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Title: The Truth About Lying: How to Spot a Lie and Protect Yourself from Deception by Stan B. Walters ISBN: 1-57071-511-4 Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade Pub. Date: November, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent guide on the motivation and behavior of liars
Comment: The Truth About Lying is a short, easy-to-read, 60,000-word layman's guide to lying written by Stan B. Walters. Mr. Walters's company provides interview and interrogation services and training to business, industry, and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. He is an adjunct instructor at Eastern Kentucky University College of Law Enforcement and an adjunct instructor for the Department of Defense Polygraph Association. In short, he is an expert on lying, and it shows in his book.
There is a very good index in the book, a truly excellent bibliography (should you care to pursue the topic of lying further), and the artistic layout and paper quality are absolutely gorgeous, making the book a pleasure to look at and hold. The topics listed in the table of contents include: What's Behind a Lie, Guidelines and Principles, Verbal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Response Behavior, Using What You Know.
I would highly recommend this book to just about anyone, because there is probably not a person alive who has never experienced the negative consequences of lies. As Mr. Walters states: "Can you afford to make a critical decision, or even a simple day-to-day decision, only to find out later that it was based on false or misleading information?"
In addition to providing very valuable information on how to read the body language of liars, Mr. Walters puts lies in a social context. He states that it is important to figure out both when we are being lied to, and if there is anything in our own behavior that might encourage others to lie to us. For example, many of us are afraid to hear the truth and would "much rather hear subtle distortions of the truth rather than...cold, hard reality."
In this regard, I find the section on relationships particularly insightful. The people we deal with in daily life are discussed in terms of four general categories, "intimate, personal, social and public." Each group operates by a different set of rules which leads to different expectations, types of lies, and degree of seriousness of the effects of lies we encounter, depending on how emotionally close we are to a given person.
As well as recommending this book to a general audience, I also strongly recommend it to fiction writers. All types of characters, including heroes, villains, allies and antagonists, may have a reason to lie in a given story, whether it is drama or comedy, and it is important to understand the how and why of their lies (what goals and motivations bring them about). Mr. Walters states, "By being deceptive, a person accomplishes some goal, whether it be to gain a personal benefit, to avoid some form of unattractive consequence, or to protect himself or someone else in a situation that appears to be unpredictable....The more that a person perceives is at stake, the more pressure he may feel to choose to be deceitful." Since the hallmark of good fiction is for the protagonist to have a lot at stake, it behooves writers to be well-versed in the subject of high-stakes lying. This book provides that information.
You may wonder with all this praise I am heaping on Mr. Walters why I did not give his book a solid 5-star rating. I did not because, unfortunately, though the author is obviously very knowledgeable, his writing could benefit from the aid of a good editor. He is extremely redundant, with the same ideas and phrases repeated over and over throughout the book, sometimes intentionally ("as I said before") and sometimes not. If you can get past this problem, the information itself is very useful.
Rating: 2
Summary: Isn't this just common sense?
Comment: I read this book hoping to find telltale ways to spot liars. Call me optimistic. However, what I ended up reading was common sense pointers to find out when someone is under stress. If you want to find out truly what people do when they lie, do not read this book. It only mentions that each person has specific behaviors that they exhibit when lying. The author constantly cites exceptions to what he says and warns people not to make rash judgments. I do not feel that I learned anything new from this book. The main point here is that if you think someone is lying, then dig a little deeper into that subject area to try and uncover the truth. On the upside, the book was easy to read and was not necessarily boring. But I would look elsewhere to find a more concrete book about what people do when telling lies.
Rating: 4
Summary: closer to the truth than other pop psychology books
Comment: Of the four books I read recently about reading people and/or uncovering deception, this is probably the best, mainly because it doesn't fall into the trap of assigning specific behaviors as indicators of certain traits. The author is an expert in interrogation, and it shows-- the book is grounded in solid psychological fact, and is one that is certain to improve the people-reading skills of most readers. He also dispels some myths, such as those promoted by proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. About the only complaint I have is his claim that the book cannot be used by unscrupulous people to deceive others- not all the best actors gravitate toward Broadway or Hollywood. Still, out of the four books I read, this is the one that is most worth your time and money.
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Title: Never Be Lied To Again : How to Get the Truth In 5 Minutes Or Less In Any Conversation Or Situation by David J. Lieberman ISBN: 0312204280 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: 10 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Reading People : How to Understand People and Predict Their Behavior- -Anytime, Anyplace by Mark C. Mazzarella, Jo-Ellan Dimitrius ISBN: 0345425871 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 18 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit by Charles V. Ford ISBN: 0880489979 Publisher: Amer Psychiatric Pr Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Conquering Deception by Jef Nance, Jef Nance ISBN: 0967286247 Publisher: Irvin-Benham Group, LLC Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (Revised and Updated Edition) by Paul Ekman ISBN: 0393321886 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 10 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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