Do you ever tell a story the same way twice? What about your credibility?

Ask yourself, “ What do memories, behaviors, and verbal and written responses have in common?”

They are necessary if we want to be considered credible or trustworthy. Here’s the catch (in comes biases)… Humans are naturally skeptical when scenarios don’t follow the script in our own minds. We doubt perfection but welcome expertise.

Strangely enough, the best captivators are masterminds at weaving truthful and deceptive conversation into commonplace reality. And we believe it!

Memories are created and re-created. A receiver’s reactions or feedback to a sender’s statements or questions, can easily alter short-term memories and in turn, behavioral cues. This currently applies to all interviews and interrogations.

Like icebergs, humans’ behavior is always changing; randomness is acceptable but not always comfortable for some. If our behavior was equivalent to our personality traits, we would be 2-D beings, in the most boring way.

Behavior is dynamic and forever changing, based on our input and output with our environments. (Think: Iceberg). Personality types are static; they are representative or a summation of how we typically react to situations or incoming stimuli.

For example, I love celebrations on any kind; I’m a cheerful talkative person at celebrations. With that said, I am an analytic and very much an introvert, my happy place is a comfortable place alone or with a couple of friends.

We often do not realize how much our world around us affects our thoughts, perceptions, and in turn our behaviors. Because our world does not remain constant, the snippets of our memory bind together and become representations of our perceptions.

Transitional physical evidence comes and goes, as does each sensory input, changing representations. Yes, verbal and written responses change with each interaction and reflection of memories.

This is why we never perfectly replicate the same story twice. This is also why multiple interviews is not always better.

I welcome your thoughts, ideas, or questions.