HealthyGamerGG - How Cops Use Psychology To Make You Talk

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K analyzes real-world police interrogation footage to break down the psychological tactics used to extract confessions, separating genuine emotional connection from extreme psychological pressure. He explains how prolonged interrogation and severe mental fatigue break down healthy defense mechanisms, causing people to comply with authority figures, doubt their own memories, or make false admissions under extreme distress. Moving past common interrogation myths, Dr. K breaks down real tactics like wearing people down, offering ego-syntonic "good choice" framing, and using quiet rapport and open-ended questions to elicit honest disclosures. Finally, he outlines key psychiatric indicators of deception—such as incongruent affect, projection, and superfluous explanations while offering practical advice on how to spot and resist manipulation in daily life. Mental health resources designed by Dr. K and made with love: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQTalk to a HG Coach 1-on-1: https://bit.ly/46bIkdoDr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VDr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Alo Kanoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. Hey, all, today we're going to be analyzing the communication in police interrogation techniques. I'm Dr. Aolo Kanoja, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, and I'll be breaking down

which communication techniques work, which ones don't, and how they work. So let's dive in. Well, this video is incredibly disturbing to watch. The man being interrogated is Thomas Perez, Jr. He reported his father missing. Fontana police accused Thomas of killing his dad. It was August of 2018. Fontana police were convinced Perez's father had been murdered. They thought Perez appeared suspicious. It's really concerning to me that he hasn't been back yet. They asked Perez to come to the station, and that's where they're turned a missing person case into a 17-hour interrogation. Murdered your dad?

No, I did. Yeah, so what's kind of scary about this, there's a couple of, like, psychological principles here. So what's scary about this from a legal perspective is they can, you know, ask him, it's a 17-hour interrogation. They can ask him, did you murder your dad, like, 500 times? And he can say no, 500 times. And then the 500 and first time, they ask him, he says yes.

And, like, that's what gets cited at trial. That's scary thing number one. Second thing is I think people oftentimes underestimate, grossly underestimate what psychological pressure does to you. So with like a 17 hour interrogation, your brain is going to be so fatigued, right? You're going to be so emotionally raw. Like all of your psychological defense mechanisms that are healthy won't be working. And psychological defense mechanism doesn't mean like you're like a master manipulator. This just means that at that point, you know, you're going to feel so raw.

you're going to feel so terrible. Like you're kind of trying to make people happy. You're trying to just end these sorts of things. And then you can say all kinds of stuff. One thing that I think is a really good example of this is they did a lot of interesting psychological studies, I think, after World War II on some of the behavior of like Nazis. So after World War II during some of these criminal trials on the Nazis, people started designing psychological experiments to see how hard you could push people.

before they start complying. And there's a really awesome experiment where they set this experiment up where basically you had a subject. And the subject is in one room with a button. And they have a microphone and they can speak to somebody else that's on the other side of the wall. And there's a guy with a clipboard who's like wearing a lab coat and a clipboard. And he says, okay, you've got a button.

And every time you hit the button, it's going to administer a shock to the person on the other side of the wall. And so basically, like, they set the shock set. the shock setting to one and the guy with the lab coat instructs the person that are like hit the button. The guy hits the button. And then someone on the other side is like, ow. And then the guy with the lab coat turns it up to two. And they're like hit the button. And the guy like hits the button again. So it's like, ow. And so they slowly start turning up the size of the electrical shock. It's not a real shock. There's really no one there. They're acting. But what's really scary is at some point,

the person on the other side of the wall starts pleading with the subject who's hitting the button. They tell them, I have a heart condition. My heart doesn't feel good. I think this electrical shock is like causing me like heart problems. Like, and they're begging them to stop. And the really scary thing is the person with the lab coat like turns it up to eight and he's like hit the button. Don't worry about what he's saying. Just hit the button.

