In This Article
Science-backed techniques to get someone to confess or divulge information, using empathy, strategic evidence, and active listening.
Do you know how accurate the average person is at detecting a lie? About 54%, barely better than a coin flip.
According to researcher Pamela Meyer, you may be lied to anywhere from ten to two hundred times per day. Strangers lie to each other roughly three times within the first ten minutes of meeting. And most of us have no idea it’s happening.
You don’t need a polygraph to get closer to the truth. You just need a little behavioral psychology. I want to teach you a few truth-telling tools you can use to encourage someone to tell the truth, confess, or divulge information, whether that someone is a colleague, a teenager, a friend, or a real estate agent who seems a little too enthusiastic about that “cozy” basement apartment.
A quick note on framing: Some of these techniques apply when you suspect someone of wrongdoing and want a confession. Others are useful when someone is simply withholding information: not because they did anything wrong, but because they’re nervous, private, or unsure whether to trust you. Use these tips for positive truth-seeking. I have always believed that hard truth is better than ignorant bliss. And at the end of this article, you’ll find an important section on why ethical boundaries matter, because a coerced “truth” is worth nothing.
In lie detection practice, we call the person we’re interviewing or trying to get information from our subject: your kid, your spouse, your colleague, your car salesman.
Let Silence Do the Work
The biggest mistake truth-seekers make is talking too much. After your subject finishes speaking, wait at least 3 to 5 seconds before you say anything.
Research from the ORBIT model (Observing Rapport-Based Interpersonal Techniques) found that when interviewers combined silence with empathy, subjects were five times more likely to provide a comprehensive account. Liars are especially uncomfortable with silence. They’ll often fill it with additional details, corrections, or even admissions.
Action Step: Ask your question, then silently count to five before speaking again. Resist the urge to rephrase or prompt. Let the quiet do the work.
Use the Triple Nod
When someone finishes speaking, nod three times in a slow, steady rhythm. It shows interest and encourages them to keep talking. Dr. Joseph Matarazzo’s research found that nodding roughly tripled speakers’ response length. A Hokkaido University study found nodding increases perceived likability by about 30%.
Pair nodding with the silence from the previous tip and you get a powerful combination that makes the speaker feel heard, without you saying a word.
A cultural note: Nodding signals agreement in most Western cultures, but varies globally. In Bulgaria, a side-to-side movement means “yes.” In Greece, an upward nod can mean “no.” Know your audience.
Liars are especially uncomfortable with silence. They’ll often fill it with additional details, corrections, or even admissions.
Choose a Private Setting
Privacy reduces self-consciousness and social performance pressure. When people aren’t worried about being overheard or judged, they’re far more likely to open up. The goal is intimacy. Keep the pressure off.
Action Step: Choose a quiet room where it’s just the two of you. A coffee shop corner works. A group dinner does not.
Center Them
When you really want to get someone to talk, remove the barriers. Desks, tables, a laptop between you: move them out of the way so it’s a direct one-on-one.
This also exposes their feet, so you can read what their feet are telling you. And guilty people like to hide behind things, or slink down in a chair. With nowhere to hide, you see far more body language cues.
Action Step: Before the conversation, pull two chairs out from behind the desk and turn them toward each other.
Don’t Reveal What You Know (The SUE Technique)
The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique, developed by psychologists Pär Anders Granhag and Maria Hartwig, is one of the most scientifically validated approaches to getting the truth. (Think of it as the chess move of truth-seeking: you already know where the pieces are; you’re just waiting for them to make the wrong move.)
How to use it:
- Let the person tell their full story first. Don’t interrupt or hint at what you know.
- Ask specific questions related to evidence you have, without revealing it. (“What did you do between 3 and 5 PM?”)
- Then reveal the evidence. If they lied, they’re caught in a contradiction.
Guilty people avoid mentioning anything that connects them to the evidence. Innocent people freely share information because they assume the truth will clear them. In studies, investigators trained in SUE achieved 85% deception detection accuracy, compared to 56% for untrained interviewers.
Example: You suspect your teenager took money from your wallet and have a receipt showing you had $60 yesterday. Let them tell you about their afternoon first, then show the receipt. If their story doesn’t account for the missing cash, the contradiction speaks for itself.
Investigators trained in the SUE technique achieved about 85% accuracy at detecting deception, compared to just 56% for untrained interviewers.
Ask Open-Ended Questions (Then Change the Telling)
Simple yes-or-no questions are easy to lie through. The longer the answer, the more room for nonverbal and emotional leaks. I like questions that solicit stories:
- “Tell me the story of last night.”
- “Walk me through what happened from the beginning.”
Then use psychologist Aldert Vrij’s cognitive load technique: ask them to tell the story in a different way—backwards, or starting from the middle. Vrij’s research found that reverse-order recall improved lie detection accuracy from about 42% to roughly 60%. Truth-tellers can “rewind” a real memory; liars have a rehearsed script that falls apart when the order changes.
Reverse recall is hard for everyone, so look for changes from someone’s baseline behavior rather than expecting perfection.
Stick a Landmine
Landmines are little details you add when you rephrase someone else’s story, details you believe are incorrect.
Here’s what I mean: if someone tells you a story, rephrase it back in your own words and change something. If they fix the mistake, great, that’s a sign they’re telling the truth. If they accept it as fact, either the story is contrived or they never knew that detail either.
Action Step: Pick one small, checkable detail — a time, a place, who else was there — and get it wrong on purpose when you play the story back.
