Human communication has many modes. Some communication is perfunctory and dictated by custom. A perfect example is saying thank you if someone holds a door for you. Some communication is transactional; after all, you can’t get your order at McDonald’s if you don’t tell the cashier what food you want. Not all communication is 100% honest and it’s two of those less than 100% honest modes of communication I want to look at today: threats and lies.
Threats are more common in certain times in our lives, like childhood, than they are in other times. Threats are more common for people in certain professions, like prison guard or police officer or bartender, to be subjected or witness to than they are for people who work in other professions. They’re also more common for people who live certain lifestyles or associate with people who engage in illicit activities. Generally, if you’re drunk a lot or you spend a lot of time around criminals, you’ve probably witnessed them being made or had quite a few threats directed your way.
Lies, in contrast, are more common throughout our lives. Most of us are told as we grow up that we should not tell lies. This prohibition is often couched in moral terms; we’re told it’s wrong to lie. We’re told it’s also not smart to lie; dishonesty in one area of your life impugns your reputation in all areas of your life. Yet, adult life would not function without small lies (“Why yes, I had a lovely time!” “No, really, the meat loaf wasn’t too dry.”) and sometimes, unfortunately, it’s necessary to tell bigger lies in situations where telling the truth would cause trouble.
What threats and lies have in common is that in order to be effective they each need to be delivered in a particlar manner that makes the best use of human psychology and perception.
Non-specific threats like “I’m gonna mess you up!” are the type usually made by middle-school bullies or really drunk bar patrons. They are totally ineffective unless acted upon virtually immediately in a Nordic berserker fashion.
n order for threats to be effective they need to be direct and specific and they need to be delivered in a way that convinces the person you’re threatening that you will back them up.
An ineffective threat sounds something like this: Man, I’m gonna fuck you up!
An effective one sounds more like this: Step back from the bars or I’ll mace you in the face.
By giving the person being threatened something specific on which to focus you as the person making the threat play upon human psychology and our stunning aptitude at keying in on details and imagining the worst.
Specific lies packed with detail, on the other hand, are the kind told either by amateurs or by people lie one-on-one professionally. That one-on-one distinction is important as it draws a fine line between con artists, who create whole story lines and scenarios designed usually to swindle an individual out of a sum of money or a valuable item, and politicians, who lie to large groups of people routinely and in public. Politicians, in fact, demonstrate the most effective kinds of lies virtually every time they speak.
The best lies are those that contain just enough detail and are told with just enough sincerity to be believable.
An ineffective lie goes something like this: Employee X is having an emergency root canal. This is the lie that my boss told his boss when asked why I was being allowed telework off schedule for one day last week. This lie is too specific in that it creates too high a need for supporting behavior: is my jaw swollen when I show up the next day? am I only chewing on one side of my mouth? when am I going back for the follow-up work?
This lie sits in direct contrast with the lie I told my boss in order to get him to let me telework off schedule last week: I’m having some pain in one of my back teeth and they’re squeezing me in at the dentist. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, maybe an hour, maybe a little bit more since they’re squeezing me in. I’ll keep you posted.
The lie I told is one of those that needed telling because telling my boss that my tooth hurt and I needed to go back to my orthodontist two weeks after getting my braces removed caused me less trouble than telling him I had a job interview scheduled for the middle of the morning. My lie had just enough detail – they were squeezing me in at the dentist’s office – backed by circumstance – I did just get my braces off two weeks ago – to let my boss fill in the blanks. He wanted to believe me because the details around my lie made the lie itself plausible enough to be true.
Communication is more art than science and a lot more can be said with silence than we are normally lead to believe. But that’s a whole different essay.
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