Your job is to hit the button. And what's scary about this experiment is how compliant people are to like figures of authority. And very few people, if I remember correctly, very few people actually like got up or refused. most people did what they were instructed to do because the dude at the lab code is like, this is part of the experiment. We need to get all the way to 10. Don't worry about it.

Just do what you're told. People who are under a lot of authoritative pressure will do all kinds of things to make the person in power happy. They just told you we found her dead dad and you don't give a... They even brought him Perez's best friend to try and get a confession.

Dude, they got your murder, dad. They got you on murder. Impossible. When that didn't work, detectives brought in Perez's dog. You killed him. And he's dead. And your dog is sitting here looking at you, knowing that you killed your dad. Did you stab him?

I didn't think that I did. Right. So at this point, like, your brain is not functioning correctly. I'm just curious, you know, if people told you something was true and tons of people came, people that you trusted, and you just heard over and over and over and over and over again, right? They're basically gaslighting here. That's what this is. At what point do you crack?

At what point do you start doubting what you think? And as you get physically fatigued, as you get mentally exhausted, do you start to question your own thoughts? Where would you have to? Minding in the belly. They learned that Tom's father was alive and well and was at LAX Airport, ready to take a flight to go visit his sister. Staring filed a civil rights law.

lawsuit in federal court against the city of Fontana. And the suit was settled for nearly $900,000. And one of the really interesting things is a psychiatrist. One of the key things they teach us is like the value of silence. So if you want someone to start speaking, if you want to make someone uncomfortable, just be quiet. Okay. So this guy is arms crossed. Right. So he's he's he's nodding along. Right. So he's, he's trying to signal to this guy, hey, like, I do. get that you get me but his body language doesn't really mirror that whatever did happen in the apartment between you and michelle that's resulted in her now disappearing we use that word for lack of a better term right um it's my impression that what that was about what that argument was about

what that confrontation was about last weekend it wasn't about you wanting to hurt michel it was about your love for Katie. And it was about your burden. Right. Yeah. About protecting Katie. So what I think is actually going on here is I don't know. I mean, I don't know what happened here, whether this guy is guilty or not.

See, when people do things like this, oftentimes what the mind does is develops a narrative. That is what we call egosentonic. So egosentonic means jives with my idea of who I am. So it's not even clear to me that. this guy before the detective shares this story really believes he was trying to protect Caden. Maybe in that moment he was just angry and lost control. He didn't have this conscious, like, oh my God, like I have to do this to protect the person I love, even if it means doing something bad. These morally framed choices that we see in movies are not how real life is. But now the

detective is offering him a hypothesis, which feels good, fits well with this dude. Right. You're doing it for love, not out of anger. Protecting. Right, because he wasn't being taken care of. Exactly. The detective has skillfully employed a psychological technique known as the good choice, bad choice method. This method presents Mark with only two options, forcing him to make a decision. On one hand, there is a good choice, his unwavering love for his son, Caden.

I don't know if this really jives. On the other hand, there is the bad choice, harboring ill intentions towards Michelle. So the issue here is you don't have to accept that frame. Right? So this is like really important. If you guys want to learn manipulation resistance 101, the best thing to do if someone is boxing you into a yes or no choice, don't accept the frame. It doesn't have to be either or or you don't have to accept if this is good or this. Manipulation 101. So it is a psychological technique where you're like, it was this or this. No, it doesn't have to be either of those things. I think the best person at doing this is Jordan Peterson. So people say to me, what do you, do you believe in God? And I I think, okay, there's a couple of mysteries in that question. Sorry, I suppose I'm not making myself clear here. I'm all asking for a yes and all. Mark is inclined to favor and gravitate towards one narrative.

Typically, the one that paints him in the most innocent light. It's not even about innocent. It's about good. It's we all want to think of ourselves as good people. Telling you, I'm listening to your story, man, and I almost want to cry for you. Empathic connection. I just can't imagine the stress and the pressure put on you. Caden, when you watch this woman, continually berate him and treat him so terribly, because she's doing the same thing to you.

