Psychology Insights – Lies, Love and Law

Part 1 - This course provides a greater understanding of lies and how lies can lead to tunnel vision in an investigation. Eve Ash discusses why people tell lies with the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Professor Robert Feldman, a specialist in psychological and brain sciences. He has studied lying for many years and observes that (1) all people tell lies in different situations; (2) many are not truthful on their resumes and in job interviews; (3) sometimes people confabulate to fill memory gaps caused by stressful or traumatic conditions. In crime situations, he explains that false memories occur, and people’s eagerness to find a culprit sometimes leads to the wrong person being convicted. You can’t always tell a liar from their physical cues (eg. excessive blinking, looking away). This can cause deception bias and investigations clouded by tunnel vision. Dr Feldman and Eve Ash discuss the case of Sue Neill-Fraser, convicted and jailed for murder in Tasmania in 2010.

Part 2 - This course provides a greater understanding of lies as a normal part of human behavior. Eve Ash talks to Professor Robert Feldman (University of Massachusetts Amherst) about his research for the book "The Liar in Your Life". He reveals that we all lie at different times, there are many types of lies ranging from the unconscious to lies of commission, and that people often lie within the first ten minutes of meeting someone.

We lie to create an impression, we lie because we are anxious, we make up narratives to fill gaps in our memories. We have a "truth bias" in as much as we don’t want to believe another person might be lying. Lies create spiral effects (“You lie, I lie”). We might be suspicious of liars, but we also tend to forgive them. Lies lead to inauthenticity in relationships. People compartmentalize lies and can live with them for many, many years.

Part 3 - Love, Lies and Exaggeration provides an understanding of how people sometimes lie for a reason and will exaggerate to enhance their prestige in the eyes of others. In this course, psychologist Eve Ash talks to Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor at University of California, Irvine, a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, psychology and law about the conditions that lead people to lie.

This program provides insights into love, lies and exaggeration, guilt, illness and acceptance. People having secret affairs tell lies; this was the situation for Eve Ash’s mother who lied for years about Eve’s biological father. Eve’s subsequent investigation revealed the truth.

Part 4 - Psychology, Law, Lies and False Memories gives us insights into eye witness memory problems, false memories, impact of stress and trauma on memory, and includes two wrongful conviction cases. In this course, psychologist Eve Ash talks to Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Loftus, University of California, Irvine, an expert on human memory, psychology and law. Elizabeth has conducted research on the malleability of human memory and has been called upon worldwide to give expert testimony in criminal cases. Eyewitness testimony can cause problems in courts. The more confident a witness, the more they are believed even if their memories are mistaken, such as in the case of Steven Titus (misidentified as a rapist). A US Innocence Project found that in over 300 cases of wrongful conviction, 75% were due to faulty or false memories. The problem is compounded when witnesses are 'coached' or 'encouraged'. False and distorted memories can be ‘implanted’.