Quick Summary:
Compulsive lying is a habitual behaviour in which a person frequently tells lies, often without any clear reason or motive for personal gain. Their falsehoods can range from small, everyday details to more elaborate stories, typically containing some truth but often exaggerated or inconsistent.
Unlike pathological liars, who may lie to manipulate others or gain an advantage, compulsive liars do so out of habit or internal impulse. They may lie to cope with feelings of insecurity, shame, or low self-esteem.
Compulsive liars often have difficulty keeping their stories consistent and may display signs of discomfort, such as avoiding eye contact or becoming defencive when questioned. Their lies are frequent, even about trivial matters.
To counter such liars:
- Ask the same question repeatedly. It can expose inconsistencies in their stories, as compulsive liars may struggle to remember the details
- Pay attention to the small facts they provide. If these details start to change, it can reveal discrepancies in their story.
- Look for recurring patterns in their lies. If you notice a tendency to lie about certain topics or behaviours, you can address it more effectively.
- One of the best methods you can use is a polygraph test, which helps verify the truthfulness of their statements by measuring physiological responses.
Introduction
Compulsive liars sometimes lie without a gain and show no sign of distress, as they’re very comfortable with lying. Therefore, it become even more difficult for others to spot them.
According to experts, spotting a compulsive liar is much harder, as they don’t usually show typical signs of stress and tension when lying. Their lies are more rehearsed and habitual.
It can be hard, but not impossible, and in this article, you’ll get to know the strategies to follow to detect a compulsive liar.
What is a Compulsive Liar?
Although a compulsive liar and a pathological liar seem to be the same, they are not. Being a compulsive liar is more like a habit and not a personality disorder. A compulsive liar is in control of their lying, whereas a pathological liar isn’t.
To be clearer, compulsive liars feel more at ease when they’re lying than when they’re being honest. Usually, compulsive liars develop the habit of lying in their childhood, especially if the people around them, family or friends, had this habit as well.
For compulsive liars, lying is the only correct response when being confronted. They use lying as a coping mechanism for anxiety, but they’re not manipulative. Some even lie, thinking that this is what the other person wants to hear.
What Are the Signs of a Compulsive Liar?
Compulsive liars have some common behavioural signs that they don’t even try to hide:
Lies Frequently and Easily
According to Johns Hopkins’ research in 2023, 93% of the compulsive liars experience physical discomfort or uneasiness while telling a truth. This means, compulsive liars are severely comfortable with lying. Therefore, they do it frequently and easily.
Lies Without Clear Motive
Compulsive liars are not strategic liars who lie to gain something. Dr. Tim Levine, in his book “Duped,” says that frequent liars can be in a good position in reality, yet they tend to lie chronically for no reason at all.
Stories Are Often Dramatic
As professional liars, compulsive liars are more expert at making up detailed and dramatic stories to appear more interesting.
In 1891, a German Physician, Anton Delbrueck, first acknowledged this symptom and said that some of his patients told such unrealistic stories that he could not identify if they had any existing disorders.
Inconsistencies Over Time
Unlike strategic liars, compulsive liars don’t plan their lies beforehand and tend to forget to be consistent with their previous lies.
Dr. Charles Ford has verified this symptom in his book “Lies! Lies! Lies!” saying that compulsive liars easily forget what lies they have said before, as they don’t construct their lies carefully.
Becomes Defencive When Questioned
Compulsive liars become irritated or defencive when they feel like the reality they have depicted is challenged. This happens because compulsive liars lie to enhance their self-image, and when people confront them, they feel embarrassed.
Appears Convincing and Charismatic
Compulsive liars are more confident when lying than when telling the truth, so they do not show any sign of anxiety or stress when lying. They even internally believe their lies to be true. As a result, they seem to be more convincing and charismatic.
Mixes Truth and Fabrication
Compulsive liars use a technique called “anchoring the lie,” which is adding some verifiable truths in between lies to portray that they’re telling the truth. The expert has explained that the best liars tend to mix truth with fabrication because lies including truths are harder to detect.
Lack of Remorse or Guilt
Compulsive liars believe that their lies are harmless and try to rationalise their made-up stories to avoid feeling guilty. With time, they don’t even consider lying a morally wrong deed, showing very little to no remorse.
How to Test a Compulsive Liar to Identify the Truth
Compulsive liars may be regular liars, but they lack the expertise to hide their lies. Catching this kind of liar needs psychologically proven measures.
Ask the Same Question in Different Ways
Lying is an impulsive response for compulsive liars. Therefore, they usually don’t construct the lies thoroughly. As a result, they may change a few details of the same lies they’ve told before if you repeat a question.
Confirm Verifiable Details Privately
Quietly keep a journal of what the liar is saying. Note down every detail that can be verified, such as dates, times, places, and people.
Verify these details through reliable sources, or just ask the liar the same thing after a while and observe if they’ve changed anything.
Notice Emotional/Behavioural Responses
Liars can’t fake the intensity of emotion when telling a lie that they’ve instantly made up. They’ll probably tell a tragic event but show no emotional or behavioural changes.
Use “Triangulation”
Compulsive liars often try to rationalise lies by bringing someone else into the situation, which is a tactic called triangulation. Whenever such a tactic is used by the liar, do not move forward without directly communicating with the other person.
Use “Reverse Memory”
As compulsive liars come up with a lie spontaneously, it’ll be hard for them to remember the exact sequence of the story they’ve told.
So ask them to tell the same event in reverse order to see if they get nervous, take big pauses, or miss details in between while trying to remember the sequence of their story.
Cognitive Load Techniques
It is a psychological fact that lying takes more cognitive labour than telling the truth. If, on top of existing tension, you put more cognitive load, the liar will involuntarily show evident behavioural changes.
Because of the increased pressure, they’ll forget to keep up with the past lies, thus exposing themselves.
Consider the Polygraph Test to Detect Compulsive Lies
No matter how strategic an approach you take to spot a compulsive liar, most of the time, they manage to get away with their lies. A long-time habit of lying helps them to deceive the human eye.
An effective measure of detecting a compulsive liar can be the polygraph test, as it analyses the physical reactions to detect if the person is lying or not. Subtle physical discomforts the liar faces might get overlooked by human eyes, but the polygraph test catches every single change.
There are some physical changes that liars can’t hide, no matter how hard they try, such as their heart rate, nervous system, blood pressure, skin conductivity, and perspiration. Polygraph monitors exactly these factors through electrodes to detect the liar.
The polygraph test is proven to give the ultimate accurate results, so it can make the compulsive liar test easier by eliminating the obvious lies.