She's doing it three or any other. Mark is now in a situation where he feels cornered. He feels cornered. What? He doesn't feel cornered. This is not defensiveness. He has two choices. No, he doesn't.

Or stop talking and ask for a lawyer. He's not cornered. He's connected. She did not walk out of that apartment. We both know it. We both know the circumstances under which whatever did happen. Now this is interesting. So he's like pivoting away from rapport to like, okay, bro, now that we're together, like, let's do real talk, bro.

Let's confront this negativity together. This doesn't feel cornered at all. This feels the exact opposite. This feels open to me. So I want you to be honest with me and tell me what's happened. She got up, and I got up, and she's getting dressed, and she's finishing up, and she's still yelling and came tidy. I grabbed her, and I broke her neck. I told me I was a sorry, she was going to control me the rest of my life, and I grabbed her by her neck, and she just went through her on the bed.

This isn't being cornered. This is opening up. It's the exact opposite. And that was it. I mean, I sit there and held it. So this is important to look at his affect. Right now he's talking about murdering someone. And his response is okay.

She was dead. Now that he's talking, let's not interrupt it. Okay. So now he's feeling remorse. Give me the death penalty. This is not cornered. You guys get this? I deserve it.

This is guilt. I'm proud of you. I, This is warmth. This is not common. Now he's being supportive. I mean, manipulation, I think, makes sense to me here because I think that it's not clear to me whether the police officer is being inauthentic. But this is what we do in psychiatry, right?

Like, we try to authentically connect with people. The only thing that really strikes me as manipulative here is we try to connect with people in order to help them. And I've worked with people who are, I mean, I've worked in a jail. I've worked with people who are murderers. you know, like literally like convicted. And so we authentically connect with them. And I think this is an example of a guy who, we don't really know what happened. We don't really know what's in his mind. But like, it sounds like he did something that he genuinely regrets. And the officer just created space for him to share that because he's even saying like he feels really guilty, right? That's not manipulation. I mean,

I guess it's manipulation if you're planning on using this authenticity to like throw the book at him. But I mean, This felt like a really solid interview with someone who made a mistake and then feels guilty about it and really did do something wrong and recognizes what they did was really bad. But maybe the reason that I see it that way is why I'm a psychiatrist instead of a cop. Hey, all. If you all want to learn a little bit more, by all means, watch another YouTube video. If you guys are actually interested in finding the practical tools to change on your own, that's where memberships comes in. And if y'all are interested in getting some help or achieving a particular milestone four weeks, eight weeks or 12 weeks from now, check out coaching. So if y'all are interested, check out the link in the description below.

When someone is cornered, they get defensive. So like when someone is cornered, right, like they're getting attacked on all sides and they're retreating. So when someone's cornered, they're not going to open up. This is actually the exact opposite. The police officer is giving him a lot of space to. step out of the corner and offer his feelings. Yeah, this was happening and, and like I did feel bad and I was trying to protect Caden and this is what happened. He's actually noticed that the subject of the interrogation here is not trying to defend himself. He's actually looking for

absolution. Absolution means opening up, not closing down. Hey, there. How are you? I'm Sergeant Leut-Turpsma. It's good to meet you. How are you today? I guess you had better days. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. She does a good job of mirroring, too. He's like, yeah, sure. Right?

So he opens up and she's like, you've had better days, right? And then he's like, yeah, sure. And then she's like, yeah, sure. Some food, what would you like to eat? Something that can eat. Like what? Like a sandwich? This is huge.

So one of the key things I learned working in the emergency department is even when working with people who are psychotic, high on cocaine, high on K2, want to kill me. Offering them food is like such a primal, basic human thing that really. that really like works wonders at calming people down and building rapport. Feed people that you care about. It's a great sign of caring. And feed people that you want to build a relationship with. Good to meet you.

Rough day, huh? Want a sandwich? Need the restroom? It looks polite, humane even. But it's not casual. It's strategic. What you didn't see is that this man was left alone in that room for 30 minutes before Sergeant Terpsmo walked in.

