A body language expert recently revealed methods and techniques he uses to determine precisely whether someone is lying to him. Chase Hughes served in the U.S. Navy for about 20 years and has since built an impressive career in analyzing human behavior. Today, he serves as the founder and CEO of Applied Behavior Research and the author of The Ellipsis Manual – a #1 best-selling book for three years on persuasion, influence, and behavioral profiling.
Hughes is also a founding member of The Behavior Panel, a successful YouTube channel with over a million subscribers specializing in body language analysis. In his recent appearance on Robert Breedlove's podcast, Hughes discussed a wide range of fascinating behavioral topics, including how to accurately read people and how to protect ourselves from various manipulations.
One of the central topics Hughes discussed is the specific questions he asks to identify whether someone is lying. The body language expert explains that he uses a technique known as the "bait question."
A bait question is a method that uses hypothetical or fictitious information to provoke a reaction or clue that might reveal if someone is deceiving or hiding something. Hughes explains the method using a concrete and detailed example:
“Let’s say you sneaked into a neighbor’s house and kicked over their trash can. It’s a big deal, and you have to explain yourself, but you know you’re going to deny it. You and I are sitting down, and I say, ‘Hey man. Look, is there any reason someone would say they saw you walking around that area or that it would show up on a camera or something?’ Because you don’t know all the cameras, but I never told you that I have it, or that someone said those things.”
According to Hughes, the responses to the bait question reveal a dramatic difference between innocent people and those who are guilty. Innocent people will deny it simply and without particular anxiety. In contrast, guilty individuals go through a much more complex psychological process.
“If you’re guilty, now your anxiety is really high because I haven’t told you what I know yet, and we’re only on the first question. And you might say, ‘Well yeah, I walked through there,’ so you either say, ‘Yeah, I was there,’ or ‘No, I wasn’t.’”
Hughes explains that the moment the person being questioned says “no,” they enter a state of very high anxiety: “They don’t know if I’m about to show them a video or bring in witnesses who said they were there. Your brain is in a state of high anxiety. But it’s only in that state if you’re guilty. So, an innocent person would say, ‘No, absolutely not,’ and there’s no rise in anxiety at all.”
It’s important to note that not all body language experts agree with the use of bait questions. Some studies suggest that the use of bait questions can lead to undesirable outcomes, such as memory distortion in certain individuals. The method may cause people to believe that evidence exists against them when it actually doesn’t, and therefore, the use of bait questions is not endorsed by all experts.
Those who do implement the bait question tactic, according to Hughes, move on to the next stage known as the “punishment question.” This type of question is used to assess whether a person is genuine about whether they did something and, at the same time, to measure their true feelings about the behavior or crime in question. Hughes details the method and breaks it down to its core: “The punishment question is basically — and I’m really breaking it down — it’s like, ‘We’re working really hard to find out who’s behind this. I’m curious, what do you think should happen to the person who did this?’”
Hughes emphasizes that this method is particularly effective in cases of sexual crimes: “And it works so strongly, especially on sex crimes and people who have committed sex crimes — what do you think should happen to the person who did this? You’re going to hear answers that soften dramatically [from guilty people].”
According to Hughes, a person guilty of the crime might give an answer like: “Someone who does something like that is sick, so they need psychological counseling, they don’t need to go to jail, they need to be rehabilitated because they’re broken, they need therapy.” Hughes concludes with certainty: “No one [innocent] is going to say that.”
The methods Hughes presents are based on years of experience in investigations and a deep understanding of human psychology, but it’s important to remember that these are professional tools that require proper training and careful judgment when used.