Depth-charging (psychology)

Depth-charging is the term for using information to attempt to provoke someone in order to gauge their reaction and thus the truthfulness and accuracy of the given information. It relies on confirmation in order to work and is largely counteracted by false confirmation attacks.

Origin
The term 'depth-charging' originates from the phrase used in early submarine warfare, where a destroyer would often drop depth charges over the side of the ship in order to detect or force a submarine to surface.

Indirect depth charges force the submarine to take evasive action to avoid the possibility of a hull breach, and potentially generating sonar signatures that potentially can give away it's position to the attacking destroyer.

Submarines hit with a depth charge that breaches the outer hull often require that the submarine immediately surface in order to avoid taking on too much water and sinking, and thus revealing thier location to the attacking destroyer, forcing the submarine to either surrender or allowing the destroyer's main guns to commence fire.

Likewise, a quip or a comment will cause an individual to 'react' (the more personal and cutting the quip - and the closer to the truth - the more explosive and noticeable the reaction), and in some cases, will force them to 'surface' by revealing their true intentions and feelings regarding a particular statement. Like with submarine warfare, the individual doesn't know the position of the target until they drop a depth charge and sees what happens.

Usage
When correctly used, depth-charging is a dangerously useful tool, which will allow an individual to get to the very heart, even the psyche, of a given individual in a few short moves. A large, explosive reaction is often deemed a "direct hit" and a minor reaction implying stress or nervousness is often deemed an "indirect hit". Assuming a false confirmation attack isn't being used, then no reaction would be a "miss" or a "no hit", however even silence can be reaction (especially when they should have said something or done something), which can be a type of stonewalling or ignoring (in the hopes the problem goes away).

Depth-charging can be done in two ways: blind (also known as 'cold reading') or directed (also known as 'hot reading').

Blind:
Blind is where you don't know anything about the individual initially and are dropping depth-charges at random to see which one scores a hit, if any. It relies heavily on a process of elimination, perhaps based on binary tree search logic to arrive at the conclusion. Any information obtained (writing style, reaction, reading of subconscious cues, etc) can be used to improve the accuracy of the depth charges. Like a submarine, however, they may opt to 'go silent' (the submarine equal of cutting their engines) and thus can make it difficult to achieve. Blind is often necessary with anonymous individuals or real-time situations where preparation isn't possible.

Directed:
Directed is where you gather as much information as reasonably possible so the depth charges have some reasonable basis and thus a greater deal of accuracy and thus a higher probability of hitting the target. Individuals are often not troubled by information out in the wild, however the information they have already mentioned may allow an individual to deduce particular depth charge points. For example, an individual might state a particular achievement, but the reason for that achievement may be an inferiority complex.

Depth-charging:
Depth-charging requires you build up a mental overview of the emotional profile of the individual first, what might be argued as an "emotional table" or "emotional database", which allows you to gauge what emotions and reactions are "normal" for an individual and which aren't. Each individual is unique in their emotional levels and reactions due to differing experiences, and so what might be a 'lie tell' for one person might be a 'truth tell' for another.

This requires observations of the individual over time, or depth-charging questions which allow you to gauge true-true-false reasoning and thus the subconscious cues.

Counteraction
Counting a depth-charge depends on the level of capability and thus confidence of the individual using the depth-charge. Experts with a high-level confidence in their depth-charging ability cannot be easily thrown-off compared to novices who doubt the techniques validity. Experts are also capable of keeping tabs of true cues that indicate a feigned emotional reaction compared to novices who may not have any understanding of what to look for.

Inexperienced individuals may also not know how to produce feigned or non-informative reactions convincingly, and may be at a much bigger disadvantage. Some feigned reactions can be so bad they are more of a give away than appropriate reactions.