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Since liars cannot rely on facts to establish their credibility, they tend to bolster their credibility to make their version of facts appear believable. Read More
The statement: "You should
The statement: "You should believe me because I'm telling you the truth" isn't offering a reason. It is a mere tautology. If the questioner knew that the contents of the suspect's statement were true there would be no need to ask the question. It actually suggests that the suspect cannot think of any evidence in support of his statement which would be more likely in the event of deception.
Detection deception is difficult
Your premise that the questioner knows the suspects statement is true is not sound. In the majority of investigations, investigators don't know if the suspect is telling the truth or not. Further, most typical suspects have been involved in other criminal activities and know how the criminal justice system works and have developed work arounds to defeat the system. Therein lies the problem. The suspect has no credibility to start, they are very good liars, and they are highly motivated to keep the truth from surfacing. These techniques, as I said many times, are only indicators or deception, not proof of deception. Truthful people do not need evidence to support their positions because they are simply relating facts. Consequently, they fall back to the truth by saying, "Because I'm telling you the truth."
Uh.
"Because I'm telling the truth!"... really? If this is what a typical person says if he's being truthful, then the typical person couldn't think himself out of a wet paper sack.
People *should* justify their claims. When did this become a bad thing? Absurd.
This bothered me, too. I
This bothered me, too. I can't imagine answering the question "Why should I believe you," with "Because I'm telling the truth." In my experience, that answer is exactly the answer offered by a liar. People who are telling the truth and who are truthful by nature, don't brag about their own truthfulness. They take it for granted. They will say, "Because it's the truth;" they won't self-reference.
A derivation thereof
You posit that honest people will respond,"Because it's the truth." This response is a derivation or the response "Because I'm telling the truth." I don't see any problem with this response. We would both agree that the response is a truthful indicator. Remember, the Poor Man's Polygraph is only an indicator of deception, not proof of deception.
about "the truthiness"
I always tell the truth, even when sometimes I am better off telling the "white" lie. When somebody asks me "why should I believe you?" My response would most likely be" I do not care if you believe me"- Because, I truly "do not care" what some stranger, even in position of authority thinks of me. Did you think of that?
What I think
I commend your honesty. Notwithstanding, as I stated many times, there is no single cue, verbal or nonverbal, that signals deception. Deceptive indicators come in clusters and clusters of clusters. If these are not present, then it is more difficult to detect deception. And that's what I think of that.
Only indicators
This is only one indicator of deception and, as I stated many times, it is not fool proof. You have to remember you are looking at this technique without being under the pressure of lying. If you don't have that pressure, the technique may be hard to comprehend. In my 25 years of interviewing liars, honest typically answer the question with, "Because I'm telling the truth." Truthful people don't have to justify their claims. They let their yeses be yeses and their nos be nos. Liars must justify their claims because they are just that...claims.
Tautology
A tautology is a statement which is true because of its form, regardless of its content. E.g., "If A and B then B." The statement "You should believe me because I'm telling you the truth" is not a tautology, "mere" or otherwise.
If someone were to say to me "Because I'm telling the truth or some derivation thereof," I would most certainly wonder which derivation he meant. Is it possible that punctuation may change meaning?
the answers to the question
This seems a little self-contradictory. If a truthful person has more cognitive ability, he'll be able to think of things in order to answer the questions (for instance "Because I'm not a thief", "Because I'm an honest person.") A liar would be more pressured, and would reply "Because I'm telling the truth". This has been my experience so far, when I've been able to prove that people are lying, or when I suspect they're doing so, they'll often say: "It's the truth". Also, I consistently say things along the lines of "I don't care if you believe me or not", or "I don't know", simply because I really don't care or I really don't see a way to convince the other party of my honesty, not as a result of some lie I'm telling.
Observations
Your points are well-taken. You have to remember that none of the techniques presented in the Poor Man's Polygraph are 100%. These are only indicators of deception, not proof of deception. These techniques were developed using extant literature on deception, which as you well know is not conclusive. The best way to detect deception is to corroborate what a person says with outside evidence. Absent this, detecting deception is difficult. The Poor Man's Polygraph gives people some techniques to indicate deception as well as the truth when outside evidence has not yet been discovered or is nonexistent in the case of an innocent person.
I agree
I think the answer "Because I'm telling the truth" is stupid. But it may be a good indicator of truthiness if we are talking to stupid people. And criminals are often stupid people.
If we are asking the same question to thoughtful people, it may not be a good indicator.
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