Think about that. Nothing but your thoughts. phone to distract you. Nothing on the walls. Yeah, this is where if you guys want to prepare yourselves, if you guys want to prepare yourselves, what you'll need to do is check out our steering at a wall for an hour exercise. There's a really good video that Kabir actually uploaded, a time lapse of him doing it. It's really funny. Your mind starts racing and then relief walks in. Calm voice, soft tone, even a handshake. Your nervous system begins to shift. You now associate with the sergeant, comfort. But that's not kindness. That's conditioning.

Watch what she does next. And I appreciate how pleasant you've been. And it makes it a lot nicer for me. Is he crying? I have to come and talk to somebody and they're not a beast about it, you know. More conditioning. She says, when you cooperate, this stays comfortable. When you engage, I approve.

You want this interaction to avoid conflict and to stay positive. But that is exactly what the conflict. So this is where I get a bit confused. I think there's like a bit too much extrapolation here. So demonstrating kindness is on some level like behavioral conditioning. I don't know that I quite get the stick that this guy is talking about here, that like things are about to turn. I think she's just expressing appreciation. It's absolutely a rapport building, but I just call it expressing appreciation.

They don't want you guarded. They certainly don't want you silent. And they never want you asking for a lawyer. But they do want you to be comfortable because comfortable people talk. Suddenly you feel like you have to feel the silence. You start clarifying things they didn't ask you to clarify. From here, they only tighten the noose. But even if you resist all of these tricks,

you'd be amazed at how effective it is when cops start dripping evidence on you and demanding something back. For hours, Sergeant Terpsma slowly reveals evidence. Just pieces, a hat, gloves, fingerprints. This is a ball cap. Have you ever seen that before? Maybe.

Tell me about it. I don't know. Do you own that hat? He's a bull cat. Yeah, it is a bull cat. What's really interesting about this is how unsatisfied she is with his answers. Man, this feels like how to resist manipulation 101. Number one way that people manipulate you is by asking you questions over and over and over again that you have already answered.

Do you want to go on a date? No. Why not? No is a complete answer. I don't know is a complete answer. You don't need to say anything else. after that, right? And if people are manipulating you, what they'll do is they'll keep asking questions until they find a chink in the armor and then they'll widen the crack. So he's already said, I don't know.

He doesn't have to defend himself. He doesn't have to provide her with an explanation. She can anchor on camera and look back and say, look, that's the look of a guilty man. Because think about it. If she just dropped all the evidence on the table at one time and he reacted, she would know what he was reacting to and what he was flinching about. Let's understand conditioning. Okay. So conditioning is something that is a behavioral thing that is done over time. Conditioning is, is things like, you know, like Pavlov's dogs is the classical conditioning argument, where over a long period of time, we are training a dog to when the bell rings, the dog starts to salivate. So conditioning is actually about learning and reinforcement. Usually does not happen over a very short

window of time is something that happens over a longer window of time. And this is kind of a random joke, but one of my mentors who's a very skilled psychiatrist once told me that psychoanalysis is something that very intelligent psychiatrists developed to help people with really boring problems. So boring stuff is not exciting to think about. So we develop all these complex theories. The simple thing that I see in all of these clips is wearing people down, wearing people down, wearing people down. This isn't conditioning. This is exhaustion.

I want you guys to think about the worst layover that you've ever had, where you're sitting at the airport, and then the plane gets delayed two hours, and then it gets delayed four hours, and then it gets delayed eight hours, and then you're like, you're, you board the plane, and then you get off the plane. Think about your mental state, how fried you would be. And remember, their goal here, this other interrogation that we saw lasted 17 hours. Can you imagine being hammered for 17 hours? How would your mind be functioning? This isn't conditioning.

