Now that I am no longer so distracted by football, given that England chucked themselves out, I was able to turn my attention back to the political scene. And all I can say is that it all made me think Wimbledon rather than the Euro Cup.
Sussing the honest lad is a tad more difficult outside fairytales- Kristina Chetcuti
Day in day out, we’ve had a good number of politicians, civil servants, journalists and bloggers playing tennis and shoving the ball in each other’s court. It’s bizarre. While the rest of the world is tearing its hair away, trying to salvage the economy, we are sitting in luxury at the hairdresser’s while squabbling on what happened in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Trying to keep up with who said what is making me dizzy. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, there’s a lot of ‘mis-speaking’ being bandied about, several counter claims and boisterous bickering. Surely someone, somewhere is telling a tall tale. “Or maybe it’s all of them,” said a friend the other day when we tried to pin the culprit.
It was very easy for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. A quick glance at the puppet’s nose said it all. Alas, sussing the honest lad is a tad more difficult outside fairytales. But luckily, a team from the University of British Columbia, in Canada, recently came out with just the tips that we need.
The study shows that people not telling the truth are betrayed by tiny facial movements, chiefly: raising their eyebrows in surprised expressions and smiling slightly.
Published last month in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, the study said that we have a certain lack of control over our facial expressions and that the subconscious controls quite a bit of the muscles movement – and this has helped the scientist to tell the difference between genuine feelings and fake emotion.
These muscles apparently show signs of true emotion because it’s the person’s subconscious which makes them twitch. We’re told that someone who is not telling the truth would raise his or her forehead muscles mimicking a surprised expression. Also they tend to have an “increased activity” in the muscles located around the mouth, “which causes them to inadvertently lift their lips into a smile”. Aha.
On the other hand, when someone is genuinely distressed, they use the muscle which is located between the eyebrows, which causes them to frown and furrow their brow. And voila: the honest face.
And there’s another thing that might give us a clue. This study says that members of the upper classes are more likely to lie, cheat and even break the law than people from less privileged backgrounds. And in sharp contrast, members of the ‘lower’ classes appear more likely to display the traditional attributes of a gentleman.
What I suggest therefore is to forgo paying attention to what our political celebrities are saying and just squint at the screen every time their face pops up on television or online, and check out the frowns and the grins.
To this we can add the classics that we’ve all known all along: when people are not honest, their hands are more likely to touch the face or mouth and they are more likely to touch behind the ears and scratch the nose.
Perhaps it would help putting things in context to know that the average male tells 1,092 lies every year. That’s, give or take, three fibs a day. By contrast, the average woman will come out with 728 untruths per year – two lies per day, according to a study by the British Science Museum. And by the way, the study notes that a man is less likely to suffer pangs of guilt for lying than the typical woman.
What do men lie about? Building-a-disco-on-a-green-area does not top the list (as yet). Men said their lies were most likely to relate to their drinking habits (so that’s the last time I’ll fall for a guy’s line on the likes of “No, really, I’m not drunk”). While the most popular female falsehood is: ‘‘Nothing’s wrong,I’m fine’’.
But you see, the main problem with fibs is the age. And I’ll be throwing in another study at you. Researchers at Toronto University claim that it’s OK to lie at the age of two because it is a sign of a fast developing brain and means they are more likely to have successful lives.
They found that the more plausible the lie, the more quick-witted they will be in later years and the better their ability to think on their feet. In other words: lying children will grow up to be successful citizens.
So herein lies our problem. Our politicians, civil servants, journalists, bloggers etc, must have been too goody-goody two-shoes when they were children, and they’re making up for it now.
krischetcuti@gmail.com