The Secret Life of Pronouns_ What Our Words Say About Us - James W. Pennebaker [75]
Social words, by the way, are a mix of words that indicate a social relationship—including nouns like friend, pal, and mother as well as actions such as talking, calling, and listening. In reading over many of the deception transcripts, it is impressive how frequently people bring up other individuals to try to validate their own statements or to shift the blame to someone else.
VERBS AND ACTIONS
Verbs are complicated. Hang around a language expert such as Steven Pinker for a few hours and your head will soon be swimming with an ocean of verb types. Regular verbs generally express a particular action and can distinguish between past tense and present (but not future). Auxiliary verbs, sometimes called helping verbs, are really only a handful of verbs such as to be, to have, and to do. Auxiliary verbs are associated with a passive voice and are frowned on in American English classes but celebrated in British English classes. Another type, called discrepancy verbs (or modal verbs), includes words like should, could, ought, must, and would. Discrepancy verbs are used when people suggest some kind of subtle discrepancy between how the world is and how it could, should, or ought to be.
As you can see in the chart, people who use verbs at high rates tend to be more deceptive than people who use fewer verbs. This pattern is particularly strong for auxiliary verbs and discrepancies. Let’s say that you are a grade school teacher and three of your students give practically the same excuse:
1. I finished my homework but the dog ate it.
2. I had finished the homework but the dog must have eaten it.
3. The homework was finished but must have been eaten by the dog.
The first excuse is far more likely to be true. It includes two past-tense verbs that indicate that the actions were specific and were completely finished. The second excuse relies on five verbs that hint that the actions were not completed and, with the word must, may not have even happened. And the third person’s excuse is the most scurrilous lie of the three—six verbs, past tense, and not a single I-word.
In English, verbs provide a remarkable amount of information about actions. They hint at whether an action is ongoing, partly completed, or completely finished. Some verbs, such as discrepancies, subtly assert that an action may have occurred—but possibly didn’t. Saying that dog could or must have eaten the homework strongly implies something about the dog’s behavior but, at the same time, distances the speaker from asserting that the behavior actually occurred.
OTHER COMMON DECEPTION MARKERS
The use of discrepancy verbs points to one of several ways we all try to mislead others while, at the same time, not technically lying. Some of my favorites:
Passive constructions: “Mistakes were made.” In a delightful book on misinformation, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson examine how people frequently avoid responsibility through ingenious linguistic maneuvers. For example, historians are in general agreement that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger frequently deceived the American people about the direction and scope of the Vietnam War during the 1970s. Years later, in an interview, Tavris and Aronson quote Kissinger as saying, “Mistakes were quite possibly made by the administrations in which I served.” Note his wording. Obviously, Kissinger didn’t make any mistakes. Rather, someone probably did.
Avoiding answering a question. In the mock-crime experiment where students were asked to “steal” a dollar, we asked each person point-blank: “Did you steal the dollar that was in the book?” People who actually did take the money said things such as:
I don’t believe in stealing. I have a problem with it. I did it once a long time ago; I was … younger. I really didn’t like the feeling of knowing they’re going to catch me. I just, you know,