Readers of this blog will know my interest in lies and how they relate to body language in particular.  I’ve even delivered a workshop called Lies and Damned Lies: How to Become a Human Lie Detector.  I want to use this blog to flag up some general development and stories in this area.

“Researchers are testing how people judge honest behaviour because they are worried jurors could reach a verdict based on the way a defendant looks.”  In connection to this story, check out a link to The Honesty Lab, “the first ever international study to explore public concepts of honesty”.

Just to counterbalance the gender bias in the first story, read here how one in four British woman admit they would lie when it comes to trying to conceive without their partners consent.

Doctors are among the professionals that expect to hear lies from the public.  One doctor speculates that this is “because the NHS is free at the point of delivery [so] its worth is not fully appreciated”.  Interesting…

Priests, politicians and psychologists from Northern Ireland all discuss the pros, but mostly the cons, of lies in society.  It seems there are few of us in this country who tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

From a scientific rather than a social perspective, brains scans seem to provide a way forward in lie detection.  “Brain scans could be useful as lie detectors to show if a witness lies when identifying a suspect in a crime investigation, US researchers believe.”  Perhaps they are even reliable enough to detect criminals and those who lie under oath.

And what about politicians: can they be honest?  Can they give a straight answer to any question?  And could we take it if they did?  I’d be lying if I said I thought we could…

P.S. Related “curve ball” story: Toddlers who lie ‘will do better’ in later life!

According to recent research, what women want is ‘men who are kind’.  Why?  The characteristic of altruism – selfless concern for the welfare of others – suggests that a man may make a better parent and is not just in the relationship for sex.  

Macho risk-taking is not the way to a woman’s heart.

What women need to hear is that having a big bum, hips and thighs ‘is healthy’.  Why?  Hip fat mops up harmful fatty acids and contains an anti-inflammatory agent that stops arteries clogging.  Large thighs perform the same function.

This seems to me like a win-win situation.  Nice guys don’t finish last.  And women who don’t look like catwalk models will last longer.

Just thought you should know…

Image credit: pacomexico.

There, that’s got you reading!  You’ll search long and hard to find a more explosive mix than the three things mentioned in the title of this blog.  There’s been a big discussion about them in the British media recently since it’s been discovered (again) that poor white boys struggle in GCSEs and indeed all other academic tests.  But which of the three is the deciding factor?

Most of the politicians and journalists on the centre-left are quick to blame inequality and class divisions as the culprits.  Their solution? The usual suspect – ‘invest’ i.e. spend more money on schools in deprived areas.  The centre-right talk in general terms about social fragmentation and the ‘broken society’ but bypass details.  No-one seems to want to make it a race issue, including me.  Statistically speaking, the racial element in this triple whammy is negligible anyway.

I would want to disagree with the class warriors and suggest that gender is key here.  I’ve blogged before that our contemporary education system is increasingly biased against boys.  I’ve also noticed the tendency in wider society to undervalue the role of men raising boys and initiating them into the world adulthood.  If this situation is not radically altered then the trend of male failure in schools will continue unabated.

And the point is, the distinction here isn’t between some education and no education.  These boys will get an education one way or another.  If not at school, then somewhere else (gangs, TV, music and the web being the pedagogues of choice ).  And if not by positive male mentors, then with negative role models.  We had better get over the PC myth of gender-neutrality that’s infected our political and therefore educational system before it’s too late.

And I should know.  Because I’m one of the white, working-class boys that the system almost failed.

Read more about this story from the Mail and the Telegraph here.  Read more about how I ended up with an education here.

Image credit: dave_mcmt.