I write this for two reasons. Firstly, to critique some of the lower graded reviews, not for the purpose of debasing them but to inform them. And second, to speak to the layperson about interpersonal communications.
As any individual who has worked within or studied psychology would tell, causality treads along a thin line. Ekman notes, astutely, that there exists no one invariable indication of deceit. Instead, deciphering the likelihood of deception's occurrence need be done cumulatively. In other words, by tallying the indicators we seek to be more founded and closer to certainty, prior to making an accusation. This is so because research into confirmatory bias has shown that once we've become convicted in our beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, distancing from them to at least consider an alternative, becomes extremely difficult if not nearly impossible. This results in the proverbial, false-positive. There must always be room for doubt; room for the .01% possibility that we might be misguided. Certainty becomes foolishness, otherwise. Indeed, it seems to be human nature to seek affirmation. But the individual, who expects to read this book and take from it a surefire method of detecting deception, would be reading it for the wrong reason. To do so requires the utmost of critical thinking. And Ekman promotes this cautionary tell eloquently.
When talking to someone who, for example, we are unsure of the plausibility of their accounts, to test it we must work deductively. Via an exclusionary line of reasoning, one seeks to locate the more possible explanation by weeding out the lesser. This book, in my opinion, was written to make the reader think and to challenge any preexisting notions one might have about what denotes lying. It was meant to reform our mentality in approach to being more observant and cognizant of just how multifaceted lies often are. Uprooting a lie is difficult. And if we go about it haphazardly, we run the risk of throwing our observations askew; making them mean something they do not. Outside of being clairvoyant--hopefully you do not think that you are--we can never know why, because the reasons why are wholly subjective. Short of eliciting a confession of sorts, I mean to say, we cannot know precisely why someone might be lying, or if they truly are. And to hastily jump to the conclusion lying has taken place, then all else that person we suspect of lying may say, would, to us, be tainted, whether they are being truthful or not.
I highly recommend this book, highly. It was well composed and cited some prominent historical examples, detailing how some of the most incisive people in human existence have been fooled and lied on the grandest of stages. As a guidebook for exploring the realm of deception, there can be none better than this book. I can only look forward to Ekman publishing some more of this type of splendid material.
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