Your Ears Beat Your Eyes at Catching Lies
Watching body language while trying to detect lies actually makes you worse at it. A 2025 University of Portsmouth study found lie detection accuracy nearly doubled when people focused solely on listening: about 62% accuracy for listeners vs. 35% for watchers. That popular belief about liars looking up and to the right? Thoroughly debunked.
What to listen for instead:
- “Honestly…” / “Believe me…”: Truth-tellers rarely feel the need to announce their honesty.
- Fewer “I” and “me” statements: Liars subconsciously distance themselves from the lie.
- More passive voice: “The glass broke” instead of “I broke the glass.”
- Fewer verifiable details: Especially specific names, places, and times.
For a deeper dive into reading people, check out our guide to body language cues and our how to read people article.
Action Step: Next time you suspect someone isn’t being straight with you, look away and just listen. Focus on the content rather than the performance.
Share Something
Along with easing the pressure, connect on a human level by sharing. And what better way to share than with food?
Sharing works because it opens people up. There’s a reason car dealerships always have free coffee. If your colleague has a juicy bit of information and isn’t giving it up, try one of these:
- Invite them out to lunch or dinner.
- Share a drink.
- Offer them something small: candy, a coffee, half your sandwich.
The more you share, the more open and trusting the other person becomes.
Play Good Cop (But Know the Limits)
Empathy beats pressure. The ORBIT model found that when interviewers used empathy and respected the subject’s autonomy, subjects were five times more likely to provide a comprehensive account.
Here’s how to be the Good Cop:
- Be reassuring. Let them know what they did is understandable.
- Show you see their perspective. Were they pressured? Scared?
- Use the autonomy paradox. Tell them: “It’s entirely up to you whether you talk about this.” Counterintuitively, this makes people more likely to cooperate.
Use these responsibly. The Innocence Project reports that about 29% of DNA exoneration cases involved false confessions, and minimization tactics are a major contributor. These techniques are for everyday interpersonal situations, never for pressuring vulnerable people in high-stakes situations.
When interviewers used empathy and respected the subject’s autonomy, subjects were five times more likely to provide a comprehensive account.
Use the “Worse Version” Technique
People can’t help but correct misinformation, especially about themselves. Tell the subject a more extreme version of what you think happened and see if they correct you.
This technique traces back to WWII interrogator Hanns Scharff, who extracted intelligence from over 500 Allied pilots by presenting slightly wrong narratives and letting prisoners correct the inaccuracies. They felt like they were winning an argument rather than giving away secrets.
The everyday version: if you think your teenager took $20 from your wallet, ask if they took $20 and your credit card. They’ll often correct you and admit to the smaller offense. Correcting feels like defending yourself rather than confessing.
Invade Their Personal Space
This is an advanced one, and it belongs in the everyday-curiosity category rather than the high-stakes one. People get a little rattled when you enter their personal space. Pull a chair closer, or take a step toward them. It makes them feel more transparent, and it often encourages them to dig a bit deeper. Useful when someone is sitting on information rather than hiding wrongdoing.
Build Real Rapport (Why Connection Beats Detection)
In Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan’s 1991 study testing 509 people across professions, U.S. Secret Service agents were the only group to perform significantly better than chance at detecting lies (~64% accuracy). Judges, police officers, and psychiatrists all hovered around 53–56%.
People who build genuine trust (teachers, therapists, social workers) tend to get more truthful information, because people voluntarily open up to them. (Turns out being a decent human is a competitive advantage.) Want to build yours? Our guide to building rapport has you covered.
A Word of Caution: False Confessions Are Real
The Innocence Project reports that about 29% of DNA exoneration cases involved false confessions. Psychologist Saul Kassin identifies three types: voluntary (no pressure at all), compliant (to escape stress), and internalized (where the person actually comes to believe they did it).
The cruelest irony? Innocent people may be more likely to waive their rights because they trust their innocence will protect them. As Kassin puts it: “Innocence puts innocents at risk.”
Use these techniques responsibly: for everyday truth-seeking, never for breaking someone down.
How to Get Someone to Confess: Key Takeaways
Here’s your five-step framework for getting closer to the truth:
- Create a private, comfortable setting. Privacy reduces defensiveness, and people open up when nobody else is in the room.
- Let them talk. Use silence, the Triple Nod, and open-ended questions to keep them going.
- Listen more than you watch. Verbal cues are far more reliable than body language “tells.”
- Strategically use what you know. The SUE technique is one of the most powerful tools available.
- Lead with empathy. Rapport-based approaches yield five times more information than accusatorial ones.
Remember that every person is different, and sometimes one technique won’t work. I found it’s best to always remain calm and good-natured every step of the way, even if it means changing your techniques up slightly… or a lot.
The best way to get someone to tell the truth? Tell the truth yourself. If you come from a place of honesty, you’re far more likely to receive it back.
The best way to get someone to tell the truth? Tell the truth yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 5 C's of confession?
The 5 C’s framework describes the elements of a meaningful confession: Conviction (recognizing the wrongdoing), Confession (stating it outright), Contrition (genuine regret), Compensation (making amends), and Correction (resolving to change the behavior going forward). A confession that hits all five tends to feel more genuine and lead to better resolution. (No, it’s not a coffee order, though a good conversation over coffee doesn’t hurt.)
What phrases do liars commonly use?
Verbal deception cues point to several red flags: phrases like “Honestly…” or “Believe me…” (truth-tellers rarely feel the need to announce their honesty), fewer first-person pronouns like “I” or “me” (liars subconsciously distance themselves from the lie), more passive voice constructions (“mistakes were made” is a classic), and a notable lack of specific, verifiable details like names, places, and times.
