Journal 5

This week's lesson was extremely interesting to me.  We are lied to on a daily basis and it is important to notice when we are trying to be deceived.  Dr. Ekman made a good point in saying we want to know the truth but at the same time we don’t.  He also stated that the most common reason why we lie is to avoid punishment for breaking a rule.  I agree to this statement.  For the most part I do agree because we do not like to lie and we most often feel guilty if we do.  Nobody wants to get in trouble and it is easier to avoid punishment rather than to receive it.  I do, however, believe there are some people who find it fun and thrilling to lie.

Dr. Ekman stated it takes about 32 hours for the average person to learn to catch a lie and I think this says a lot about how difficult it is and how small the cues are.  There are so many things happening at once and there is so much to take in all around us that it makes it hard to catch the slightest bit of emotion.  Emotions only last about a quarter of a second.  We can easily hide emotions, and that doesn’t necessarily mean we did something wrong.  Dr. Ekman explained that you can conceal emotions but that doesn’t mean a person is a perpetrator of a crime.  Research has shown that we only recognize gestures of our own culture. This makes it harder for us to recognize nonverbal cues of other cultures.

The most interesting thing I’ve learned from Dr. Ekman is noticing the subtle cues behind emotions.  I think it is very interesting how quickly an emotion can show and how quickly it can disappear.  Being able to spot a subtle facial expression can help to understand someone’s true feelings, or realize that the person can be lying.  I have been paying a lot more attention to spotting these cues and I have also been trying to notice them on myself.  Another thing I found interesting was from Dr. Ekman’s video this week was that the decision to lie is made at the same time we decide to do something.