The price of deceptive behavior: Disliking and lying to people who lie to us

We hypothesized that frequency and quality of deception influences how people perceive those who lie to them and that people subsequently increase deceptive behavior as a consequence of being lied to. In Study 1, participants were covertly videotaped conversing with a partner. Following the conversation, participants evaluated partners, and partners reviewed the videotape, identifying deceptions that they told. Findings indicated that partner’s frequency of deception was inversely related to likeability. In Study 2, participants watched a videotape of a confederate who appeared to produce one or four exaggerated or minimized lies, and then evaluated the confederate. Participants and confederates subsequently engaged in a conversation. When participants witnessed either one exaggerated lie, one or four minimal lies, or no lies they trusted and liked the confederate more than when witnessing four exaggerated lies. Moreover, participants increased their own use of deception as a function of the severity and quantity of confederate’s lies.     

THE DISCLOSURE-LIKING RELATIONSHIP

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of a perceiver's own disclosure on attraction for self-disclosing others. In Experiment 1, female undergraduates selected two topics and disclosed information on them to a confederate partner. This disclosure occurred either before or after the confederate disclosed information on three different topics that were either high or low in intimacy. Based on self-perception theory, it was predicted and found that intimacy of the subject's self-disclosure would be positively correlated with attraction for the confederate when the subject disclosed before her partner but not when she disclosed after her partner. A second prediction that subjects would be attracted toward a highly intimate partner only if they had previously disclosed was not confirmed. Instead, attraction for the confederate was greater when she had disclosed before the subject and when she had disclosed intimately. Experiment 2 varied the intimacy of the response of a partner to the subject's initial self-disclosure and whether this response dealt with the same topics or different topics. It was found that attraction was greater for an intimate than a nonintimate partner when topics for disclosure were the same. When disclosure topics were different, there was no significant difference in attraction for the intimate and nonintimate partner. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the disclosure-liking hypothesis.     

Facial and vocal cues of deception and honesty

Facial expressions and vocal cues (filtered speech) of honest and deceptive messages were examined in posed and spontaneous situations. The question of interest was the degree to which nonverbal cues transmit information about deception. Results indicated that (a) for both the facial and vocal channels, posing (as compared to spontaneous behavior) produced a higher level of communication accuracy; (b) facial expressions of deceptive (as compared to honest) messages were rated as less pleasant, while vocal expressions of deception were rated as less honest, less assertive, and less dominant, particularly in the posed condition; (c) the sender's ability to convey honesty was negatively correlated with his/her ability to convey deception, suggesting the existence of a demeanor bias—individual senders tend to appear and sound consistently honest (or dishonest) regardless of whether they deliver an honest or a deceptive message; (d) in the posing condition, the sender's abilities to convey honesty/deception via facial and vocal cues were positively and significantly correlated, whereas in the spontaneous condition they were not; and (e) senders whose full (unfiltered) speech indicated more involvement with their responses were judged as more honest from both their vocal (filtered speech) and facial cues, in both the honest and deceptive conditions.     

A confederate's Perspective on Deception

In this article, I outline my position regarding the use of deception in psychology experiments, based on my experience as a confederate. I describe an experiment I participated in and the problems resulting from the study: subjects' differing responses to the deception; angry reactions of some subjects to the experiment; and the general discomfort of both subjects and confederates, in particular, who had their doubts concerning the external validity of the study and the ethics involved in running it. issues of informed consent and debriefing are also addressed; it is argued that the success of deception depends on the subject being misinformed as to the experiment's true nature and that debriefing itself sometimes angers subjects. I encourage a decrease in the use of deception and the reexamination of a system that attempts to balance the pain of experimental participants with anticipated benefit to scientific knowledge.     

