Are you a good judge of other people?

Many of us think we are good judges of others and that we can ‘know’ people within the first few minutes (or even seconds) of first meeting them. Most of us are wrong.

A recent book by Ian Leslie called Born Liars: why we can’t live without deceit (Quercus Publishing plc) summarises lots of the psychological research conducted in this area. It makes sobering reading. For example, one experiment showed that people were able to accurately spot liars only 47% of the time: in other words they would have done better by basing their decisions on the flip of a coin.

Part of the reason for this seems to be that, all over the world, there is a common idea of how liars behave: liars seem uncertain, they make less eye contact, they blink more, they move their hands and feet and make extravagant gestures, they say they can’t remember, they can seem surly or uncooperative, they digress, they recount events out of order.

Unfortunately, the research seems to indicate that good liars – and most of us can be good liars when the need arises – do not exhibit any of these behaviours more than people telling the truth. Indeed, good liars often seem less nervous and more coherent, empathetic, helpful and charming.

So in vital HR situations, such as recruitment, back-to-work or exit interviews, or in performance management meetings, for example, how can we judge the people we are talking to?

Some research seems to show that people’s facial ‘micro expressions’ are directly linked to what they are thinking and feeling; that these expressions are hard to fake and impossible to completely hide even if they do not last long. But most of us need training and practise to be able to read the faces of others completely.

Other research seems to show that when a person creates and maintains a lie they have to hold onto a lot of information, and that if we increase the load (by asking detailed and specific questions) and then closely attend to the person’s words, we can spot where the information starts to break down.

So there’s the solid psychological and scientific reason why competence-based questions are so important in recruitment interviews, and why similar specific situation-based questions are so useful elsewhere too.

One final piece of good news though about making snap decisions about people we meet: we may be able to judge how conscientious they are from the way they shake hands. Look at http://www.bps.org.uk/news/handshakes