Some Experiments With Truth

Decoding the truth and the lies is truly a daunting task. The mystery of decoding what the person opposite us is saying is an eternal tryst with truth

- 

I have, throughout my career been grappling with the issue of assessing myself in making an accurate judgement about candidates who I interview. I have been fortunate. Majority of the candidates I have selected have been good hires. But I have come across some writings and research that made me more aware of the risks involved.

Deception research has consistently shown that accuracy rates tend to be just over 50 percent when they are averaged across truthful and deceptive messages and when an equal number of truths and lies are judged. Interpreting the sales pitch of a sales person, inferring from the claims made during a selection interview, the statements made in meetings, all form an important part of human to human communication.

Decoding the truth and the lies is truly a daunting task. The mystery of decoding what the person opposite us is saying, is an eternal tryst with truth. In transactional analysis we hear about crossed transactions and ulterior transactions. A crossed transaction is one in which the transactional vectors are not parallel, or in which the ego state addressed is not the one which responds. When a transaction is crossed, a break in communication results and one or both individuals will need to shift ego states in order that the communication is re-established. In an ulterior transaction, two messages are conveyed at the same time. One of these is an overt or social level message. The other is a covert or psychological level message. Most often, the social level content is adult to adult ego states.