Men proved better liars

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33155, 20 February 1973, Page 6

Men proved better liars

(Sy

STELLA BRUCE)

LONDON. Is the day coming when a girl, instead of dreaming hopefully about a white wedding, will ask her boyfriend point-blank if his intentions are honourable, while her mother discovers his secret thoughts on an electronic box-of-tricks in the next room?

i It is certainly beginning to i look that way. Just on the market in America is a i pocket-sized, battery - powered machine called a “love-detector” which, it is claimed, enables a girl to i find out whether her romance is heading for the altar or the rocks. And from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel comes an even more powerful weapon for the woman convinced that her man is telling little white lies and is anxious to prove it—regardless of expense.

This is a real James Bond affair: a detector which can tell the truth from the fibs at a distance of 20 yards from the suspect. It works {by transmitting microwaves i and analysing information recorded in signals scattered from the suspect’s body.

But what makes it such a sinister instrument from the man’s point of view is that he won’t even suspect it I exists. Yet there it will be, I busily working away somewhere out of sight, collecting data about breathing rate and pulse-beat and transmitting it to a dial on the machine.

All you have to do is to ask the million-dollar question: “Do you love me?” Or j—if you’re married—some other vital questions like: “Have you asked for that I rise yet?”

If he answers untruthfully, the detector will find him out. For no matter how poker-faced a man may be, ■ science has discovered that {telling a fib invariably proi duces a definite physical reaction. And these are registered by the detector to reiveal that a yam is in the process of being spun.

I Thus, if the boy under- ' going a love test with the 'lsrael - developed machine {answers his girlfriend with the hallowed words: "Of I course I love you darling,” {when he really means: “Not |on your life, ducky!” the I needle on the dial of the love detector will swing to a red I mark.

If he says he loves her, and really means it, the needle will move contentedly to a blue mark.

But, sadly, it must be said that since machines of this type were first brought into use during tests at the New York Scientific Marriage Institute a few months ago, the needles have apparently spent most of their time deeply in the red. Women have long been branded as the more deceptive sex, and yet tests at the institute seem to leave little room for doubt that the world’s worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) fibbers are men. They average nine untruths a day, ranging from little white lies to absolute whoppers. Women, on the other hand, usually restrict themselves to five or six. EVERYTHING

According to the institute psychiatrist, Dr Martin Weiss, men fib about everything—from the grade of petrol they use to the books they read. “A man fired from his job may distort the truth in an effort to keep the good opinion of his friends,” says Dr Weiss. “A woman will probably just blurt out what really happened.

“As a rule men fib more than women about things like money and business, and women are more likely to lie about human and social relationships. He may exaggerate his earnings, the importance of his position, and his triumphs over his competitors. . ,

"She is more likely to stretch the truth over the number of marriage proposals she has had, the cleverness of her children,

and how much she pays for her clothes.”

Yet, apparently, we should not feel too guilty about our white lies. According to Dr Benjamin Karpman, the chief psychiatrist at St Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, some “verbal deception is essential to contemporary living.” What would happen, Dr Karpman wonders, if Mrs Jones told Mrs Brown what she really thought of her, and Mrs Brown returned the compliment. Indeed, says Dr Karpman, our way of life not only permits fibbing on occasions but creates many situations which make it almost essential if people are to get along socially. Men, it seems, fib almost for the sake of it; women do it with a purpose. A typical example is when a husband comes home from work shaking with tiredness and frustration and asks whether you went shopping as you said you were going to. Kicking the box containing that expensive dress further under the sofa, you fib that you decided to go tomorrow instead. The chances are that by then he will be in a better temper. Tell him about your purchase today, and things are almost certain to end in a blazing row. SUITABILITY Electronic gadgetry may be used for purposes other than catching out fibbing spouses. Come 1975 or thereabouts, there should be another machine available which will offer to couples a virtually foolproof method of finding out whether they are likely to hit it off together. No-one can deny that many unhappy marriages could be i avoided if young couples knew as much about each other before the wedding as I they do after a few years of i marriage.

Soon, predict scientists, there may be a method of finding out—using techniques capable of revealing a person’s true personality and character.

Science fiction? Not at all. The answer lies in the rhythms or patterns of the electrical activity in the brain. And scientists are now working on machines which pick up and interpret brain I patterns. Already there is evidence I that some of these waves can {reveal by their patterns the {main facets of a subject’s {personality as distinctly as his fingerprints reveal his 'identity. BRAIN TESTS Before long it is hoped to {be able to test the brainjwaves of engaged couples

and determine whether their personalities are suited for a happy married life together. They may still go on fibbing, but at least the machine should ensure that they are the sort of little white lies we want to hear—like the fib that we are the most beautiful women in the world—even though our hair happens to be in curlers and our hands deep in suds in the kitchen sink.—Features International.