flugenblar,
Having had very close relationships with both narcissists and sociopaths, I must say, there is a HUGE difference. Not in behavior or the pain they cause, but in the intentions that they have and their ability to feel certain emotions. I think that the fact that the narcissist is your father puts you in a position to want to understand why he did what he did, which is completely normal. It doesn’t mean that you put up with the abuse, but understanding why they are maladjusted and what went wrong in their lives helps to see them in a human light and forgive them for your own good.
Sociopaths, on the other hand, are not just a product of maladjustment. They are missing the ability to empathize and feel guilt. The fact that you are writing in the manner that you are is proof that you have not been exposed to a sociopath, or if you have, you haven’t understood their true nature. It is very frustrating for those of us who know that people like this exist to have to defend ourselves to others who, for whatever reason, insist they do not. We are not talking about your father here. These people are not in the same ballpark.
It is easy for someone who stumbles upon this site to look at our posts and trivialize them. Someone’s ex bought their son a radar detector against their wishes, someone’s ex bought the same type of sheets as them after the breakup, my stepmother took the room I said I wanted in the new house we moved in. But as I mentioned before, the behavior is not as telling as the intention. These are not isolated incidents. They are small evidences of a greater agenda, which is control and dominance over another human being, using our own human traits to fool others into believing they are normal people.
Reading this will probably not convince you that you are mistaken but please take the time to read other parts of the site to try to understand things better. This personality disorder is psychologically recognized and accepted. So, yes, we all have been served a big, fat reality check. That is why we’re here in the first place.
To be egotistically self-referential…I blogged on the phenomena- there’s a German word for it, that the symptoms out of context, out intimate knowledge cannot be understood, There’s always a good German word when English won’t do…
Psychopaths play games- it’s not a normal disagreement or hurt feelings or even insult –it’s a mindf–k. For example a pscyho would take the training wheels too soon from a child and let them go biking purposefully against the mother’s wishes and make lie about it. Maybe let the mother see the child riding down a hill as she drives by. Or be over-protective tp the point they are considered the more competent concerned parent so no one questions when they immediatedly approve a questionable surgery for their child. Their motivation is getting off on the lie. Takes awhile to wrap your mind around I know.
SM,
Your comments are “so P”–of course not, and as for a surprise birthday party, I don’t even consider that a lie—and I don’t think anyone else would either.
You quite well know what I meant—speaking in any manner which is deceitful for a purpose to conceal information that would harm or upset the other person, is a lie.
Withholding information can be as much a lie as verbalizing one.
Children have been shown as young as two or three to start to deceive their parents to avoid punishment. Of course, they have no moral reference or knowledge of right or wrong, just a wish to avoid punishment if they can. Smart little buggers.
The “social lie”–“No I can’t come to your party, I wish I could but John and I have other plans for that night”– Rather than telling the entire truth–“No, I have no wish to come to your house, I don’t like you at all, you are a complete bore.” Is commonly accepted as “good manners.”
If that same “excuse” for not going to the party has other agendas, like keeping these people thinking that you like them so that you can keep on being their investment banker and stealing from them, then yes, it is a lie of “consequence.”
I guess I should have been more clear about my “rule” regarding lies. So let me rephrase it as “The first lie of CONSEQUENCE” puts them out of my circle of trust. I get to be the one to decide if a lie is of “consequence” or not.
Keeping in mind too, that our lie-dar is not as good as we wish it would be, and it is most likely that anyone I catch lying to me has lied before and I didn’t catch it. But if anyone lies to “build them self up” (“I have a PhD from Yale” when they barely graduated high school) or to deceive me about themselves, why would I want this person in my circle of trust?
It is a fact that every time I have caught someone lying to me about anything of consequence, or telling me a falsehood and we discussed it and I overlooked this falsehood, in the end, they turned out to be malicious and deceptive to my detriment. Since this seems to be a 100% correlation, I think my guide seems to be a pretty good one and works for me so I think I will retain it.
BTW Holywatersalt, I like the “egotistically self-referential.” It’s a shame we don’t have a shorter word for it in English. In fact, I would like to see a longer article about that word–good concept.
v.abraded,
IT DOES GET BETTER!!!
I used to drive down the road arguing with the Bad Man all the time. I am surprised that no one ever called in, “There’s a woman screaming at herself in her car on HWY 17 headed South.”
I used to argue with him in my head all night. The arguements were about how he was NOT the victim of me like he claimed. This drove me nearly insane.
It does get better and better. Keep reading. What happened to you takes a while to sink in. Now, I see my time with the Bad Man as nothing but a set of behaviors that I see repeated over and over here at LoveFraud. It is not about me.
I have let go of all that he said. He loved me the most. He hated me the most. Neither of these things have any zing in them anymore.
It’s hard to let go of the nice things he said but you have to remember this: If he said you were wonderful and the best and the sweetest.. or whatever juicy thing he said… you have to get to the place where you know it is true for youself… independant from any man saying it to you.
I needed validation from a man so bad when I met BM and that is one of the key elements, I think, that makes so many of us vulnerable to Sociopaths and the Order of the Disordered… :O) A club we are so glad we are not members!
Most likely, he said what you needed to hear so bad. Those are the things you need to build up in yourself and believe.
Am I off track here?
Dear Aloha,
The person who passed you on the left screaming at herself in her car on Highway 17 was ME!
I wish I had a dollar for every hour I did this! I’d be rich!
OxDrover,
Okay, fair enough about your policy. But what I was saying is, this mythical lie detection between couples can be easily reinforced with things like the surprise birthday party type stuff. I’m speaking from experience here. My wife is flat out convinced I’m the worst liar on the planet, thanks in part to bumbling “happy deceptions” like these.
And you’re 100% right about withholding information.
http://brokeninme.blogspot.com/2008/02/monster-manual-part-2-information.html
Lying is modification of the truth, but this is only one aspect in a greater agenda of information control.
OxDover…
HAHA.. I got that note. That’s funny. I don’t yell at the Bad Man in my car anymore. Or tell my story to the imaginary passenger. I think I did this because I was trying to assimiliate so much stuff. Ad so you have to tell yourself the story a few times… hundred times.
:o)
Yes, if only we could pay for our ruminating… we would be $$$.