Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific AmericanIt is Science quickly, My name is Kendra Pierre-Louis, I’m replacing Rachel Feltman.
The global reality TV franchise The traitors The principle is simple: among a group of, say, 23 people, about 20 are “loyal” and about three are “traitors.” The traitors’ job is to lie to avoid detection. The work of the faithful is to identify them.
All this led SciAmBreaking news reporter Jackie Flynn Mogensen asks, “What does science have to tell us about how to spot liars? And what can it teach us about how to be more effective liars?”
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She recently wrote about all of this and is here to talk about it. But before we begin, if you are interested in the current American season of The traitors and I haven’t seen it, be aware that there will be spoilers.
Hi, Jackie. Thank you for joining us today.
Jackie Flynn Mogensen: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Pierre-Louis: So for those who haven’t seen the series, can you tell us a little about what Traitors East?
Mogensen: Yes, so Traitors is essentially a reality TV game that’s a lot like the board game Mafia, if you’ve ever played it, where there’s a group of traitors within the group and everyone else is loyalists. The goal of the loyalists is to eliminate the traitors, and the goal of the traitors is to pretend to be loyal for the duration of the game.
And the casting is generally, for the US version, a casting of celebrities…
Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm.
Mogensen: Reality TV Stars, Olympic Athletes, Actors, and More And at stake is a prize pool worth $250,000.
Pierre-Louis: I know the season just ended. Can you tell us a little about how this season went?
Mogensen: This is one of the best seasons I’ve seen so far, and I watched the Australian version as well. [Laughs.] And I think overall it was really a masterclass in lying from Rob Rausch from The island of love, who ended up winning the show. He does a fantastic job fitting in as a loyal and ultimately [does] a very good job of lying to his castmates. And he basically goes unnoticed the entire season and ends up betraying some of his closest allies, which was very sad to watch, but also made for really good television.
Pierre-Louis: What made you decide that this was worthy of scientific exploration?
Mogensen: Well, first of all, I’m a superfan of the show. I started watching a few seasons ago. And the people I know in the office are fans too, and in combination with all of you Passionate rivalry episode from earlier this year – that really inspired me. I felt like this might also be a good opportunity to dive into the science of one of my favorite shows.
Pierre-Louis: One of the great things about the series and one that we really get invested in [in] your reporting is essentially the science of lying. And I feel like humans are obsessed with knowing how to tell if someone is lying. But one of the things your article points out is that, generally speaking, we’re pretty bad at this. I think there was a meta-analysis that looked at a number of studies and found that on average people are 50-50 at detecting liars. Why are we so bad at this?
Mogensen: This is a question I asked some of my sources in my reporting. I think there are several reasons. I think one of the main ones is that we let our biases get in the way, and that’s one of their main strategies – if you were to be on the show The traitors or if you want to be better at detecting lies, something you can do is simply reject the biases you have about others and about the lie itself.
So, for example, one of the main misunderstandings I’ve heard from both sources is that liars, if they lie, won’t look you in the eye…
Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm.
Mogensen: But that’s actually not true at all. Liars, if they’re good, know that this is what people expect, and they will willingly look you in the eye, while, you know, in this conversation right now, I’m thinking about what I might say next; I look to the side. This is not an indication of lying. [Laughs.] At least, I hope you don’t think so. But in general, people look to the side when they’re thinking about what to say next, and that’s not necessarily lying. So this is an example of a bias you might have about lying before watching a show like The traitors.
Pierre-Louis: One of the things I found interesting is that we detect lies better if we don’t pay attention to physical cues, if we just focus on the voice. This was quite shocking to me.
Mogensen: Yeah, that was interesting. I think this comes from one of my sources, Sharon Leal, who is a senior research fellow at the University of Portsmouth in England. She’s studying lie detection, and I asked her – and she’s a fan of the show too. I asked him, “What would you do if you were sure The traitors?” And she said [essentially]”I would completely reject any physical lie detection mechanisms; I would just listen to what people say and try to listen – for inconsistencies,” because she knows how often our biases or our perceptions of other people’s body movements – how often that gets in the way of detecting lies.
So that was his advice as an expert, and I think I would listen to it too if I was sure The traitors [Laughs] because there are many other things that can hinder accurate lie detection. And it’s not an infallible science. As far as we know, you can never know for sure whether someone is lying or not. But they also shared other advice.
Pierre-Louis: What are the others?
Mogensen: Coming back to body language, they found in research that people who lie tend to do certain things. I mean, again, it’s not foolproof, but people tend to stop moving as much as they lie. They don’t use their hands as much when speaking, or they are slower. And maybe that’s because lying requires cognitive effort; lying requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth. It’s a bit like if you were walking down the street and received a text message, you would often stop to respond to the text message. It’s your brain saying, “I just want to focus on this one thing at a time.” » And so that’s one thing that liars might do.
Another thing is that if you notice someone’s smile, if it ends very abruptly, that could be a sign that it’s not a real smile. You know, real smiles tend to fade more slowly.
And then the other thing is that being aware of what is right, given the cognitive effort it takes to lie, is what we call “cognitive maintenance.” One strategy in cognitive interviewing, for example, is to ask a person to recall what happened to them in reverse. And they actually did a study on this in 2008 and found that police officers were more effective at detecting lies about an incident when fictitious suspects told their memories of that event backwards. And I think that’s just because it’s easier to access memories when they’re true, and when you’re trying to stick to a simple story, it’s quite difficult to remember backwards, essentially.
