Scientific American: Until very recently, even Rupert Murdoch ‘s sharpest critics might have admitted to envying the 80-year-old arch-conservative News Corporation CEO, who built a far-reaching media empire almost from scratch and made himself outstandingly rich even among billionaires. Now, though, amidst a phone hacking and corruption scandal that threatens More
The Huffington Post: Think you’re adept at calling someone’s bluff? Convinced you can spot a liar from halfway across the room? You’re probably wrong, says a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. According to the research, led by psychologist Aldert Vrij of the University More
One of my guilty pleasures is the long-running TV show NCIS, a drama focused on the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The hero is a former Marine, now Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, a disciplined detective with an uncanny ability to observe and interrogate criminal suspects. He doesn’t say much or display More
MSNBC: We all know that smiling faces sometimes tell lies, even without the Motown song there to remind us. But now there’s proof that those fake smiles may not be worth as much as the genuine article. In a study conducted at Bangor University in Wales, researchers had 36 undergrads More
Legal systems are necessary in any functioning society. Centuries ago, people realized that the only way to maintain a peaceful community was to develop a firm set of rules—laws—to punish transgressors. As laws have continued to evolve in societies around the world, psychological scientists have begun to investigate the psychological More
Researchers discuss some of the common misconceptions about people proficient in the art of deception, and reviews the shortcomings of commonly used lie-detection techniques. More
