DECEPTION & DECEPTION

DETECTION
Deceiving others is an
essential part of everyday social
interaction (Aldert Vrij, 2000)

Deception quiz

liar, liar pants on fire?

Were these famous (or
infamous) figures lying or
telling the truth?

lying is common
DePaulo & Kashy (1998): the
average person lied to 34% of the
people with whom she/he
interacted in a typical week.
Hample (1980) respondents
reported lying an avg. of 13 times
per week.
DePaulo & Bell (1996) Married
couples lied in 1 out of 10
interactions with their partners.
DePaulo & Kashy (1988): college
students lied to their mothers in
half of their conversations
Robinson, Shepherd, & Heywood
(1998): 83% of respondents said
they would lie in order to get a job.
Hmmwhat if the people surveyed in these studies
were lying?

Bill Clinton, I never had sexual

relations with that woman, Ms.
Lewinsky, and I never, ever told
anyone to lie.

why lie?
motivations for lying

Lie to benefit another

Lie for affiliation
Lie to protect privacy
Lie to avoid conflict
Lie to appear better (self
promotion)
Lie to protect self
Lie to benefit self
Lie to harm another (malicious
intent)
Lie for amusement (duping
delight)

Donald Rumsfeld caught in a lie

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2537851

common misconceptions
about lying
No single, typical pattern of
deceptive behavior exists (Vrij,
2000)

Example: 64% of liars in one

study showed a decrease in hand
finger and arm movements
35% of liars showed an increase
in the same movements

Observers rely on false signs:

Response latency: taking longer

to answer
Eye contact: providing less eye
contact
Postural shifting: squirming, body
movement

All three are unreliable indicators

of deception

more on misconceptions
Liars dont necessarily look up and
to the left
No proof that gaze is tied to neurolinguistic processing
To date, evidence that eye movements
indicate deception is lacking. Even those
authors who suggested this relationship
exists never presented any data
supporting their view (Vrij, 2000, p. 38)

conceptualizations of deception
two category approach
white lies (benefit other)
blatant lies (self-interest)
three category approach
falsification (outright
falsehoods)
misrepresentation
(distortion, exaggeration)
concealment (omission,
suppression)

Was Saddam Hussein too

good at bluffing for his own
good? He convinced the
Bush administration that he
really did have WMDs

lying is a form of
compliance gaining
deceptive communication is
intentional
deceptive communication
seeks a specific effect or
outcome
deception (if its successful)
occurs without the conscious
awareness of the target
deception involves two or
more persons
except for self-deception or
being in denial

deception relies on symbolic

and nonsymbolic behavior
(e.g., nonverbal cues)

people, in general, are

poor lie detectors
People fare only slightly better than
a coin toss at detecting deception
In general, people are much better
at lying than detecting lies (Vrij,
2000).
Bond & DePaulo (in press) a recent
meta-analysis of 253 studies on
deception revealed overall accuracy
was approximately 53 percent
2/3rds of all people score between
50-59% in deception accuracy

Dr. Paul Ekman, one of

the foremost experts on
deception detection

how good are so-called experts at

deception detection?
Police officers and
other law
enforcement
personnel believe
they are adept at
deception detection
They often claim
they can spot a liar
based on nonverbal
cues

Secret service agents were

best at detecting lies

HoweverEkman
tested so-called
experts, e.g., police,
trial judges,
psychiatrists, and the
people who carry out
lie detector tests.
Most scored no better
than chance.
Clinical psychologists:
67.5% accuracy
L.A. county sheriffs:
66.7% accuracy
Secret service agents:
73-80% accuracy

the truth bias

Research has repeatedly shown
that people enter interactions
with preconceived expectations
for truthfulness (Burgoon, 2005)
(Levine, Park, & McCornack
(1999) found that people are
slightly better at detecting the
truth, and slightly worse at
detecting lies
on average participants were
able to detect a lie 44 percent of
the time, and able to detect the
truth 67 percent of the time.
In everyday encounters, liars
were only detected 15% of the
time (Vrij, 2000).

a prototypical study on deception

Ekman & Friesen (1974) conducted a
study in which:
some subjects watched only the
liars heads
some subjects watched only the
liars bodies
results: subjects who watched only
the liars bodies were more
accurate in detecting deception.

