WHAT LIARS CAN TELL US ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE NORM OF PRACTICAL REASONING

If knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, then we should be able to alter people's behavior by affecting their knowledge as well as by affecting their beliefs. Thus, as Roy Sorensen (2010 ) suggests, we should expect to find people telling lies that target knowledge rather than just lies that target beliefs. In this paper, however, I argue that Sorensen's discovery of “knowledge‐lies” does not support the claim that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning. First, I use a Bayesian framework to show that in each of Sorensen's examples, knowledge‐lies alter people's behavior by affecting their beliefs. Second, I show that while we can imagine lies that target knowledge without targeting beliefs, they cannot alter people's behavior. In other words, knowledge‐lies actually work (i.e., manipulate behavior) by targeting beliefs or they do not work at all.     

Effect of lie labelling on children's evaluation of selfish,polite, and altruistic lies

This study investigates how 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds' evaluations of selfish, polite, and altruistic lies change as a result of whether these false statements are explicitly labelled as lies. We are also interested in how interpretive theory of mind may correlate with such evaluations with and without a lie label. Our results showed that labelling lowered children's evaluations for the polite and altruistic lies, but not for the selfish lies. Interpretive theory of mind correlated positively with the evaluation difference between the polite and altruistic lies and that between the selfish and altruistic lies in the label, but not in the non‐label condition. Correlation between the selfish and altruistic lies and that between the polite and altruistic lies were stronger with than without labelling, after controlling for age, and verbal and non‐verbal intelligence. We conclude that lie labelling biases children towards more negative evaluations for non‐selfish lies and makes them see lies of different motives as more similar. If a lie label is applied, whether lies of different motives are still evaluated differently depends on interpretive theory of mind, which reflects the child's ability to represent and allow different interpretations of an ambiguous reality.     

Children's Antisocial and Prosocial Lies to Familiar and Unfamiliar Adults

Although parents frequently instruct children not to lie, children often observe lie‐telling within the family environment. To date, no empirical research has examined children's spontaneous lie‐telling to different lie‐recipients. The current study examined children's spontaneous deceptive behaviour to parents and unfamiliar adults. In Experiment 1 (N = 98), children's (ages 6–9) antisocial lies to a parent or an unfamiliar adult were examined using a modified Temptation Resistance Paradigm. In Experiment 2, (N = 99) children's (ages 6–9) prosocial lies to a parent versus an unfamiliar adult were examined using the Disappointing Gift Paradigm. Results indicate that, across different types of lies, children are more likely to lie to an unfamiliar adult than to a parent. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gain or non‐loss: The message matching effect of regulatory focus on moral judgements of other‐orientation lies

Previous studies found that individuals with promotion focus are more likely to be persuaded by messages framed in terms of gain‐related words; individuals with prevention focus are more likely to be persuaded by messages framed in terms of loss‐related words. This is known as the message matching effect of regulatory focus. The present study extended this effect into the field of moral judgement of other‐orientation lies. Two experiments were conducted, revealing that (a) individuals with promotion focus judged gain‐framed other‐orientation lies to be more moral, while individuals with prevention focus judged non‐loss‐framed other‐orientation lies to be more moral; and (b) the subjective processing fluency had a partial mediating role in the message matching effect. Theoretical implications and future research directions were discussed.     

Adult Detection of Children's Selfish and Polite Lies: Experience Matters

Five groups of participants (N = 150) with differing amounts of experience working with children were assessed on their ability to detect children's lying or truth telling. Children's lies were told for antisocial reasons (i.e., self‐serving lies) and for prosocial reasons (i.e., to benefit others). Overall, adults were more accurate at identifying children's dishonest statements than their true statements, and children's antisocial lies were detected more accurately than were their prosocial lies. While adults without experience were poor at detecting child lie tellers and truth tellers, adults with extensive child experience were better at distinguishing children's lies and truths.     

Young Deceivers: Executive Functioning and Antisocial Lie‐telling in Preschool Aged Children

The present study examined the emergence of antisocial lie‐telling in very young children. Lie‐telling was studied in relation to executive functioning skills and children's abilities to identify both truths and lies. A total of 65 children (M_{age in months} = 31.75, SD = 1.87) participated in a modified temptation resistance paradigm (TRP; designed to elicit spontaneous lies). Executive functioning was measured through an inhibitory control task and a forward search planning task. The Truth/Lie Identification task was administered (Lyon, Carrick, & Quas, 2010 ) to measure children's abilities to accurately distinguish truths and lies. During the TRP, a total of 89.23% children peeked at the toy when a research assistant left the room, and of those children, 29.31% lied to the research assistant. Significant differences on executive functioning measures were found between lie‐tellers and confessors, as well as for the Truth/Lie Identification task. Lie‐tellers had higher scores on measures of inhibitory control and forward search planning. Lie‐tellers also had higher accuracy on the Truth/Lie Identification task than confessors. This study provides a unique contribution to the literature by examining 2.5‐year‐old children's emerging lie‐telling abilities, a relatively understudied age during which fledgling lie‐telling emerges. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moral Evaluations of Lying for One's Own Group