You're not learning anything. There's no permanent learning here. This is just wearing you down until your brain starts misfiring. And then you misspeak a little bit here. You get a little bit emotional over there. And the really scary thing about this is that what I see from these interrogation tactics is they get to throw as many darts as they want. And what they're looking for is one that hits. This is like the opposite of gambling.

In gambling, every pull of the slot machine, you lose something. It costs you something. But every time one of these cops asks a question, they don't look. lose anything. They just get to throw as many as they want, and once one hits, right, you get as many poles of the slot machine as you want. You just need one to hit and that's what's going to be what puts you away.

Yeah. What time of day was that, do you think? Midday. Because as you call, he must call Jeff's house. A full, or no. Very detail oriented. It was just one morning, and I decided to stop in. This guy does think that he can offer a story that will work

to accomplish whatever he thinks it's going to accomplish. walking down the road and he was known as long around here somewhere and we walked in and talked to him I met his dog

so all these details these details reek of something called confabulation which is something that we see in people who are like pathological liars where people with pathological liars will offer lots and lots and lots of details that are just made up

I don't know if that's the case with him or not but it's really interesting it maps onto that Because details are what makes a story true. So the more details I offer, the more believable my story is. And he's got chairs here. We sat down here. It was a hot day.

We came back outside. So the other thing is most memories don't work like this, right? We don't remember all these details most of the time. This level of resolution is usually not the way our memory works. Like, I want y'all to just think about the last time you went to someone's house. Do you remember what the temperature was? Do you remember where you walk? Do you remember you had a cold beer?

Do you remember you walked up and you did that? this and you did this. Like, you don't actually have all those memories. Memories of details only happen when something is emotionally significant. I do have a bicycle, but I know this much. Okay. And I've... Is it a 10 speed with the handlebars come down around?

No. Okay. What type of bike is it? Nope. It's 8 by 3 on your 4 speed. Okay. You had a bite, right? Okay.

Tell me, okay. I appreciate it being honest. Well, because it just... Oh, oh, oh, oh. I want you. I appreciate you being honest. And look at how frustrated he is. Okay, tell me, look.

I appreciate it really honest. Well, because it just... You guys catch that tone of voice? Well, it's just because... So he's actually emotionally not in a good place right now. So his mind is scrambling, if I had to guess. But I see this kind of thing. When you see a lot of mental activity,

but you hear that pivot in tone of voice, that speaks to his emotions. It's emotionally active for him. As for all the stuff about, you know, locking in contradictions, I think memory is like remarkably unreliable. So I'm not surprised that people wind up with contradictions. I think if I interrogated you about what happened three months ago,

we'd find contradictions. Doesn't mean that you're lying. I don't know. You or Brian, right in the time? I don't know. What type of tobacco or what's it? So, so this is something, I think that this speaks to me of artificial relaxation. So I want you guys to like notice how open he is. This is really reeks. I'm trying to figure out what about this feels artificial, right? Maybe it's, it's the way he's leaning something. about this is like artificial. His facial expression is not relaxed. His facial expression is concentrated, but his posture is relaxed. But it's not really. Like, if you look at this, is this guy truly look relaxed to you. I think there's something about the squaring of the shoulders, maybe. Maybe he's

leaning against something. I'm not sure what. What this is giving for me is someone who has artificially decided to show authentic emotion. And let's see if that tracks for y'all. Look at this. I told you it was white. That screw you up. Yeah. I don't know. Right. So he's trying to be honest. He's like, okay, I have to be yeah, this is honest, but obfuscating. Honest sneakiness, right? There's no way that he can't say no. So he's displaying

a lot of emotion. He's displaying authenticity. You said, you never met the little boy. Never met the little boy. Did he want you to make the little boy? Yeah, so look at his face. So look at his breathing pattern. Breathing is deep, right? And then look at his face. He's like, there's no animation in it. It's locked.

That's what it is. So when someone is truly relaxed, There's going to be variability in their movement. That's what it is. This is a locked posture. So if you think about like if I'm relaxed and I'm chatting with you, like, I'm going to move my hands. I'm going to go like this. I'm going to go like this.

