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*Strategic Deception : The act of gaining an advantage over an adversary / situation + optimal positioning that may not otherwise be possible or available without the use of fabrication and misdirection.
Tactics of Deception
A person skilled in deception detection will observe your baseline (normal) state of being and analyze deviations from that baseline as signs of lying. You must maintain your “normal” baseline behavior throughout.
A professional liar should never believe their own lies but it should be conveyed to the target as if they do. Presenting the lie with confidence, certainty and conviction, of both the message and oneself.
It’s practically impossible to control or hide the signs of deception from your facial micro expressions but it is consciously manageable with the rest of your body. Don’t let your body language betray you.
Even a perfect lie may be compromised in the future by your own action of slipping up. A remedy is to write each deception you enact down in writing as detailed notes to accurately recollect later on.
Natural, relaxed breathing helps hide, reduce or negate certain classic involuntarily tell-tale signs of deception; sweating, drying of the mouth, constant swallowing, fidgeting and micro expressions.
Each lie comes with a baggage of responsibility, requires effort and risk. Which is why you should only use deception when absolutely necessary. If the truth is more advantageous than a lie, the lie is not worth it.
Less is more with deception. Minimize speech and therefore the information you convey to only the most necessary. This reduces the risk of making a mistake and being caught in a lie. Be brief to be believed.
Knowing how to lie strategically requires as much truth as possible. When telling lies, it’s best to keep as much details that are true / accurate. Making it easier to recollect those facts later on.
Each enacted lie must be protected to preserve its legitimacy, by nature that puts the liar in a defensive position. However, showing any signs of physical or verbal defensiveness weakens your stance.
A professional liar doesn’t abruptly change the subject when cornered or confronted on a lie, he/she acknowledges the discrepancy then seamlessly and naturally segues into a similar and relevant subject.
A physical maneuver where you lean in towards the target when enacting a deception, whereas most people lean away when actively lying – which is defensive in nature and it shows as such as suspicious behavior.
Also known as the deception recollection strategy, it’s weaving real details of your own life and past to strengthen lies for viability and easier remembrance of those lies for future retrospection.
Keep normal natural eye contact behavior when lying. Although not looking directly looking into a target’s eyes isn’t a sign of deception, it decreases their trust in you and in the confidence of your words.
Avoid changing the subject or ending the conversation prematurely if the target starts to doubt or question your lie. A truth teller would try to get their point across because they have nothing to hide.
Despite its common use, answering a question with another question to protect a lie from discovery is an advanced maneuver and often hurts more than it helps if used combatively / defensively.
The raw process of knowing how to lie is easy, producing and maintaining a successful and effective process of deception is not. It should be enacted like a tactical art with a foundation of psychological craft.
Deception is an endeavor… Untruths require creative thinking and manipulation, truths require casual thinking and memory.
These tactics of how to lie used as singular strategies may be effective but enacting deception with an array or the right combination of these methods is optimal.