Why we’re bad at detecting lies, according to scientists—and The Traitors | Scientific American

March 11, 2026 Add Us On Google Add SciAm How The Traitors reveals the psychology behind lying From cognitive overload to pretty privilege, the science behind The Traitor s shows what really makes lies believable By Kendra Pierre-Louis , Jackie Flynn Mogensen , Fonda Mwangi & Alex Sugiura Euan Cherry/Peacock SUBSCRIBE TO Science Quickly Apple | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American ’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. The global reality TV show franchise The Traitors has a simple premise: among a cast of, say, 23 people, roughly 20 are “faithfuls,” and about three are “traitors.” The job of the traitors is to lie so they remain undetected. The job of the faithfuls is to suss them out. All of that led SciAm ’s breaking news reporter Jackie Flynn Mogensen to wonder, “What does science have to tell us about how to spot liars? And what can it tell us about how to be more effective liars?” On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. She recently wrote about all this and is here to spill the deets. But before we get started, if you’re interested in the current U.S. season of The Traitors and haven’t seen it, be warned there will be spoilers. Hi, Jackie. Thanks for joining us today. Jackie Flynn Mogensen: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. Pierre-Louis: So for those who haven’t seen the show, can you tell us a little bit about what Traitors is? Mogensen: Yes, so Traitors is essentially a reality TV game show that is a lot like the party game Mafia, if you’ve ever played it, where there is a group of traitors within the group and everyone else are faithfuls. The goal for the faithfuls is to vote out the traitors, and the goal of the traitors is to pretend to be faithful for the length of the game. And the cast, it’s usually, for the U.S. version, a cast of celebrities ... Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm. Mogensen: Reality TV stars, Olympic athletes, actors, etcetera. And at stake is a prize pot worth $250,000. Pierre-Louis: I know the season just recently ended. Can you tell us a little bit about how this season went? Mogensen: This was one of the best seasons that I’ve seen so far, and I have watched the Australia version as well. [Laughs.] And I think it was just overall, really a master class in lying by Rob Rausch from Love Island, who ended up winning the show. He does a fantastic job of blending in as a faithful and ultimately [does] a really great job of lying to his fellow castmates. And he basically goes pretty much undetected the whole season and in the end betrays some of his closest allies, which was very sad to watch, but also made really great television. Pierre-Louis: What made you decide that this was worthy of, like, scientific exploration? Mogensen: Well, first of all, I am a superfan of the show. I started watching a few seasons ago. And people in the office I know are also fans, too, and combined with y’all’s Heated Rivalry episode from earlier this year—I was really inspired by that. I felt like it could be a good opportunity to dive into the science of one of my favorite shows, too. Pierre-Louis: One of the big things in the show and that you really get into [in] your reporting is essentially, like, the science of lying. And I feel like humans have been obsessed with the idea of figuring out how to tell if someone is lying. But one of the things your article points out is, generally, we’re pretty bad at it. I think there was a meta-analysis that looked at a bunch of studies and found that, on average, people are about 50–50 at detecting liars. Why are we so bad at it? Mogensen: This is a question I did ask some of my sources in my reporting. I think there’s a few reasons. I think one of the main ones is that we let our biases get in the way, and that’s one of their main strategies—if you were to be in the show The Traitors or if you want to be better at detecting lies, something to do is just throw out the biases you have about other people and lying itself. So for instance, one of the key misunderstandings that I heard from both sources is that liars, if they’re telling a lie, won’t look you in the eye ... Pierre-Louis: Mm-hmm. Mogensen: But that’s actually not true at all. Liars, if they’re good, know that’s what people expect, and they will purposely look you in the eye, whereas, you know, in this conversation right now I’m thinking about what I might say next; I look to the side. That’s not an indication of lying. [Laughs.] At least I hope you don’t think so. But in general people look to the side