A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector

After years of catching thieves with the lie-detector, we've perfected a way to catch them with paper and pencil.

-- Advertisement for the Reid Report
We all, like sheep, have gone astray. -- HANDEL, the Messiah

I first heard of paper-and-pencil "honesty" tests in 1976, at a hearing before a committee of the Minnesota state legislature on a bill to ban polygraph testing of employees. Sister Terressa, a Roman Catholic nun, asked to testify. She told the committee that she had applied for a job at a B. Dalton bookstore which, at that time, was using a questionnaire called the Reid Report, to screen prospective employees. A week or two after completing her application, Sister Terressa called B. Dalton's to inquire. "I'm sorry," she was told, "I'm afraid you got the lowest score on the honesty test that we've ever seen!" Largely because of Sister Terressa's testimony, the Minnesota statute outlawed not only the polygraph but "any other test purporting to test honesty."

The Reid Report was developed by Reid's polygraph testing firm in

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