Can you tell whether a person is lying or telling the truth? In a new study published in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology, researchers have found evidence that people who have high emotional intelligence (EI) may actually end up poorer judges of character.
Recruiting 116 participants for the study, researchers tried to find out just how skilled different people were at seeing through deception. First, they asked volunteers to answer a standard questionnaire to measure their EI. Then, they showed the participants 20 videos of people pleading and asking for help to find a missing person. In half of these videos, the subject was the actual culprit. Throughout the experiment, the participants were asked to list which individuals they thought were telling the truth, what cues they followed, and how confident they were of their answers.
According to the results, those who had high levels of EI were more likely to be overconfident in their answers and were not really good at spotting deception. The researchers note that this is an important discovery because EI is a commonly used concept in different areas--including the workplace.
What about you, FNites? Are you skilled at seeing through lies? Can you tell whether someone is being honest with you or not? Tell us all about it in a comment.
(Photo by Patrizia Soliani via Flickr Creative Commons)
