What’s in a question?

I find the popular show “Law and Order” an entertaining informal approach to human nature. I am always intrigued by how the interrogators always find a way to trip up the suspect being held by asking unexpected questions and catching the suspect off guard.

Author Somerset Maugham is famous for his unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships in tales of love, infidelity, passion and prejudice. Maugham’s stories are usually set in exotic places.

You may think it must be awfully hard in another culture to know when someone is lying to you when even in your own culture you are not always sure whether or not someone is telling the truth. When it comes to telling the truth or lying, many Westerners see only two options: Something is either true or false. The French, though, are an exception to this.

The French see three options: true, somewhat true and false, and they expect the second to be the most common. Turks are similar to the French in this regard because they believe it is better to go this route than disappoint or hurt you; it is better to not tell all or to not tell you at all!

I have always had problems explaining this to my American guests who get into difficult situations because of this phenomenon. Whether the Turk (or the Frenchman) has tried to be misleading or not makes very little difference. What matters is correcting the damage done as a result.

It’s all in the question and how you answer it. The only way I have found to help people (whether you are doing business or in a personal relationship) with this difficult issue is to help them understand how to ask questions. Particularly in the US, where asking a single question will elicit ample information from a salesperson or office clerk, in places like Turkey or France, a question is understood in a narrow way. Perhaps they assume that you know everything else there is to know about the topic.

The solution is simply to continue to ask questions very politely until you get enough of the big picture. Don’t expect all the information to be volunteered.

A very common form of lying is giving too much information. In Turkey, many have said it is easy to tell when your employee or boyfriend, etc., is not being honest -- they usually want to tell you a rather confusing and long story to cover their tracks.

J.J. Newberry, who served as a federal agent for 30 years and as a police officer for five, suggests the following tips to determine if someone is lying to you.

* Inconsistencies: Look for statements that just don’t fit.

* Ask the unexpected: Catch the person off guard with a question and watch their response.

* Gauge against a baseline: Dishonesty changes one’s behavior. If a person’s behavior differs from how they normally act, it could mean something is up.

* Look for insincere emotions: Faked emotions indicate that something has gone afoul.

* Pay attention to gut reactions: A gut reaction or a woman’s intuition could be picking up on the deviations of true emotions and warnings.

* Watch for microexpressions: This is a very brief expression, usually about a 25th of a second, that is always a concealed emotion and revealed in a subconscious flash of anger.

* Look for contradictions: Anything that a person does with their voice or their gesture that doesn’t fit the words they are saying can indicate a lie.

* A sense of unease: When someone is avoiding eye contact, and that’s against how they normally act, it can mean they’re not being honest.

When you suspect someone is lying, you have to either know the person well enough to understand why he or she might lie or be a people expert. You’ll be miserable if you think you can’t trust anybody. It’s best to try to take people at their word, but accept you’ll be taken in by some.