Quote:

Lying is dishonest; you should not do it under any circumstances. However, to reduce your chances of a false positive, apply the countermeasures described in TLBTLD to the control (comparison) questions.

George W. Maschke wrote on Aug 19^th, 2011 at 12:57pm:

George, I am not so sure we can alter some universal ethics when we deem it to be in our best interest. Barring such fringe cases like lying about being a Jew in Nazi Germany or under the Spanish Inquisition, I would think that when the law of universality is appropriately applied, most would concur that lying is unethical. In fact, there are some who would say "lying is unethical period, regardless if George says it's okay on polygraph control questions."

So, as an exercise, let's walk such a person through a polygraph. During the pre-test interview, he may be asked "Before becoming employed with this company, did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" An examinee with the aforementioned ethic fiber would say "yes, of course, I'm human." Probing further, the examiner would try to solicit one or two admissions in order to get a 'No' answer. But this person could simply say "I'm not going to tell you every lie I've ever told as this has nothing to do with the subject of the polygraph."

The clever examiner would then attempt the Directed Lie testing format. However, being consistent with his ethic belief system, he would simply say: " I told you, I consider lying to be wrong, even more so when some dweeb orders me to."

Frustrated, he is tossed out of the polygraph suite with a big Inconclusive for refusing to cooperate. Being totally honest causes you to be untestable?--a most interesting paradox.

Chuckles wrote on Aug 21^st, 2011 at 9:04am:

I guess it's a dog eat dog world and we all have milk bone underwear.