Information Manipulation Theory

McCornack et al (1992) developed IMT
according to IMT, deception can be
accomplished by varying the:
amount of information
veracity of information
relevance of information
clarity of information

Four-Factor Model of deception

Zuckerman et al (1981, 1985)
Arousal: lying increases
arousal

psychological and physical

arousal
pupil dilation, blink rate, speech
errors, etc.

Attempted Control: liars

try to control cue leakage

sending capacity hypothesis

(Ekman & Friesen, 1969; 1974)
liars find it easier to control
their face
cue leakage occurs in the body,
extremities
cue leakage occurs in the voice

Emotion: lying
evokes
negative affect
lying triggers
negative
emotions like
guilt, fear,
anxiety

Thinking: lying
requires more
cognitive effort

lying usually
requires more
cognitive energy;
formulating the
lie, remembering
the lie, making
answers
consistent

Interpersonal Deception Theory

Buller & Burgoon (1994) developed IDP
strategic behaviors (intentional behaviors and
plans)
uncertainty and vagueness (few, sketchy details)
nonimmediacy, reticence, withdrawal (psychological
distance, disinterest, aloofness)
dissociation (distance self from message, fewer I or
me statements)
image and relationship protecting behavior (smiling,
nodding)

nonstrategic leakage (unintentional leakage)

arousal and nervousness
negative affect
incompetent communication performance

motivational impairment effect

DePaulo & Kirkendol (1989) developed
the MIE
Liars tend to over-control their nonverbal
behavior
Liars are more rigid, exhibit less body
movement
deception is often associated with less
finger, hand, lower limb movements
Liars do this because they think that
nervousness, fidgeting, shifting will be
perceived as deception
Liars do this because they are
concentrating on other channels and
cant devote attention to their
movements

lying as a communication skill

Camden, Motley, & Wilson (1984) say
deception is a form of communication
competence.
A study by Feldman looked at the
nonverbal behavior of 32 young people
ages 11 to 16.
Teens were rated on their social skills and
overall popularity.
Teens were then videotaped both lying
and telling the truth about whether they
liked a drink they were given.
58 college students were asked to watch
the videotapes and judge how much each
teenager really liked the drink.
The socially adept teens were the best
deceivers for all age groups. Both groups
got better at lying as they got older.
Possibly thanks to stronger nonverbal
skills, girls were better at lying than boys.

characteristics of successful
deceivers
high Machiavellians: are more manipulative,
experience less guilt about lying
high self monitors: are more socially adroit and
therefore better at lying .
good actors: some people have better acting
skills than others, are better able to regulate
their verbal and nonverbal cues
Motivation: high stakes lies are easier to

detect, low stakes lies are harder to spot

gender differences: have revealed mixed

results
females sometimes focus on misleading
nonverbal cues (eyes, face)
women may possess a stronger truth bias
individual differences tend to swamp
gender differences

characteristics of successful
lie detectors
They dont concentrate
on the face
They focus on vocal
factors
They focus on the content
or substance of the
statement
They focus on the body,
extremities, looking for
over-control
They look/listen for nonimmediacy, reticence,
withdrawal, disassociation

Observers or 3rd
parties are better at
spotting deception
than participants

false correlates of deception

eye contact
smiling
head movements
gestures

postural shifting
response latency (for
rehearsed lies)
speech rate

reliable* correlates of deception

more fidgeting
greater pupil dilation (5)
higher blink rate (8)
pressing lips together
more shrugs (4)
more adaptors (14)
shorter response length,
fewer details (17)
greater lack of
immediacy (2)
raising chin

more speech errors (12)

more speech hesitations (11)
less pitch variation(4)
more negative statements
(5)
more irrelevant statements
(6)
fewer first person pronouns
fewer admissions of lack of
memory
fewer spontaneous
corrections

*note: there are no foolproof ways to detect deception

numbers in parentheses indicate how many studies found a
positive correlation with that particular nonverbal cue

In which picture is the female genuinely happy?

generalizations: advice you

can take to the bank
research consistently demonstrates that
people are generally unable to detect
deception (Miller & Stiff, 1993)
40-70% accuracy
veracity judgments tend to be based on the
wrong criteria (Stiff, 1995)
to detect deception, dont look at the face
no single indicator proves truth or guilt: use
clusters of indicators, both verbal &
nonverbal.
individual differences in deception ability
and deception detection ability are more
important than generic factors