Fear, lies and Scott Peterson Original excerpt published September 2009 Since the signs of fear look exactly the same for a liar afraid of being caught and a truthful person afraid of being disbelieved, signs of that emotion are useless unless there is reason to believe that only the liar will be afraid.
Fear increases the more that can be gained if the lie goes undetected. Similarly, fear increases with the severity of the punishment for being caught.
The truthful person afraid of being mistakenly identified as a liar also will be more afraid when the threatened punishment for that mistaken judgment is severe.
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