You know the answer to your own question, and you attempt to bait me. Well, I don't care, Polyfool. I will respond to the question because I don't feel that my response will in any way negatively affect potential polygraph subjects. I know all of the "ins and outs" of the polygraph, and I have been tested repeatedly. A properly conducted polygraph works almost every time on me or any other basically honest person. A polygraph depends on questions being significant to the subject. Most people have not engaged in serious criminal activity, or at least I am optimistic enough to believe that to be the case. But everyone--and I mean everyone--has lied and does lie on a consistent basis, whether that be daily, weekly, or even just monthly. Obviously some people are more honest than others. My brother, for example, is very religious, and he almost won't lie about anything, yet he feels the need to go to weekly confessional. So obviously, at least in his own mind, he feels the need to confess his "sins," and he feels that he "sins" on a regular basis. My cousin, on the other hand, lies about everything, and seems to feel no remorse for doing so. If I were testing these two individuals, I would use "universal" lie questions that would apply to both of them. Even though my cousin seems to feel no remorse for his lies, it doesn't really matter because the polygraph does not depend on a guilty conscience as many people believe. It depends on questions being significant to the subject. It operates on recognition, whether it's a "stim test" or a CQT test. When a subject admits, admits, admits in the interview, the examiner has not done his or her job correctly. A good examiner will make honesty seem so necessary to get the job, and convince the subject that anyone who doesn't measure up to those standards isn't what the department or agency is looking for, that the subject will feel that there is no alternative other than claiming to be an honest person and the kind of person fit for the job. Then the examiner will ask the subject if he or she is honest, or if he or she is a liar. Any normal person will say that he or she is honest. The examiner will praise the subject for his or her honesty. After all of this, almost no subject is then going to turn around and admit to being a big liar. So you see, in a properly conducted polygraph exam, it is highly unusual for a subject to admit, admit, admit, thereby making himself or herself out to be a big liar even before the test begins. Admission to many lies during the interview stage does not make a person appear to be an honest individual, but rather a scared individual--someone who has a lying past but who is now scared when faced with the polygraph. If a person does admit, admit, admit, it is the polygrapher's job to make the person feel bad about his or her admittedly lying past. When done properly, the polygraph works almost all the time, whether or not a person admits to anything. But there is no polygrapher who wants to have a subject to whom none of the questions have any significance, and there is no polygrapher who wants to sit there and be a priest to someone's every transgression, so excessive admissions are discouraged.
|