In the historical drama Argo, Central Intelligence Agency officer Tony Mendez rescues six American agents stranded in Tehran, Iran, during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. Mendez executes his rescue without a single weapon. Rather, he deceives Iranian officials by having the agents pose as a Canadian movie crew scouting locations in Iran (Dargis, 2012). Mendez and the hostages (both in the film and in real life) pulled off their deception by carefully learning their “roles” in the fabricated story and by consciously monitoring their nonverbal communication to reveal confidence and poise.

Although most of us will never engage in such a dramatic example of deception—the attempt to convince others of something that is false (O’Hair & Cody, 1994)—we will admit to occasionally engaging in it (if we’re being honest). Sometimes we deceive to protect others, as when you tell your friend that no one noticed her torn slacks. Other times, we deceive out of fear, as when victims of abuse blame their injuries on falls or accidents. However, deception can have malicious and self-serving motives, as in the solicitor who tries to get your social security number and other personal data in order to commit identity theft.

You may be drawn in by a solicitor who sounds warm and friendly, but it is more likely that you will look for the opposite type of behavior to sniff out a liar (Canary, Cody, & Manusov, 2008). People who appear anxious, who avoid making eye contact, who blink frequently, or who have frequent and awkward body movements seem deceptive (Leal & Vrij, 2008). However, research shows that although these cues make us more suspicious, they do not actually make us more accurate at detecting deception (Van Swol, Braun, & Kolb, 2013). This is partly because people’s “honest” or “dishonest” demeanor is often inconsistent with whether they are actually telling the truth or lying (Levine et al., 2011). Liars often appear anxious only if concerned about the lie or about getting caught (Canary, Cody, & Manusov, 2008). On one hand, if the lie is unimportant, liars may instead be relaxed and controlled. On the other hand, someone accused of lying may show nonverbal or physiological signs of anxiety even if not guilty. This is one reason why so-called lie detectors (and the newer brain scans) are not reliable measures of deception (Kirchner, 2013).