Let the truth be told

UBC Professor Steven Porter will be conducting a workshop on how to tell if someone is lying on Sept. 17. This is the first time Porter has offered the workshop to the general public.

Workshop will identify when people are lying

Truth-challenged people had best not try to put one past Stephen Porter.

The psychology professor at UBC’s Okanagan campus has been studying how people show signs of lying in their body language, voice and facial expressions for more than 15 years and he will be leading a workshop to show others how to spot a fibber.

Porter will be conducting the Truth About Lies: Using Psychology to Detect Lies in the Workplace and Everyday Life workshop Sept. 17 where he will show people what to look for to determine if someone is not being honest.

“Deception is a common element of human social interaction and occurs all too frequently. Yet, without training, most people – professionals and laypersons alike – ‘flip a coin’ when attempting to catch liars,” says Porter.

“However, psychological science has revealed behavioural cues that are reliably associated with deception and can be observed by the trained eye. Research has demonstrated that empirically-based training can lead to a substantial improvement in deception detection ability.”

Porter has provided this type of training to more than 30 professional groups, including psychologists, psychiatrists, lawyers, judges, immigration boards, private investigators and journalists. For the first time, he is offering this training to the public.

The workshop will offer comprehensive, evidence-based training in detecting deception through lecture, practice, feedback, and analyses of real-world videotaped examples of highly motivated deceivers. The first part of the workshop focuses on “myth-busting,” how to avoid common pitfalls and the need for critical thinking. A theoretical model and a false murder conviction case, the Stephen Truscott trial, will be used to demonstrate how such pitfalls occur.

The second part of the workshop addresses the assessment of deception by close attention to: body language, facial expressions and statements in police investigations in which the presenter has been consulted. Further, active interviewing strategies aimed at enhancing deception-detection ability will be described. This training will serve as a practical guide to enhance participants’ ability to detect lies in the workplace and everyday life.

The workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Registration is $175 per person, $125 per student.

Direct all workshop inquiries to www.stephenporter.ca, including how to register with cheque payment.

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