James Pennebaker
August 1, 2011
This is James W. Pennebaker, the Professor and Chair of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s done an in-depth study of the linguistics of deceit as well as that of truth.
The upshot of his investigation is that when people tell the truth, they usually use I-words at high rates. The one big exception is the performative case, such as when people start a sentence with something like “I want you to know that…” or “Let me be perfectly clear…” Anything that follows can’t be judged as false or truthful.
Performatives are a delightful way to deceive while technically telling the truth.