This study investigated the development of moral judgments of blue lies, which occur when a speaker makes false statements to benefit a group of which he or she is a member. We investigated this issue in China, where there is substantial emphasis on the nature of children's associations with groups they belong to. Participants ranged in age from 9 to 17, and we asked them to evaluate lies that were told to benefit a team representing a speaker's class, school, or country. Judgments varied systematically as a function of age, with the 17‐year‐olds rating lying for any form of collective less negatively than did the younger age groups. In addition, across the age groups, children's affinity tended to shift from smaller groups to broader and more abstract collectives: 9‐ and 11‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's class, 13‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's school, and 17‐year olds were least critical of blue lies told to benefit a speaker's country. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching children with autism to tell socially appropriate lies

This study used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the use of rules, role‐play, and feedback for teaching 3 children with autism spectrum disorder to tell socially appropriate lies when (a) presented with an undesired gift and (b) someone's appearance changed in an undesired way. The intervention was effective in teaching use of socially appropriate lies, and generalization to untrained people and gifts or appearances was observed.     

‘Lyin' Ted’, ‘Crooked Hillary’, and ‘Deceptive Donald’: Language of Lies in the 2016 US Presidential Debates

Language in the high‐stakes 2016 US presidential primary campaign was contentious, filled with name‐calling, personal attacks, and insults. Language in debates served at least three political functions: for image making, to imagine potential realities currently not in practice, and to disavow facts. In past research, the reality monitoring (RM) framework has discriminated accurately between truthful and deceptive accounts (~70% classification). Truthful accounts show greater sensory, time and space, and affective information, with little evidence of cognitive operations. An RM algorithm was used with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to code candidates' language. RM scores were significantly higher in fact‐checked truth statements than in lies, and debate language in the 2016 primaries was as deceptive as fact‐checked lies. In a binary logistic regression model, one RM criterion, cognitive processes, predicted veracity using computerized RM, classifying 87% of fact‐checked truth statements but only 28% of fact‐checked lie statements (63% classification overall).Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Truth,Lies, and Self‐Presentation: How Gender and Anticipated Future Interaction Relate to Deceptive Behavior1

The present study hypothesized that gender and expectation of future interaction affects the frequency and nature of lying. Male and female participants (208 undergraduates) were randomly assigned to same‐ or opposite‐gender partners and given the expectation they either would not meet again or would meet 3 additional times. Participants engaged in a 10‐min conversation that was videotaped covertly. Later, target participants evaluated the videotape identifying lies they told. During the conversation, 78% of participants lied, with females lying significantly more than males. Females, but not males, lied more when expecting future interaction than when expecting no future interaction. The nature of lies also varied between women and men. Findings suggest women and men differentially use deception as a self‐presentational tactic.     

Assessing cognitive load using oculometrics to identify deceit during interviews

Lying requires a long‐term memory search and is a cognitive load task. Telling a spontaneous lie is associated with a higher cognitive load compared with the truth, although when memories are planned before telling a lie, the cognitive load can be less compared with the truth; therefore, telling a spontaneous lie could be associated with a higher cognitive load compared with a planned lie. In this study, we examined cognitive load, as measured through oculometrics, to identify deceit in interviews. Twenty‐four subjects were questioned, and their answers classified as spontaneous lies, planned lies, and truths. Results show that saccades and fixations were associated with a higher cognitive load when telling spontaneous lies compared with telling truths. Blinks and pupillometry show that subjects require greater cognitive load when telling truths compared with planned lies. Finally, telling spontaneous lies required higher cognitive load compared with planned lies, as assessed by blinks.     

The Detection of Prosocial Lying by Children

The purpose of the present study was to explore the detection of prosocial lying in children. Six‐ to 11‐year‐olds and adults were videotaped telling the truth or a lie about the desirability of an object, sometimes being asked a follow‐up question (i.e., elaborative trials) and other times not (i.e., regular trials). A different group of adults and children then judged the veracity of the individuals' statements in the video clips. Adults and children performed significantly better than chance at detecting lies in the youngest age group, and children's detection performance was unrelated to their age. Child lie detectors, unlike the adults, were also able to discriminate between adults' truthful and untruthful statements in the regular trials, but misidentified adults' truthful responses as lies. They appeared to be more trusting of other children. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How to Detect Deception in Everyday Life and the Reasons Underlying It

The autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT) evaluates which of two contrasting autobiographical events is true for an individual on the basis of implicit associations and corresponding reaction times in classifying sentences. In this research, white lies and corresponding reasons to lie were investigated. White lies are social lies. They are widespread in our in our daily lives, in the business world and in the forensic contexts. The ability to deceive is essential for polite interactions and, at times, self‐preservation, but little research was conducted so far on this type of deception. The authors tested the efficiency of the aIAT in identifying a white lie and the real reason for producing a white lie, contrasting each participant's real motivation for lying and a false (faked) one. In both cases, aIAT differentiated truth from white lies and also identified the real reason from the faked one for all 20 participants. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INTEREST‐RELATIVE INVARIANTISM AND KNOWLEDGE FROM IGNORANCE

