The Psychological Cost of Cool
Kids often think they can buy their cool credentials, feeling better about themselves and elevating their standing among their peers.
Kids often think they can buy their cool credentials, feeling better about themselves and elevating their standing among their peers. Usually, that’s not how things work out.
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Truth or Lie: How to Tell: Photos
View Caption + #1: April 25, 2012 -
Did John Edwards work with his aide to hide his affair or didn't he? Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if he is found guilty on six charges of violating campaign finance laws, allegedly paid off to his mistress Rielle Hunter. As his trial plods along, there are certain tells, experts say, that reveal when a person is lying -- whether that be him or his aide, Andrew Young. But as detective shows and police know, liars always have their tells. In this slideshow, we take a look at the ways liars show their true colors.
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Even if a liar can put on his or her best poker face, unconscious emotional "cracks" -- or unintentional and brief flashes of emotion -- give away a subject's real mental state, according to a study by Stephen Porter's Forensic Psychology Lab at Dalhousie University.
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Although sudden cracks in facial expression could give away subtle clues to deception, one researcher found that tiny movements in facial muscles -- such as the zygo maticus major and the orbicularis oculi -- can unmask liars. Social psychologist Mark Frank used computer technology to analyze facial expressions, following a large body of research "about the evolutionarily-derived nature of emotion and its expression," according to a press release on EurekAlert!. Micro-expressions in subjects' faces, such as tics, smiles, frowns and wrinkles, essentially serve as accurate windows into the emotions, even if the person being interrogated is trying to suppress his or her feelings. Frank's system can be used not only to uncover potential criminals, but also even reveal terrorist threats. Frank, however, is quick to point out that his system only provides investigators with "very good clues" and "not proof of anything."
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The Eagles may have been on to something. Eyes may reveal a liar in the act, and scientists at the University of Utah have developed technology to detect just that, as reported by Discovery News' Tracy Staedter in 2010. A computer camera and tracking software record minute eye movements to measure cognitive reaction. By contrast, a polygraph measures a subject's emotional reaction. The system "also records other variables, including the time it takes to respond to a question, how long it takes a subject to read or even reread a question and how many errors are made," according to the report. The researchers hope that the technology will be adopted by various U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement agencies that regularly employ polygraph tests.
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As anyone who has ever dealt with a bad liar before can attest, some people just can't keep a story straight. But even the most talented studied storyteller can fall into some familiar speech patterns that indicate a truthful tale. In a study published in American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, UCLA professor of psychology R. Edward Geiselman and his colleagues reveal speech patterns they have detected that are often red flags for deceit. Liars very often provide few details, have a tendency to repeat questions, actively monitor listener reactions, speak in sentence fragments and more. To unmask dishonesty, Geiselman and colleagues suggest listeners have potential deceivers tell their story backwards, ask open-ended questions and never interrupt.
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If the source of every lie is the brain, shouldn't it be possibly to simply see if that particular region of the brain associated with deceit is active when a subject is lying? Scientists are attempting to use functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging (fMRI) as a lie detector. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009, Joshua Greene, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University, found that "areas within the volunteers' prefrontal cortices registered vigorous activity," according to a report on TIME.com. However, as Greene admits, the technique can't tell the difference between someone who intends to lie and a person who is contemplating whether to lie. Despite the limitations of this kind of technology, at least two companies have offered lie detection services using the same technique. This application has led some scholars to criticize these lie detection methods as no better than the polygraph. Even though these kinds of studies currently have their detractors, the efforts aren't without warrant. A 2005 study out of the University of Southern California and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found brain abnormalities in people who are habitual liars. "The liars had significantly more 'white matter' and slightly less 'gray matter' than those they were measured against," according to a press release available on Science Daily. The wiring in the brain, white matter may help liars with the extra cognitive effort needed to fabricate information.
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Liars may not actually have their pants on fire, but their faces sure seem to heat up when they're not telling the truth, according to a study led by the Mayo Clinic and published in Nature in 2002. In 80 percent of cases studied for the experiment, heat patterns in the face change dramatically when a person is lying. Using high-definition thermal imaging technology, an investigator can monitor these heat patterns to assess the veracity of a subject's statements.
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Although handwriting analysis is often regarded as a pseudoscience, it may have a potentially legitimate application in assisting with lie detection, according to researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel. Using a computerized tool to detect a user's hand movements, the researchers found that certain cues, such as "the duration of time that the pen is on paper versus in the air; the length height and width of each writing stroke; the pressure implemented on the writing surface," can signal when someone is about to write an untruthful statement, according to a release in Science Daily. This technology is intended to work in tandem with verbal-based lie detectors.
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You cool?
The answer to that question means almost nothing to anyone who has successfully transitioned from adolescence to a well-adjusted adulthood. But for kids, the pressure to be seen as cool could be affecting their well-being, according to research to be presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference.
In order to try to appear cool, to win friends and have an elevated status amongst their peers, children and teens often buy into consumer culture. “Although friendly and helpful children were ultimately more popular over time,” Robin Banerjee, a psychology professor at the University of Sussex, said in a statement, “young people mistakenly predicted that the route to being liked was in having a reputation for disruptive behaviour, having ‘cool’ stuff and looking good.”
Rather than providing kids with any kind of improved sense of self and accompanying social boost, the opposite happens, the researchers found, with adolescents entering a downward spiral that ultimately affects their state of mind.
When teenagers start to show depressive symptoms after coming up short with their attempts to elevate their status, there is a difference in terms of how boys and girls react. Boys tend to get even more materialistic, while girls often develop insecurity about their appearance.
Feeling pressure to be cool and trying to win peer approval by looking a certain way or owning the right stuff can have a damaging effect during adolescence. Teens who spend their youth trying to appear cool often struggle in early adulthood as well, found a study published last year in the journal Child Development.
For their research, University of Virginia psychologists followed 184 teens over a 10-year period, between ages 13 and 23. Teens who sought approval and attention through behavior like being sexually active at an early age, participating in delinquency or seeking out their more attractive peers may have enjoyed a higher status as kids, but it didn’t last.
Upon entering adulthood, the formerly cool kids were more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs and tended to engage in criminal undertaking. They were also described by their less status-seeking peers as less competent overall.
Although anyone who has attended a high school reunion can probably back up the findings from the University of Virginia researchers, there is a scientific basis explaining why cool kids can flame out in adulthood.
Previous studies have shown that the adolescent brain is more wired to take risks, and being around their peers makes them even more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors. When these risky undertakings elicit a desired response, peer approval, that feedback could influence the developing teenage brain, tweaking the mind’s reward system by increasing the value of risk, explained a study published in 2013 in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
So taking these studies together, children and teens are buying things and engaging in risky behaviors to elevate their social standing, and it’s generally not going over well in the short- or long-term with their peers. But kids being kids, they’re unlikely to change anytime soon given that that’s how their brains are wired.
To any teenager reading who might feel these studies unfairly malign their sense of style, outlandish personality or rebellious nature, clearly this line of research wasn’t about you. We cool?
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