Detective Carlton Hershman (Ret.) presented on the common signs of dishonesty
In North by Northwest, Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill tells his secretary: “There’s no such thing as a lie, only expedient exaggeration.” During his 32 years of service for the San Diego Police Department, the last 20 as a detective, Carlton Hershman has heard a lot of expedient exaggeration and from that learned a few things about lying, which he shared with the club at the August 17, 2017 meeting. He began with two ground rules: i) lying is a cooperative act; and ii) people lie for a reason, such as to avoid punishment, avoid embarrassment, or maintain self-esteem. He also distinguished lying from embellishing. People embellish to make a story more interesting, whereas lies are used deliberately to deceive.
Det. Hershman pointed out that lies take time to formulate, so liars often stall to decide whether and how to lie. When stalling, people will often repeat the question just asked, laugh nervously, yawn inappropriately, or change the subject. In addition to verbal communication, many lies are given away by body language and, especially, facial expressions. But in order to gauge normal body language, Det. Hershman said that “Baselining”, or making an initial set of observations of body language when a person is discussing a topic about which s/he would not lie that can used to compare with later behavior, is critical. He also referenced body language “hot spots”, such as pursing the lips, touching the forehead and avoiding eye contact and/or excessive blinking. Last, he said that feelings of contempt are not as easily disguised as feelings of delight (he used as an example of feigned delight at Valentine’s Day gift exchanges). Feelings of contempt are typically visible, particularly in the form of asymmetrical mouth movements or eye rolls. Det. Hershman ended his talk with a very short video of Alex Rodriguez (apologies to Yankees fans) that summarized many of these behaviors.
Det. Hershman has lived in the San Diego area since 1979, when the Navy brought him to the area. He joined the San Diego Police Department in 1985 and became a Detective in 1997. As Detective, his assignments included the Homicide Unit, Sex Crimes Unit, Unit, Elder Abuse, and the Cyber Unit of the Technology Crime High Tech (C.A.T.C.H.) Team. Det. Hershman frequently offers investigation and interrogation technique workshops to law enforcement agencies around the country, and also provides training at the San Diego Regional Law Enforcement Academy and to Sexual Assault Victim Advocates in the San Diego area.