The anger response from a person does not mean that he is going to be deceitful, nor does its absence mean that the person is going to be truthful. A person certainly may use anger to avoid being caught in deceit, but a person who has been wrongly accused of anything sig-nificant also has every right to be angry.
As we described, anger results in poor listening behaviors on the part of the angry person. As someone who is interested in getting to the bottom of some issue or conflict between another and myself, I need to know when barriers exist between the two of us and resolu-tion of our problem. I must be able to identify the speech content evi-dence that this person may be angry. Most of the time we think that the signs of anger include a loud voice, harsh facial expression, and aggressive nonverbal behaviors. Those are only the obvious symp-toms, however. A person may respond to a situation with anger in a very cold, flat response.
The mental state of anger can be present when someone uses diffused or disguised remarks. For example, instead of addressing the specific issue you might have raised with him, he may complain about the fact that you have brought up the topic, or say that he doesn’t want to discuss the issue right now. Of course, if you have brought up a sensitive or complex issue in front of other people or when one or both of you have time constraints, then it may be the wrong time to discuss the topic. But a person may be withholding critical details from you if he questions why you are making your inquiry as opposed to giving you an answer to your question.
As an investigative interviewer, I have always found it interest-ing when a person does not deny the fact that he has done somethinterest-ing wrong, but instead attacks the facts contained in my case. These peo-ple don’t deny they did the deed, it’s just that, “You can’t prove it.”
Think of how often you’ve heard someone say, “There’s no real proof,”
“They have no real evidence,” or, “You can’t prove I did that.” Perhaps there is a product on the market that a consumer protection group
has identified as dangerous. You may hear the offending company defend their product by saying that the safety tests are not reliable, the results have not been reported accurately, the results have been misrepresented, or the testing agency was biased. Notice that they offer no alternate evidence and may even say, “Well, it always worked for us,” or, “We’ve had no substantiated reports.”
Other diversionary tactics that may be demonstrated by a per-son who is angry may be to argue about minor details or trivial points. I may insist the time or maybe even the date of a particular incident is wrong. Maybe the description of my behavior is not accu-rate. Maybe the number of times I did or did not do something is incorrect or perhaps the volume or amount of what I had in my hands, how much I spent, how much something cost, or its value becomes the point that I choose to argue about. I can find any num-ber of unrelated issues to raise in order to avoid addressing the heart of the conflict between us. Remember that these forms of behavior by themselves are not a definitive indication of deception, but, if they are numerous and if they appear amid a cluster of other verbal and nonverbal signals, then they are a pretty good indication that eva-sion of the real issue is taking place.
Of course, an aggressive response by another person can be very personal. This response is obviously going to be very destructive of any effort to find common ground or compromise. If you ever read the newspapers or see news reports regarding people who have commit-ted a crime, you have no doubt heard about the individual who blamed the victim for what happened. He should have not been there at that time of night. The person was of questionable character in the first place or lived a dangerous lifestyle. What about the two siblings who have been in a fight? Invariably the parent who separates the two children is going to hear, “He started it!”
In the most openly aggressive situations, one person may ver-bally attack another in an attempt to maintain control and domi-nance of a situation he could feel is quickly slipping away. I may
engage in highly intimidating verbal dialogue such as threatening to ruin your career or tell your friends something embarrassing about you. Following are several examples of this kind of evasive verbal attack:
• “Just who are you to ask such a thing?”
• “Is it really any of your business?”
• “You have no idea what I’m going through.”
• “Don’t even talk to me until you have to face the same exact situation.”
As an expression of anger, you may be accused of not being impartial or that you are biased in some form and therefore your judgment is flawed or your intentions less than genuine. Here are some more examples:
• “You are just saying that because I belong to the union.”
• “The only reason you’re doing this is because you never really liked me.”
• “You’ve always been jealous of me.”
An excellent way I can get the upper hand is to point out some past error or transgression that you have committed and be sure to remind you that you, too, are human and are not without flaws. In all these situations, the real issue at hand is not being addressed and the attention of both persons is being distracted to side or even unre-lated issues.
Other examples of angry responses that may be used to distract you may be found in the form of accusations such as:
• “It doesn’t matter what I say, you’ve already got your mind made up anyway.”
• “You’re doing all this just to prove to people how important you are.”
• “It’s obvious that he is out of control.”
• “They have always had it in for me.”
• “I’m just a thorn in their side so they will try to ruin me.”
Once again, remember that a person using anger is trying to regain control of a situation which he feels has gotten out of hand. At the same time, he may still be avoiding the importance of the issue itself.