Women's hairstyle and men's behavior: A field experiment

Little research has examined the effect of women's hairstyles on people's behavior. In a field study, male and female passersby, walking alone in the street, were observed while walking behind a female‐confederate who dropped a glove and apparently was unaware of her loss. The confederate had long dark hair arranged in three different hairstyles: one with her hair falling naturally on her shoulders and her back, one with her hair tied in a ponytail, and one with her hair twisted in a bun. Results reported that the hairstyle had no effect on female passersby's helping behavior. However, it was found that the hairstyle influenced male passersby with men helping the confederate more readily when her hair fell naturally on her neck, shoulders and upper back.     

Men's sense of humor and women's responses to courtship solicitations: an experimental field study

Producing humor might function as a fitness indicator associated with greater desirability during dating selection. A male confederate in a bar was instructed to tell (or not tell) funny jokes to two other male confederates. A few minutes later, when the second of two male confederates left, the first male confederate asked a female who was near his table and who had heard the funny jokes for her phone number. The previous expression of humor was associated with greater compliance with the male confederate's request and with a higher positive evaluation. The possible effects of humor are discussed from an evolutionary perspective.     

Shifting expectations of partners' responsiveness changes outcomes of conflict discussions

Expecting responsiveness from a partner may increase the chance of successful conflict resolution through a self‐fulfilling prophecy. Such expectations derive in part from people's history of receiving responsiveness and from their belief that their partner values them (S. L. Murray, J. G. Holmes, & N. L. Collins, 2006). This belief can be fostered by having individuals reframe a partner's compliment in an abstract way (D. C. Marigold, J. G. Holmes, & M. Ross, 2007). In this study, 96 dating couples were randomly assigned to complete a compliment reframing intervention (or not) prior to discussing a conflict. Without intervention, couples who typically had a lot of conflict reported less positive expectations of their partner for the upcoming discussion and subsequently worse outcomes than low‐conflict couples; these differences were eliminated in the compliment reframing condition. This research demonstrates the importance of perceived value and expectations of responsiveness in shaping the outcomes of conflict discussions, suggesting additional points of intervention beyond communication skills for high‐conflict couples.     

Behavioral Confirmation in Children's Interactions with Peers

This study explored the hypothesis that behavioral confirmation can occur in peer interaction as a result of children's stereotype-based expectancies about non-agemate peers. Pairs of second and fourth-grade children played a decision-making game. Before the game, one child was led to believe that his or her partner was either 2 years younger or 2 years older than himself or herself. All children varied their behavior as a function of their partners. When girls interacted with a "younger" peer they controlled the interaction, but exerted little control when interacting with an "older" peer. Boys varied their behavior as a function of their partner's label, but not in the same manner as did girls. Following the interaction, children chose easier games to play than girls who were labelled as older, suggesting that the expectations of the other child was internalized. Results are discussed in terms of the influence that expectations have on children's interactions with peers.     

THE EFFECT OF MODELLING ON DRINKING RATE

Three male college seniors were asked to drink beer at their normal rate in a simulated tavern setting. Each was paired with a confederate, also a male college senior, in an ABACA single subject design. In the baseline conditions, the confederate matched the drinking rate of the subject. Baseline and all subsequent conditions were continued in 1-hr sessions until a stable drinking rate was achieved. In Condition B, the confederate drank either one third more or one third less than the subject's baseline rate. In Condition C, the direction was reversed. All three subjects closely matched the confederate's drinking rate, whether high or low. All subjects reported they were unaware of the true purpose of the study.     

Sexual Consent and Lying About One’s Self

Despite the acknowledgement of the moral significance of consent there is still much work to be done in determining which specific sexual encounters count as unproblematically consensual. This paper focuses on the impact of deception. It takes up the specific case of deception about one’s self. It may seem obvious that one ought not to lie to a sexual partner about who one is, but determining which features of oneself are most relevant, as well as the lies which it follows would be impermissible to tell, is complicated. It is argued here that deception about one’s morally valenced character traits, those we think of as virtues and vices, are particularly problematic. This is true regardless of whether knowing the truth about those traits would have made a difference to one’s partner’s consent. Attention is then drawn to a range of types of lies that one ought not to tell.     

