When Accurate Beliefs Lead to Better Lie Detection1

This study tested the hypothesis that people with accurate beliefs about the cues that predict deception are better at detecting deception only when those beliefs are cognitively available and activated. To test the hypothesis, participants viewed video fragments of people who were being either honest or dishonest. A questionnaire assessed participants' beliefs about the cues involved in deception, and activation of participants' belief cues was accomplished by manipulating suspicion. The results provided support for the hypothesis, where participants whose beliefs were activated and had accurate beliefs were better at detecting deception compared to other participants. Gender differences were also found, where lies communicated by women were more accurately detected than were lies communicated by men.     

自主欺骗决策过程与结果评价的ERPs研究

本研究基于事件相关电位技术,以32名大学生为研究对象,采用2(诱发条件：高奖赏、低奖赏)×3(反馈类型：欺骗成功、欺骗失败、诚实)的组内实验设计,以点判断任务操控被试的自主欺骗水平,并结合欺骗及时反馈范式来操纵被试的结果评价。结果发现：(1)在决策过程,做出欺骗决策比诚实决策诱发更大波幅的P300;(2)在结果评价过程,相比欺骗成功反馈和诚实反馈,欺骗失败反馈诱发更负的FRN波幅。结果显示个体做出欺骗决策比诚实决策需要更多的注意资源参与和心理努力,并且对欺骗失败反馈的敏感度远高于欺骗成功反馈和诚实反馈。这一定程度上揭示了个体做出欺骗决策和面对欺骗结果时的心理和神经机制,为教育者采取必要措施来降低和预防青少年欺骗行为奠定了研究基础。     

Interpersonal Deception

Interpersonal deception theory (IDT) frames deception as a communication activity and examines deception within interactive contexts. One key element of the theory is the role of suspicion in prompting behavior changes. An experiment testing several suspicion-related hypotheses paired participants (half friends, half strangers) for interviews during which interviewees (EEs) lied or told the truth and interviewers (ERs) were induced to be (moderately or highly) suspicious (or not). Results confirmed that suspicion and deceit were perceived when present, suspicion was manifested through nonverbal behaviors but with different behavioral patterns for moderately versus highly suspicious ERs, and suspicion affected sender behavior. Relational familiarity moderated some behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of mutual influence processes and the dynamic nature of communication in interpersonal deception.     

适应性时间管理：死亡意识对时间知觉和跨期决策的影响

死亡意识是个体对自身死亡必然性的认识; 基于进化适应性的考量, 作者认为具有前瞻性的死亡意识作为人类特有的认知能力和个体生命史的终极坐标, 不仅可能引起恐惧感和防御反应, 更重要的是可以帮助人们做出适应性的时间管理。据此推论, 死亡意识的启动会加强人们对时间有限性的关注, 体验出更强的时间流逝感, 影响人们对时间的评估, 以及人们对不同时间点的成本与收益进行权衡而做出的跨期决策。本研究采用死亡凸显范式启动死亡意识, 通过两个实验探讨了死亡意识、时间知觉和跨期决策三者之间的关系。结果发现, 死亡意识启动使被试低估时间距离, 并表现出较低的跨期决策延迟折扣率, 从而在较小的即时获益与更大的延迟的获益之间更为偏好未来导向的选项。进一步的分析显示, 时间知觉在死亡意识和跨期决策延迟折扣率之间起到部分中介变量的作用。以上的研究结果初步揭示了死亡意识在时间管理上的适应性价值。     

Veracity is in the eye of the beholder: A lens model examination of consistency and deception

Research has attempted to explain perceived cues to deception based upon self-report of what participants believe are ‘good’ cues to deception, or self-report of what cues participants say they base their veracity judgements on. However, it is not clear to what extent participants can accurately self-report what influences their decision-making. Using a within-subjects design, 285 participants completed a questionnaire regarding their beliefs about deception before rating a selection of truthful and deceptive statements on a variety of cues. Expert coders also rated the statements for the same cues. Laypeople and expert coders do not conceptualise between-subject consistency in the same way. A lens model showed that whilst perceptions of cues, such as consistency and amount of detail, influence veracity judgements, these perceptions (and overall veracity judgements) are mostly inaccurate. Fundamentally, there seems to be inconsistencies between how deception research examines consistency and how it is understood and used by laypeople.     