The principle of Counter‐Closure embodies the widespread view that when a proposition is believed solely as the conclusion of single‐premise deduction, it can be known only if the premise is also known. I raise a problem for the compatibility of Jason Stanley's Interest‐Relative Invariantism (IRI) with Counter‐Closure. I explore the landscape of options that might help Stanley resolve this tension and argue that a trilemma confronts Stanley: he must either (i) renounce a key intuition that lies at the foundation of his view; or (ii) admit into his epistemology an IRI‐specific novel brand of Gettier case; or (iii) abandon Counter‐Closure.     

On describing colours

This paper attempts to refute the familiar sceptical argument based upon the theoretical possibility of systematic transpositions of colours in different observers’ colour‐vision. The force of this argument lies in its apparent demonstration that cases of transposed colour‐vision would be on a quite different cognitive footing from ordinary cases of colour‐blindness; since colour transposition, unlike colour‐blindness, could not possibly have any effect on the use of language by a person who suffered from it. It is argued (1) that this demonstration works only if we assume the truth of a certain theory of the logical nature of our colour vocabulary, and (2) that this theory is false.     

Children tell white lies to make others feel better

We investigated whether children tell white lies simply out of politeness or as a means to improve another person's mood. A first experimental phase probed children's individual insight to use white lies when prosocial behaviour was called for. We compared a situation in which a person had expressed sadness about her artwork and the goal was to make her feel better (Sad condition) with a situation in which a person was indifferent about her work (Neutral condition). Children at 7 years and older were more likely to tell a white lie than the blunt truth in the Sad over the Neutral condition. Five‐year‐olds showed only a trend. A second phase tested whether children selectively use white lie telling after it was modelled by an adult. Results showed that after modelling, children from all age groups were significantly more likely to use white lies in the Sad condition than in the Neutral condition. Taken together, these results show that children are attentive to another person's affective states when choosing whether to tell a white lie or tell the truth. We discuss the emergence of this behaviour in relation to children's developing social cognition and the increasing sophistication of children's prosocial behaviour.     

Sexual Lying Among College Students in Close and Casual Relationships1

The current investigation examined the extent and nature of sexual lying in close and casual relationships. Participants were 790 undergraduates recruited from 2 institutions for 1 of 4 studies employing diverse methods—2 experiments, 4 surveys, and a recalled event. Participants tended to tell fewer sexual lies in closer relationships, and those lies tended to be relatively more other‐protective than self‐protective. Also, the more they engaged in sexual lying, the more sexual lying they believed their partners engaged in. Furthermore, individual sexual lying tendencies were consistent across situations. Finally, participants were generally quite honest with their sex partners, and they lied less about risk‐relevant sexual issues than about risk‐irrelevant matters. These findings have implications for safer sex interventions.     

Knowledge‐lies re‐examined

Sorensen says that my assertion that p is a knowledge‐lie if it is meant to undermine your justification for believing truly that ～p, not to make you believe that p and that, therefore, knowledge‐lies are not intended to deceive. It has been objected that they are meant to deceive because they are intended to make you more confident in a falsehood. In this paper, I propose a novel account according to which an assertion that p is a knowledge‐lie if it is intended not to provide evidence that p but to make you stop trusting all testimonies concerning whether p (in a room full of obvious liars, you will trust no one), which is how they undermine your testimonial knowledge. Because they are not intended to provide evidence that bears on the truth of p, they are not intended to make you more confident in a falsehood; therefore, knowledge‐lies are not intended to deceive. This makes them a problem for the traditional account, which takes the intention to deceive as necessary for lying, and an interesting example of Kant's idea that allowing lies whenever one feels like it would bring it about that statements in general are not believed.     

The Prevalence of Lying in America: Three Studies of Self‐Reported Lies

This study addresses the frequency and the distribution of reported lying in the adult population. A national survey asked 1,000 U.S. adults to report the number of lies told in a 24‐hour period. Sixty percent of subjects report telling no lies at all, and almost half of all lies are told by only 5% of subjects; thus, prevalence varies widely and most reported lies are told by a few prolific liars. The pattern is replicated in a reanalysis of previously published research and with a student sample. Substantial individual differences in lying behavior have implications for the generality of truth–lie base rates in deception detection experiments. Explanations concerning the nature of lying and methods for detecting lies need to account for this variation.     

Insight into children's prosocial lies: Comment on Warneken and Orlins

In their article, Warneken and Orlins ( 2015 ) provide insight into children's prosocial lie‐telling. Their work adds to a growing body of literature regarding the development of prosocial behaviour and indicates that young children will tell ‘white lies’ in order to improve the mood of others. This work has important implications for forensic contexts that we note.