How to Recognize and React to Duper’s Delight

• Duper’s delight is the joy someone experiences after they get away with a lie.
• Signs of duper’s delight are flashes of inappropriate smiles, crinkled eyes, and lip biting.
• The best way to deal with duper’s delight is to recognize it, encourage the truth, and disengage from the person if you keep seeing it.

What is duper’s delight?

Duper’s delight is the pleasure someone takes in getting away with a lie. While lying is often associated with guilt and fear of being caught, there’s another reaction, "duper’s delight”, that can be triggered when a lie is believed. It’s the pleasure of getting an extra treat out of the cookie jar when no one’s watching. The feeling comes from the same hit of dopamine the brain gets when something goes your way. ”Duper’s delight” is often used to refer to involuntary microexpressions, or split second facial expressions that can’t be controlled and are thought to “leak” the true feelings of the liar. The microexpressions associated with duper’s delight are curling and biting your lips, crinkling your eyes, and tossing back your head. Duper’s delight can be felt by anyone. One 1996 study found that ⅕ of people’s interactions included some amount of deception. It’s a world of liars, but not a world of bad people. Duper’s delight is commonly felt when no one has been harmed by the lie, but that’s what makes it dangerous. The little “high” that you feel can cause you to lie more and more often.

Signs of Duper’s Delight

Smiling inappropriately This is the number one sign of duper’s delight. If someone knows they’re getting away with a substantial lie, they may smile as they’re telling it, or after the lie has been accepted as truth. This is famously seen in an interview with Diane Downs while she lies about the deaths of her children (who she killed). After she claims to be haunted by the experience, she smiles.

Lip biting If a gleeful deceiver can feel the corners of their lips turning up, they may try to shut the smile down by biting their lips. Facial “neutralizing” is a common practice while lying, since the body acts before the conscious mind can get in control of it. The result is a facial expression that gets shut down right after it starts. Another sign of facial neutralization would be if someone’s eyes crinkle before their face relaxes again.

Throwing back the head Just like uncontrollable smiling, throwing back the head can mean that you’re filled with glee. It’s another gesture that’s difficult to control and can “leak” through when experiencing duper’s delight.

Mismatched body language The excitement in getting away with a lie can sometimes conflict with the situation around the lie itself. Watch for people shaking their head “no” when they say yes to things, shrugging their shoulders after saying a definitive statement, or tensing up when they say they’re happy or relaxed. For example, if you’re buying a house and the realtor says “It’s in fantastic condition” and then shrugs, they may be trying to pull one over on you. When presidential candidate John Edwards was being interviewed about a child he denied fathering out of wedlock, the interviewer asked him if he’d be willing to take a paternity test. Edwards says “[I’d be] happy to take a paternity test” while shaking his head no. Reading body language is often considered a pseudoscience, but can be helpful for navigating some interactions.

What to Do When You See Duper’s Delight

Keep in mind that signs and body language can’t confirm someone’s lying. As much as people’s faces betray how they feel, there’s no definitive way to tell that someone is lying or experiencing duper’s delight. Different people have different facial expressions and ticks, and a runaway smile or air of nervousness in one situation could actually be in reference to another. If you’re catching someone as they’re running out the door to a fun event, their joy could bleed into your more serious conversation.

Respond non-defensively. When you’re trying to get someone to be honest, it’s not a good idea to just call them a liar. If you strongly think something happened differently than a person has told you, calmly tell them what you believe and ask them if they can help you make sense of the discrepancy. For example, if you’re asking a colleague about who broke the office coffee maker and they say “Jeff did it”, you can respond with “I heard Jeff doesn’t drink coffee. Is there a reason you think he did it?”

Ask followup questions to get to the truth. When someone is lying, the truth still exists within them. You’re likely to get more honest information if you ask non confrontational questions about the event. If you’re in a formal setting, questions like “Do you have anything else to tell me?” and “Do you have any words of wisdom for me?” can help coax people towards the truth. Repeating the person’s answers back to them can also incite them to offer up more information. Your response has to be based in truth, of course.

Look for patterns of lies in the person's life. If you’re interacting with someone regularly who you see duper’s delight in, take note of other signs of lying. People who lie compulsively often have failed relationships, broken promises, and late assignments littered around them. Think about other interactions you’ve had with this person. Have they not held up their end of group projects, routinely canceled appointments, or run through many partners in your time knowing them? These are all signs they may have a problem with lying. Take into account the interactions they’ve had with other people, too. If another one of your colleagues refuses to work with this person (or has talked about anything above) that’s another good sign that this person may not be trustworthy.

Walk away. If someone is routinely taking pleasure in deceiving you, even if the deceptions are small, the best thing you can do is to disengage from the situation. Lies only have power when they’re believed, so to neutralize duper’s delight, don’t interact with the lies you feel you’re being told. Walking away can look like anything from cutting someone off entirely to dialing back a relationship to a strictly professional level.

Consider the negative consequences of lying if you experience duper's delight. If you experience duper’s delight yourself, keep in mind that duper’s guilt is just as prevalent and powerful. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but it can reinforce bad behavior. When you recognize it in yourself, take it as a sign to start being more honest. A 2023 study found that after lying to someone, even if you’ve experienced that brief dopamine hit, you’re likely to feel regret and guilt.