garyboland's review
3.0
short and interesting book on deception signals. could do with more background on the psychology side (why we lie)
honeyreads1066's review
3.0
Rating: 2.7
When I saw three former CIA officer's, I wasn't sure what to think. The CIA isn't exactly an institution that I was keen about but this was not as bad as it could be.
I came into this, thinking it was a book about spying the lies and deception of someone words and behaviour which essentially it was however aside from dismissing a few myths about the behaviour I feel like I haven't learnt much.
While I understand that there has to be a certain level of 'confidentiality' the anecdotes were quite frankly boring. One of the first detailed how one of the agents had thought a man was lying when he got up to pray but then 'realised' that the man was physically getting up because he is Muslim and he's praying towards Mecca and not signalling something to the opposition.
Other sections would have been brilliant for any helicopter parent who would like to know every detail of their children's lives which anecdotes as to how the agents have done so with the lives of their children.
The bit I probably hated the most was that there was an entire interview with Anthony Weiner, where they first laid out the entire interview to read and then laid it out again but now showing all the deceptive indicators. It was just a long section of nothing they could have summarised within a page or two.
On the plus side, the book did give some interesting techniques and ways of questioning so I did learn something throughout the entire book.
I would not recommend this book beacause I feel you can get all this information through an article somewhere else. The length of this book felt like a waste of time.
When I saw three former CIA officer's, I wasn't sure what to think. The CIA isn't exactly an institution that I was keen about but this was not as bad as it could be.
I came into this, thinking it was a book about spying the lies and deception of someone words and behaviour which essentially it was however aside from dismissing a few myths about the behaviour I feel like I haven't learnt much.
While I understand that there has to be a certain level of 'confidentiality' the anecdotes were quite frankly boring. One of the first detailed how one of the agents had thought a man was lying when he got up to pray but then 'realised' that the man was physically getting up because he is Muslim and he's praying towards Mecca and not signalling something to the opposition.
Other sections would have been brilliant for any helicopter parent who would like to know every detail of their children's lives which anecdotes as to how the agents have done so with the lives of their children.
The bit I probably hated the most was that there was an entire interview with Anthony Weiner, where they first laid out the entire interview to read and then laid it out again but now showing all the deceptive indicators. It was just a long section of nothing they could have summarised within a page or two.
On the plus side, the book did give some interesting techniques and ways of questioning so I did learn something throughout the entire book.
I would not recommend this book beacause I feel you can get all this information through an article somewhere else. The length of this book felt like a waste of time.
neuravinci's review
3.0
A good intro into recognizing when someone is deceptive, though I felt they were selling their course, though I have no idea how to access their course.
Regardless, I loved the appendices and the examples they gave throughout the book, including the do-it-yourself ones where they give you a chance to test your skills and then explain their reasoning.
I can imagine their course is even better.
However, I don't think any of the skills they were teaching were CIA trade secrets (unsurprisingly). Or rather, I'm sure the CIA has used this information to train its interrogators, but the skills aren't anything too in depth, which I was disappointed by.
Still, I felt like I learned a bit more on spotting deception, though I am no expert.
Here are some of the deception points in the book:
* To hide their lies people try to show their good side and feeds and their truthfulness. So they will say things like, "I have a trunk full of Bibles that I give out to whoever wants a copy," to make you think of them as being more religious, and therefore, more moral.
* If you ask someone a question and they don't give you what you ask for, it could be because they're trying to hide something.
* Not directly denying of something in your question, e.g. "I wouldn't do something like that!"
* Repeating the question to buy time, because we think past enough that as we repeat, we can also think of ways to deceive.
* Nonanswer statements like, "That's a good question," which also serves to buy time to figure out how to respond.
* Being overly polite to put you off guard and like them, because those we like, we tend to want to trust more.
* Being overly concerned, for the same reasons as being overly polite.
* Using qualifiers like "probably" or "likely", which all serve to make a person sound credible.
Now the authors did stress that you need a clustering of deception behaviors to deem someone as lying. Because of differences in personality, speech, etc. we may use "deceptive language" but not be deceptive. So clustering is important. The book lists out a ton more examples and methods, which I suggest going through.
auntiejenn's review
4.0
Short enough to communicate the information without being boring. Used real examples, which helped me understand the concepts. Great for even just understanding your kids.
jodilynclayton's review
2.0
I didn't love this book and found it fairly dull and confusing at times. I also didn't like reading about the criminals in their examples. It's sad and disturbing to learn about awful things people have done. However, though I don't know if I will be able to detect deception more accurately, I did learn some things I will add to my mom toolbox.
hazelbright's review
4.0
Interesting approach - looking at behavioral clusters to discern deceit. I got pretty good at identifying such behaviors in the examples they gave, but when I tried to do it on my own as the authors suggested, the techniques were less easily applied. Failure or refusal to answer, non-denial, repeating the question, becoming smarmy or abusive, and some other patterns displayed by deceitful persons were described. The interesting part is that the presence of a single one of these behaviors is not sufficient to imply deceit, but a cluster is.
More...