My face is going to do this. I'm going to smile. I'm going to do this. There's going to be variability, right? I'm loose. I'm going to be moving. He's really locked in. Steps.

Tears rolled down his cheeks. The first real crack in his composed facade. The weight of the interrogation was clearly taking its toll. Once again. wearing people down. That's the number one technique here. Did he bring you a coffee? What, he gets back in here? I'll go get you on, right? Do you actually want coffee, though?

Yes. Okay, I'll get you one in a minute. Now he's saying, sir, interesting. He's back in here. Where would you like to start? Oh, this is so interesting. Okay. So before he was squirrely but open, now he's defended, but surrendered. Game's over. out. Where would you like to start?

Sir. These are going good at first. Things are going fine the whole time. Uh-huh. Until. It happened. It happened. Okay.

It's not really nice. Cream? Just cream. I like this a lot. This is really interesting. One way that you can make something, I don't know even know how to explain this, seem normal is to interrupt it, right? So there's a really interesting thing, which is like, if someone is like confessing and you're

like, oh, hey, like, let me do this little. minor thing. Like, let me interrupt you and then we'll kind of go back to it. Makes it seem like there's no climax to the story, which is a really interesting kind of like thing that they consistently do is if he's like, if people are confessing or talking or whatever, they're happy to interrupt them. They're almost like signaling subconsciously that, okay, like this is just business as usual. And we can just like, oh, what page were we on? We were on page 62. Like, let's pick it up on page 63. There's a lot of really neutral affect. It's not that big of a deal. They're not adding emotional weight. This is the exact opposite of what you see in like crime shows, right?

Where it's like, oh, like, do you tell me, do you want the truth? You can't handle the truth. There's the exact opposite. It's like, oh, like, do you want cream and sugar in your coffee? When did it turn from everything going to fine to? Not so much. That's a good question. When questions are good when you're talking to people.

You say something to you? That was not good. So that's a close-ended question, right? Did he say something to you? No. No. See, you give him a no. If you want people to talk, don't give them yes or no questions.

Like, this is a really useful question that I use a lot. You know, if someone's like, oh, I'm depressed, I'm really depressed. How long you've been? I've been depressed my whole life. When was the last time that you felt good? And then you ask what was going on at that time? And then what changed? So when questions are really good to help people discover transitions, if you're trying to figure out what direction you want to go and ask yourself, when was the last time you felt that way?

and what happened after that? Because that is going to be the moment that there was the fork in the road of your life. What happened? What happened? I like the year from you. It's theories, but I like the... So this is actually really good, right? So he's like, this is playful.

He's like grinning. He's like, hey, man, we both know what happened. But I'd like to hear it from you, bro. He already knows, right? There's like connection here. This is good. Here, your side of the thing. I know what I'm not.

happen i want to see if even if i can tell you what happened i killed him you killed jeff and how did you do that with a knife okay and uh where'd you get the knife it was mine could there was a bayonette type knife large large knife and that's the way to keep sharpening all the time right i was your dad you brought that with you because you always wear it you know you knew that much yeah what do you all think is the significance of I didn't know you knew that much. What is the point of admitting his ignorance? This is him actually like bowing down and admitting that he has been outsmarted by the cop. So this is an interesting psychological thing, right?

When someone, does that kind of make sense? It's like, early on, he's like, I'm going to outsmart you. And this is basically him saying, you've outsmarted me, which is kind of what I read from it. How many times is your stab you think? Those are questions I don't know. know the answer. Are you saying one or a hundred? I mean, multiple.

Multiple. Okay. Obviously, more than one. I didn't want it to be a pro long thing. I wanted it to be as quick as possible. And unfortunately, I mean, it wasn't, but it's not white color. It's different from what you expect. Yeah.

