Dr. Ekman Needs to Hire a Professional Writer!

books:

	• Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (Revised and Updated Edition) Paul Ekman W. W. Norton & Company, 2001 - 386 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good data, interesting style

This book has lots of important information, not the least of which is to correct many misconceptions about signs of deceitfulness and the distinction between signs of anxiety and signs of deceit.

Ekman does a good job of defining important categories of non-verbal behavior and correlating increases or decreases in each of the categories with different emotional states. However, the specific facial changes associated with genuine versus feigned emotional expression identified in this book offers nothing new.

I particularly liked the author's narrative style. It was reminiscent of accounts written by 19th Century scientists who were trying to discover fundamental principles by observing natural phenomena and describing them in careful, objective language. The bonus to the reader is the raw data provided with specific conditions carefully and objectively described. The studies employ ingenious designs to elicit desired emotion and, because of the detailed description, allow the reader to formulate hypotheses and draw conclusions -- some of which may differ from those of the author.

Much of the information about deceitfulness presented here is just common sense, but Ekman does a good job of categorizing this information and presents well-described objective data from which his conclusions are drawn.

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Ekman is better than he is given credit

Dr Eckman may disappoint his readers by not giving them what they want: A simple protocol for determining whether or not someone is lying. There is a simple reason: There isn't one.

Other books will defraud the reader by giving them techniques that in reality don't work. Dr Eckman pounds in one central point - that there is no one single way to detect dishonesty. He calls any belief to the contrary "the Brokaw Hazard," named after Tom Brokaw, who believes that circumlocution is the omnipresent sentinel of a lie. He also develops the concept of the "Othello Error," that cautions the reader against actually causing lie signals by accident (named after the literary Othello, who assumed that his wife's sobbing was for her lover, but in reality she was sobbing because of her husband's rage over the incorrectly presumed affair.). He gives many tips, including a checklist in an appendix that might help the reader to detect lies, but most of the material is embedded deep within the text. He helps the reader to develop a dynamic approach to detecting lies; approaches that are developed as detection begins. He exhorts the reader to use NUMEROUS well-defined clues to develop the case for the conclusion that someone is lying.

The biggest flaw in the book is on its cover. The cover suggests that this is a practical book. It is more of a research paper. This is what makes it reliable - the fact that such a complete study is contained within. But the average reader will look for a standard protocol for detecting lies - but the Brokaw Hazard tells us there is none.

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A good book

I enjoy reading this book. It's a nice look into how people lie and the clues of deceit.

Dr. Ekman Needs to Hire a Professional Writer!

The book is fascinating, to say the least. I think people need to take a "realistic approach" to applying the knowledge acquired by reading the book. My one big fault with the book is that whoever actually "wrote" the book is terrible with regard to constructing sentences and expressing ideas! I had to read some things twice in order to make sure I was receiving the information as intended. Dr. Ekman needs to invest in a professional writer who can more clearly express his thoughts, intents and ideas. Hard reading and unneccesarily so!

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reviews: page 1, 2

From breaking the law to breaking a promise, how do people lie and how can they be caught? Ekman study describes how lies vary in form and can differ from other types of misinformation, as well as how a person's body language, voice, and facial expressions can give away a lie but still escape detection.

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