Pierre-Louis: So I never played Mafia or Traitor, but I played Two Truths and a Lie, and I’m good at it. And one of the reasons I think I’m good at this is because I tend to pick truths that are a little bit far-fetched and don’t seem real. So one of my favorite truths is that I’ve seen a polar bear in the wild, and people just don’t think that a girl from New York will have seen a polar bear in the wild. And then for my lie, I usually pick something that’s true and distort it slightly.
Mogensen: Mmm.
Pierre-Louis: So it’s not a big change; it’s a small change, and that small change makes it a lie.
And that raises a question: Up until now, we’ve really focused on how to tell if someone is lying, but on Traitors some people must really be good liars. So how can you become better liars?
Mogensen: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think a lot of the research focuses on lie detection, because it’s often a tool used in the criminal justice system, for example, and that’s why researchers are interested in it.
I think from my reading of the literature on this article, I think there is some research on how to be a good liar, but a lot of it leverages what you may already know: what biases does someone have that they may already have? How can you play in that? As you just explained in your Two Truths and a Lie example: “How close can I get to the truth?” You know? “Can I just twist it a little?” Because it will make it easier to lie.
The other thing my sources mentioned was to appear open, friendly and approachable. You know, you want people to like you – and that’s one thing that comes up on the show. The traitors …
Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm.
Mogensen: In fact, several times. People say, “I can’t tell the difference between whether I trust someone or whether I like them.” » And this plays perfectly into the hands of traitors because it is sometimes difficult to say. So being friendly, approachable, sharing things about yourself, all of this will make people trust you more.
The other thing is to remind yourself that it’s a game, and it’s something that the person who actually wins Traitors, Rob Rausch, during the match, thinks: “It’s just a game. I feel really bad about all these lies.” But I honestly think it’s a good strategy to keep the emotions at bay because, well, one of my sources told me, is that once you feel emotion about lying, that’s when some clues can start to seep in and people pick up on the fact that you’re lying.
And the other thing to keep in mind is that lying can have harmful consequences. I mean, it’s not an easy thing to do for most of us. us. I’ll speak for myself – I’m a terrible liar and I think the stress would overwhelm me if I was on a show like The traitors. [Something that] Rob also mentions that towards the end of the show he says, “It’s starting to take its toll on me. I feel bad about the whole thing.” And that’s normal.
And so I think keeping those things in mind will overall help make you a better liar.
Pierre-Louis: So was Rob a big traitor?
Mogensen: I think he’s one of the best traitors on the show, and the host, Alan Cumming, also said so during a press tour to promote The traitors. I think it’s because he doesn’t deviate much from his character, sort of, a little calmer, a little gentler kind of guy.
And I think one thing that comes up a lot in the show itself is that people are distracted by his appearance. Several cast members said they were distracted by her beauty…
Pierre-Louis: [Laughs.]
Mogensen: What is a thing in research [that] is played out in terms of lie detection or reliability. In fact, some research suggests that the better-looking a defendant is in a criminal case, the lighter the sentence. you might have it, which just seems weird to me. I mean, that sounds really worrying in itself, but it’s something that you could, in a sense, take advantage of in a game like The traitors.
Pierre-Louis: The lovely privilege is real.
Mogensen: Yeah.
Pierre-Louis: So basically what I’m hearing is this: if you want to be an effective liar, look pretty, don’t stray too far from your expected personality, and try to keep your emotions at bay as much as possible. It’s almost like, in the show, if you can treat it like you’re playing a role and playing a role, it becomes easier because the actors don’t lie; they play a character.
Mogensen: I definitely think that’s true, although the downside is that on the show, if you’re a well-known actor, it can make people wary of you at first. [Laughs] …
Pierre-Louis: [Laughs.]
Mogensen: But in theory, it would be a good strategy and it would be nice. I mean, on the show, Michael Rapaport, an actor…
Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm.
Mogensen: Was rejected early on, and the cast members were open about why, which was that they just didn’t like him, which seems a little harsh, but, you know, they basically said, “You’re either a really bad traitor or just a loyalist who gets in the way.” And so they took him out pretty early. So something to keep in mind.
Pierre-Louis: Okay, so be friendly. I will do my best. [Laughs.] No, it’s…
Mogensen: I think you’re crushing it. [Laughs.]
Pierre-Louis: [Laughs.]
Mogensen: You would be great.
Pierre-Louis: It’s been lovely. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.
Mogensen: Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it and I really had a lot of fun writing this story, and so I hope people check it out, and they check it out. The traitors and come back and read the story and see if they think it happened this season.
Pierre-Louis: Where can they find the story?
Mogensen: It’s lit ScientificAmerican.comand you can search for me: my name is Jackie Flynn Mogensen. You can find it on my author’s pageAlso.
Pierre-Louis: Perfect. Thank you so much.
Mogensen: Thank you very much for having me.
Pierre-Louis: This is our show. Join us Friday, when we take an in-depth look at the impact so far of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the ideology that guides his decision-making.
Science quickly is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck check in on our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more recent and in-depth scientific news.
For Scientific American, This is Kendra Pierre-Louis. See you next time!
