Hi and

every week I'll help you meet life's

I'm your host Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges

with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

So for all savvy listeners, thank you so much for hanging in there for a few weeks of

reissues while I moved across the country to start a new job and some new adventures.

But now let's get right back into it.

This week, by request from listener Nassar from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, we'll discuss seven

ways to spot a liar.

So according to eminent psychologist and emotion researcher Dr. Paul Ekman, lying comes in two

flavors.

So first, our low stakes lies, which almost all of us engage in.

And these are lies like, oh sorry I never got your message or I'm going to be out today.

It must have been something I ate.

By contrast, high stakes lies, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, or I'm not

in love with David Petraeus, are thankfully less common.

But either way, can you handle the truthiness? Research says

probably not. We're terrible at detecting lies and even technology doesn't

improve our chances. For example a 2009 study in the Journal of Forensic

Sciences examined a technique called voice stress analysis and found that it

worked about as well as you you guessed it, guessing.

And to make things worse, a 2014 study found that emotionally

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