Telling and detecting lies in a high‐stake situation: the case of a convicted murderer

All deception studies published to date have been laboratory studies. In such studies people lied only for the sake of the experiment, consequently the stakes were usually low. Although research has shown that most spontaneous lies told in real life are trivial, such studies tell us little about lies where the stakes are high (such as police/suspect interviews). In Study 1, we discuss the behaviour of an actual suspect while he was interviewed by the police in a murder case. Although the man initially denied knowing and killing the victim, substantial evidence obtained by the police showed that he was lying. On the basis of this evidence, the man confessed to killing the victim and was later convicted for murder. To our knowledge there has been no other study published that has analysed the behaviour of a liar in such a high‐stake realistic setting. The analysis revealed several cues to deception. In Study 2, we exposed 65 police officers to six fragments (three truthful and three deceptive) of the interview with the murderer and asked them to indicate after each fragment whether the man was lying or not. The findings revealed that the participants were better at detecting truths (70% accuracy) than lies (57% accuracy). We also found individual differences among observers, with those holding popular stereotypical views on deceptive behaviour, such as ‘liars look away’ and ‘liars fidget’ performing least effectively as lie catchers. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sex, lies, and strategic interference: the psychology of deception between the sexes

The desires of one sex can lead to deceptive exploitation by the other sex. Strategic Interference Theory proposes that certain "negative" emotions evolved or have been co-opted by selection, in part, to defend against deception and reduce its negative consequences. In Study 1 (N = 217) Americans reported emotional distress in response to specific forms of deception. Study 2 (N = 200) replicated the results in a German sample. Study 3 (N = 479) assessed Americans' past experiences with deception and conducted additional hypothesis tests using a procedure to control for overall sex differences in upset. Each study supported the hypothesis that emotions track sex-linked forms of strategic interference. Three clusters of sex differences proved robust across studies-emotional upset about resource deception, commitment deception, and sexual deception. We discuss implications for theories of mating and emotion and directions for research based on models of antagonistic coevolution between the sexes.     

Catching the liar as a matter of justice: Effects of belief in a just world on deception detection accuracy and the moderating role of mortality salience

Belief in a just world has been linked to high interpersonal trust and less suspicion of deception. We therefore predicted people with a strong dispositional belief in a just world to have low motivation to accurately detect deception. Accordingly, we hypothesized such a belief to be negatively related to accuracy in deception detection. Furthermore, research on Terror Management Theory has indicated that culturally shared values, such as justice, become more important after mortality salience. Thus, we assumed engaging in justice concerns after a death threat is especially relevant for people with a strong belief in a just world, and further, that accurate deception detection is a matter of justice. Based on this reasoning, we expected people with a strong belief in a just world to have an increased motivation to accurately detect deception after mortality salience. Consequently, we hypothesized dispositional differences in belief in a just world to be unrelated to accuracy in deception detection after mortality salience. In line with these predictions, our study revealed that participants with a strong (vs. weak) belief in a just world were worse in deception detection unless they had first been reminded of their mortality.     

欺骗识别的准确率：影响因素与提高途径

欺骗是一种常见的社会现象,通过观察他人的行为表现识别欺骗则是人们的一项重要能力。研究表明,人们的欺骗识别能力仅仅略微高于随机水平。本文关注基于行为线索的欺骗识别研究。首先,介绍欺骗识别的准确率;然后,结合Brunswik的透镜模型从欺骗线索的有效性和欺骗线索的利用两方面分析识别准确率的影响因素;并在此基础上探讨了提高识别准确率的途径。最后,对未来可能的研究方向进行展望。     

Why does writing about important values reduce defensiveness? Self-affirmation and the role of positive other-directed feelings

ABSTRACT Previous research has repeatedly shown that writing about an important value, compared with writing about an unimportant value, reduces defensiveness in response to self-threatening information, but has not identified why. Study 1 showed that participants who wrote about an important value reported more positive other-directed feelings, such as love and connection, than participants who wrote about an unimportant value. Study 2 replicated this effect, and showed that loving and connected feelings, but not positive or negative self-directed feelings, completely accounted for the effect of a values-affirmation manipulation on smokers' acceptance of information indicating that smoking harms health. These studies, in concert with previous research, suggest that values affirmation reduces defensiveness via self-transcendence, rather than self-integrity (i.e., self-worth or self-images).     

Motivational cues: The role of perceived senders' self‐control ability in raters' deception judgements

Previous studies have found that senders' personal traits may be used by others to make judgements about the senders' truthfulness. Two studies were conducted to examine whether perceived self‐control ability has an effect on deception judgement. Perceived self‐control was hypothesized to act as a motivational cue that participants would use to assess the sender's motivation to lie, which in turn would influence their deception judgement. Results revealed that when participants assessed the sender as having higher self‐control ability, they would consider the sender to be less motivated to lie in daily life (Study 1), and judge the sender more truthful in a text‐based deception judgement task (Study 2). However, the effect of perceived self‐control ability disappeared in a video‐based task (Study 2), likely due to the multitude of various cues available in audio‐visual stimuli. The theoretical and applied implications of the results are discussed.     