Telling lies

Men and women (20 each) were videotaped while describing someone they liked, someone they disliked, someone they were ambivalent about, someone they were indifferent about, someone they liked as though they disliked him or her, and someone they disliked as thought they like him or her. Accuracy at detecting that some deception had occurred was far greater than accuracy at detecting the true underlying affect, and people who were good at detecting that deception was occurring were not particularly skilled at reading the speakers' underlying affects. However, people whose deception attempts were more easily detected by others also had their underlying affects read more easily. Speakers whose lies were seen more readily by men also had their lies seen more readily by women, and observers better able to see the underlying affects of women were better able to see the underlying affects of men. Skill at lying successfully was unrelated to skill at catching others in their lies. A histrionic strategy (hamming) was very effective in deceiving others, and this strategy was employed more by more Machiavellian people, who also tended to get caught less often in their lies. Methodological considerations and systematic programs for future research are discussed.     

How Working With a Helpful Versus Less Helpful Confederate Influences Joint-Action in a Pegboard Task

Actors change their movement strategies to complement a coactor's movements when performing cooperative tasks. To further investigate this topic, the authors designed a pegboard task whereby a participant-confederate pair worked together to move a peg from one side of the board to the other. The authors examined how the experience of working with a helpful confederate versus less helpful confederate influenced the participant's movement behavior. Results provide evidence that participants change their movement behaviors in response to the actions of the confederate. Here the human capacity to act in such a manner exemplifies an individual's ability to utilize his or her own action system to understand others and interact to complete joint action tasks. Individuals appear to adapt their behavior to their experiences, and thus may be helpful in some contexts and less helpful in others.     

Active and passive observers' attraction to a self-disclosing other

Active observer (participant) subjects were induced to make either a high or a low intimacy disclosure about themselves to a partner. Their (videotaped confederate) partner then disclosed either intimately or non-intimately in return. The impressions and attributions of these subjects were compared to the predictions of passive observer subjects (non-participants) who were each furnished with the original instructions, heard a tape recording of a different active observer's disclosure, and watched the same videotape of the confederate that person had seen. As expected, both active observers' responses and passive observers' predictions indicated a preference for the intimate partner. In addition, passive observers' attraction predictions were less positive than active observers' reports. But contrary to the hypotheses, passive observers predicted that active observers would attribute the partner's disclosure more to personalistic causes than was actually the case, and guessed inaccurately that active observers would interpret the partner's intimacy as an indicator of attraction. The methodological implications of these active-passive observer differences for research in self-disclosure and relationships are discussed.     

It's not who you are but who you're with: Self-Confidence in achievement settings

This study examined the effects of two social cues on women's and men's self-confidence: the sex and performance of another in an achievement setting. Before trying to solve 60 anagrams, women expected to perform more poorly than men. In addition, both sexes expected to perform more poorly when paired with a male confederate than when paired with a female confederate. The effect of the partner's sex showed up in anagram performance: people with a female partner solved more anagrams than people with a male partner. The effect of subject's sex on performance was unexpected: women solved more anagrams than men. After the task, sex differences in self-confidence disappeared; neither sex of subject nor sex of partner influenced self-confidence. The partner's performance, however, had a strong effect on everyone: people were less self-confident if they had worked with a high-scoring partner. The pattern of results suggests that sex-of-subject differences in self-confidence, while important, are less powerful than the effects wielded by the sex of others in achievement settings.     

Communicating Intentions Through Nonverbal Behaviors Conscious and Nonconscious Encoding of Liking

The fundamental components of interpersonal transactions at the nonverbal level often include the cognitively held intention of one person to increase or decrease affiliation with his or her partner, the encoding of this intention into behavioral displays, and the decoding of the behavioral displays by the other. Nonverbal encoding of relational information may be conducted at less than conscious levels of information processing although intentions may be held consciously. A study was conducted in which naive confederates were induced to either increase or decrease their displays of liking for their partner. It was found that confederates’intentions to show increased or decreased liking toward their partners were positively correlated with the partners’liking for the confederate. However, less than one quarter of the confederates could demonstrate an accurate conscious awareness of the behaviors they used and how they used them. Of this small number, those who were given the conscious intention of showing decreased liking demonstrated the most conscious awareness of their nonverbal behaviors.     

