Has anyone ever taken a polygraph test and what are your thoughts on them.?

Question

Give little details on what you thought or how you felt if possible. Answer with the best details gets the points. Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes.  I took a Polygraph test for a Police and Fire Dispatch position in a Sheriff Department in Colorado.  The test was 2.5 hours and I was really nervous.  Had never had anything like that before in my life.  They can be long, you can be nervous, even if you are free of any serious criminal problems.  I had a career as a 9-1-1 Dispatcher.  The only department that used the polygraph was the Sheriff.  I passed.  It was stressful.  Hope this helps you some

Answer 2

back when such things were legal,i worked at a pharmacy.every1 who closed @ nite had a polygraph,to root out druggies.problem was,the manager said"theyll ask if u ever took pot,and of course they wont believe u,no matter what u say."i stayed up all night,enraged by the unfairness and by the invasion of my privacy,and by the futility,if what my manager said was true.u see,i had never-and still have not-taken ANY illicit drug,nor do i drink alcohol.call me prudish or old fashioned,but i dont do these things,thats not a part of who i am/how i live.of course,when asked the question,i showed extreme stress reactions.the interviewer at first thought i was lying,till i told him what the managewr had said,and how badly i had stressed over it.he then determined,because of anxiety over the question,i had a false positive-i wasnt lying,its just that the question pulled forth very strong anxiety in me.it made me wonder-i am such a tense,anxious person by nature.my whole family is.what if im ever falsely accused of a crime?being accused at all would send me into a tailspin of anxiety fear and guilt.yes,guilt-even tho i had not done the crime,being a person with anxiety issues,i feel "free-floating" guilt-as if im personally responsible somehow,for lack of world peace,hunger,holes in the ozone layer-whatever the issue,i feel guilty about it.its what i do best....it terrifies me to think that a real psychopath-low in guilt or anxiety-could probably learn to beat the test,whereas people with ocd/anxiety,tho innocent-might fail,because our high stress reactions would be over the moon!lie detectors dont detect lies,per se,they detect abnormallly high patterns of stress/anxiety in response to certain questions.i am actually paranoid about ever being falsely accused of anything,because im sure that my anxious responses would indicate "guilt",altho i am not only innocent,but because my anxiety/fear of punishment pretty much make me the LEAST likely person to break ANY kind of law-my fear would never allow me to do so!!!!!!!!but i freak so badly,hyperventilate and everything-i probable SEEM like the guiltiest person around!

Answer 3

yes,thoughts are they are very stressful anytime a person has to take one,but in the end the truth will come out.

Answer 4

It was years ago, I was very young, and things may have changed since then.  But it was a bank trying to prove that its employees (a group of us) didn't steal money from one of their clients who was accusing us.  I was freaked out.  And during the test, everytime they mentioned the "issue" (of what happened to the money), I could feel my heart race, my blood pressure go up and shortness of breath even though I was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, so I thought oh, c**p, they're going to think I did it because I get extremely nervous everytime they even mention the issue!  

Evidently that's all figured into the test as a normal reaction because I passed with flying colors.   Good luck if you're having one.  I'm pretty confident if you're innocent, you'll pass.  They say the only people who can't be measured on those tests are people without a conscience or some disorder where they don't have the average human responses to things.

- Just wanted to add that I agree with the person below.  It was very stressful for me that my company asked me to take the test and and it was a blow that they thought so little of me.  All of us thought the bank should have refused to make us take the tests.  I would NEVER do that for another company again.  I would refuse.