The effects of suspiciousness of deception and the perceived legitimacy of deception on task performance in an attitude change experiment1

Subjects participated in two immediately consecutive experiments In the first, they either experienced a deception and debriefing, learned about deception in the abstract, did not learn about deception In the second, they either did or did not hear a reference to the possibility of a deception in that experiment A measure of incidental learning of the message in the second experiment showed that experiencing deception and learning about it in the abstract were not functionally equivalent, that only experiencing deception tended to produce absolute bias, that this bias was probably caused by “vigilance” rather than by “negativism,” that the reference to deception before the second experiment did not itself cause bias, and that the reference eliminated the difference in performance due to experiencing a deception as opposed to only learning about it in the abstract Furthermore, suspiciousness and the reported legitimacy of deception were positively related to each other at the group mean level Separating out their contribution to experimental performance showed that they complexly interacted to determine performance. These results were discussed with reference to the fear that subjects who have heard about deception from friends might perform differently from subjects who have not, with reference to the necessity for deception in some attitude change research, with reference to one alternative to deception, and with reference to explanations of why some experiments have shown no relationship between suspiciousness and experimental performance while others have shown a negative relationship     

Admission of suspicion as a function of information source: Tip-off vs. situational cues

Two studies were run in which subjects received information about a fake opponent in a two-person game either from a confederate tip off or from situational cues designed to allow the subject to penetrate the deception unaided. In both experiments, subjects given the tip off reported less suspicion of the opponent than did those using situational cues. Probes were run to check tip-off information transmission in both experiments. In Experiment II a preinstruction manipulation was used to check for awareness of the actual purpose of the experiment and suspicion of the confederate tip off, but no evidence for these unwanted artifacts was found. The results suggest that subjects may be candid about their interpretations, at least if their suspicions do not derive from peers.     

Behavioral Cues as Indicators of Deception in Structured Employment Interviews

Two studies were conducted to examine the use of behavioral cues to identify deception within structured interviews. In Study 1, participants engaged in mock interviews in which they were instructed to lie on specific questions that varied by person. Trained coders evaluated the presence and extent of deception cues in each videotaped response. Nine cues predicted responses as expected, demonstrating that, with careful scrutiny, it is possible to detect deception. In Study 2, participants, either informed or uninformed regarding deception cues, viewed five interviews and evaluated responses as being honest or deceptive. Participants also rated overall interview performance. Participants were unable to accurately distinguish lies from truths. Nevertheless, performance ratings differed on the basis of rater perceptions of truthfulness.     

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.     

Forgoing Debriefing in Deceptive Research: Is It Ever Ethical?

The use of deception in research is generally permitted so long as participants are debriefed at the conclusion of their participation. Several authoritative research ethics guidelines allow investigators to omit debriefing under certain circumstances, however. Here we examine various justifications for forgoing debriefing in deceptive research, including concerns about subject pool contamination, the risk that revealing the deception will be harmful or distressing to participants, and issues of practicability. We conclude that, contrary to current practice, omitting debriefing is ethically acceptable only when debriefing is impracticable, the deception is innocuous, and no reasonable person would object to involvement in the research.     

Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods.

This research examined the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem (LSE) are less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to repair their negative moods. In Study 1, participants completed diaries in response to either a success or a failure in their everyday lives. Participants described what they intended to do next and the reasons behind those plans. After failure, fewer LSE than HSE participants expressed a goal to improve their mood. A follow-up investigation (Study 2) suggested that this difference was not due to a self-esteem difference in knowledge of mood repair strategies. In Study 3, after undergoing a negative mood induction, fewer LSE than HSE participants chose to watch a comedy video, even though both groups believed the comedy video would make them happy. Studies 4 and 5 explored possible reasons why LSE people are less motivated than HSE people to repair their negative moods.     

Self‐disclosure in computer‐mediated communication: The role of self‐awareness and visual anonymity

Three studies examined the notion that computer‐mediated communication (CMC) can be characterised by high levels of self‐disclosure. In Study One, significantly higher levels of spontaneous self‐disclosure were found in computer‐mediated compared to face‐to‐face discussions. Study Two examined the role of visual anonymity in encouraging self‐disclosure during CMC. Visually anonymous participants disclosed significantly more information about themselves than non‐visually anonymous participants. In Study Three, private and public self‐awareness were independently manipulated, using video‐conferencing cameras and accountability cues, to create a 2 × 2 design public self‐awareness (high and low)×private self‐awareness (high and low). It was found that heightened private self‐awareness, when combined with reduced public self‐awareness, was associated with significantly higher levels of spontaneous self‐disclosure during computer‐mediated communication. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.