The cheating and intention of a partner as determinants of evaluative decisions among juvenile offenders

Male juvenile offenders were asked to evaluate the work of an experimental partner (confederate) who completed a work task four times. The work partner cheated on two trials and did not cheat on two trials while working for a charity (one cheat and one noncheat trial) or for selfish gain (one cheat and one noncheat trial). It was found that subjects rated the work done on cheating trials lower than work done on noncheating trials. In addition, subjects shared less reward money on cheating trials relative to noncheating trials. However, the intentions of the confederate, defined as the reward recipient, failed to affect subjects' judgments. These results were described as supporting previous studies which have indicated that delinquents fail to take account of others' intentions when making moral judgments.     

Likable co-witnesses increase eyewitness accuracy and decrease suggestibility

This study examines the impact of likability on memory accuracy and memory conformity between two previously unacquainted individuals. After viewing a crime, eyewitnesses often talk to one another and may find each other likable or dislikable. One hundred twenty-seven undergraduate students arrived at the laboratory with an unknown confederate and were assigned to a likability condition (i.e., control, likable or dislikable). Together, the pair viewed pictures and was then tested on their memory for those pictures in such a way that the participant knew the confederate's response. Thus, the participant's response could be influenced both by his or her own memory and by the answers of the confederate. Participants in the likable condition were more accurate and less influenced by the confederate, compared with the other conditions. Results are discussed in relation to research that shows people are more influenced by friends than strangers and in relation to establishing positive rapport in forensic interviewing.     

Deceptive Behavior in Social Relationships: A Consequence of Violated Expectations

Deceptive behavior is viewed as a mechanism by which a threat to the maintenance of a social relationship is temporarily resolved. In this study, we investigated two social relationships: parent-child and employer-employee. Eighty American students evaluated 32 behaviors from the perspective of a son or daughter and from the perspective of an employee. The students made judgments regarding the extent to which the employer and the parent expected them to avoid engaging in certain behaviors, and the extent to which they would lie about involvement in each behavior. Students also indicated how guilty they would feel about lying. Results indicated that the students used deception when their behavior violated the perceived expectancy of their role partner. The students experienced guilt, however, only with a violation of their own expectations, their role partner's expectations, and a match between their own and their role partner's expectations.     

Attribution of personal characteristics as a function of the degree of touch on initial contact and sex

The current study was designed to measure the effects of degree of touch on initial contact on interpersonal judgment. Subjects (60 male and 60 female) reporting for an experiment on interpersonal judgment were met by the experimenter and another subject. The second subject was in fact a confederate. As the subjects were introduced, the confederate responded in one of three ways: a nod of the head (no touch); a firm handshake; or a firm handshake accompanied by a squeeze on the subject's right upper arm by the confederate's left hand. Half of the subjects met a male and half met a female confederate. Subjects were then placed in separate cubicles and asked to complete the Byrne interpersonal judgment questionnaire about the person they had just briefly met. This scale has six items (intelligence, knowledge of current events, morality, personal feelings, participation in experiments, and adjustment) for same-sex pairs and four additional items for opposite-sex pairs (dating, marriage, physical and sexual attraction). The results indicated that the variations in the type of initial contact between subject and confederate resulted in several significantly different interpersonal judgments. Of particular interest was the finding that a male confederate greeting a female subject was viewed as a more acceptable marriage partner the more touch was invoved in the initial contact. A female confederate greeting a male subject was viewed as a less acceptable marriage partner the more touch that was involved. The degree of touch also affected judgments of knowledge of current events, adjustment, dating, and physical attraction. Typically, the more touch, the higher the rating for the male confederate, whereas the female confederate was typically rated highest on the nod or handshake plus the additional touch to the arm, and least when she simply shook hands. The relevance of these findings to first impressions and role stereotyping are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Western Psychological Convention, Sacramento, 1975.This study was supported in part by a faculty research grant from the University of San Francisco.