Truth and Lies

We've all been in situations where our "gut feeling" tells us that someone is lying or, conversely, where we can "just tell" that they an honest person.  But what if those gut feelings are wrong?  Can we rely on intuition?

Apparently not.  Without training, someone's chances of differentiating truth from lies are little better than random guesses, regardless of her professional background.  This is interesting general knowledge and it's probably good to keep it in mind in everyday interactions, especially with people we don't know.  But surely it's especially relevant in the context of the legal profession.  Our justice system sometimes relies on a jury's assessment of whether the accused or the accuser is more believable.  A professional negotiator or mediator may be influenced by their perception of who is more 'at fault' in a given disagreement.  Making a strong argument in court is really all about trying to sound more logical, correct, or 'right' - concepts strongly linked to truth.

The education process as I've experienced it is often just as much (if not more) about learning what I don't know than actually acquiring new knowledge and skills.  "Facts" are inevitably based in perspective, and "truth" is always laden with pre-conceptions and cognitive filters that help us to simplify the world into something we can understand and manage.  Relying on instinct is a mental shortcut we all take much more often than we even realize, and it's often a very useful one.  But making snap decisions about who's telling the truth isn't always a good idea.

In my first month in law school, I'm quickly finding that the pattern continues.  I have managed to find another field of knowledge and practice in which I'll always be presented with new questions and interesting dilemmas.  Happily, there's always someone out there who knows way more than I do, so I can still feel like I'm making progress in tackling the ever-growing list of things I never knew I never knew.

This leads into the shameless advertising part of my post:  The first event in the CoRe Speaker Series will occur on October 27.  Dr. Hugues Hervé, a registered psychologist, partner and director with the Forensic Alliance, will give an introduction on evaluating truthfulness, including an overview of the popular myths and barriers to the accurate assessment of truthfulness, current research in the field, the relation between interviewing and credibility assessment, and an introduction to an empirically-based practical approach to evaluating truthfulness.  The talk will conclude with a discussion of how to apply this approach to the mediation context.

Interested in learning more on this fascinating topic?  Details are here!