So what's so interesting here is now he's like slipping into the role of almost expert. Like, this seems really relaxed to me. And I'm not even much of a TV watcher. obviously I have enough intellect to know that it wouldn't be black television. That was really interesting, right? And then he's like, I have enough intellect to know, bros. But anyway, I mean, this is, this feels interesting, but also, I don't know. I mean, it really makes me feel for a lot of these people.

Like, you know, we look at these things and they're, and they're so villainized. And I think people should absolutely pay for what they've done. And also, having worked with this population, like, it makes me wonder, you know, what was this, what was this person's history like? I'm not getting any sense of like motive or rational motive from this, which really is kind of scary on the one hand and also like sad on the other because is he just wired to kind of function in this way, which doesn't mean that he shouldn't pay for his actions, but really just tragic to see this kind of thing and that this is the world that we live in. He could tell stories like

no one I've ever known. They were so convincing. You would ask her a question and she would just be so fluid in her answers. And of course, she's describing something that was taking place in Germany. So it's not something that we could go and check on the next day. And she led us on for about a year. The only thing that we can do to protect ourselves from deception is what is being said and what is the proof. You begin to make an inquiry. The story begins to fall apart. Or it causes a cognitive load. You know, oh, so you went to Mexico. which airport did you land at? I, you know, and then they struggle to come out with an answer.

Simple questions should evoke simple answers. And when they create a cognitive load. Okay, so this is where like, this may be a virtue of the populations that we deal with, right? So simple questions should evoke simple answers completely agree. But very few human beings have detailed memories about simple things from a long time ago. So I don't know what frame of time he's talking about, but it's like, if you asked me like, what airport did I fly into a year ago? My answer isn't going to be that I remember the airport. My answer is going to be I remember which airport people fly into. So if you ask me like, you know, which airport did you fly into in Tokyo? I'm going to say Narita because I forgot that Haneda exists, even if I flew into Haneda. So this is where there's some stuff that I think is kind of weird about this. The other thing is in terms of detecting deception, respectfully, I think this could also be the populations that we've got and the evidence that we've got. But in psychiatry, we don't have any evidence.

We function without evidence. So there's a lot of ways that you can detect deception. Here's like top three. First is incongruent affect. So when someone is talking about something that does not match their facial expressions. So they're talking about something really bad happening to them and they're smiling about it. Or they're, you know, talking about something really good happening to them, but they have a really neutral affect. It doesn't necessarily indicate deception.

It indicates a discrepancy. And deception is one of the possibilities in that discrepancy. The other thing is kind of like incongruent, like internally inconsistent, incongruent affect. So this is where things get complicated. But basically, we kind of have this like bullshit meter, which I've shared with y'all before that it's like, okay, this person is trying too hard. So, you know, it doesn't feel natural or are they trying really hard to convince you of something? Another sign of deception is actually like explaining yourself in a superfluous way. So Shakespeare noticed this many years ago when he said,

Me, doth think that they protest, protesteth too much or something like that. So when someone verbally explains or defends themselves, that's a sign. That's a potential sign of deception. Okay. The last thing, the last really interesting version of deception is actually projection. So people who are cheating in a relationship are more likely to accuse their partner of cheating. I don't know if that's like evidence based or not, but we absolutely have all of these like psychological mechanisms and projection is one of them. When I'm suppressing something from myself and literally what projection means is I have something inside me that I am avoiding in some way either intentionally or uninterested.

intentionally, that then I put on top of you. So I'm the cheater, but I accuse you of cheating. So I think there's a lot of techniques that we have to detect deception or tools. The key thing to remember is that none of these are one to one. They're not definitive for deception. They're definitive for a discrepancy. And deception could be one explanation in that discrepancy. If you'll like some of the stuff about how to become resistant to manipulation, how to pay attention to facial expressions, what to say, what not to say. Definitely check out communication 101 over on the membership side. This is my psychiatrist's take on the foundational principles to become an effective communicator. Y'all can check out the link in the

description below, start your free trial, and hopefully you'll become a better communicator. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourself. and each other.