Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior

Employing a die-under-cup paradigm, we study the extent to which people lie when it is transparently clear they cannot be caught. We asked participants to report the outcome of a private die roll and gain money according to their reports. Results suggest that the degree of lying depends on the extent to which self-justifications are available. Specifically, when people are allowed to roll the die three times to ensure its legitimacy, but only the first roll is supposed to “count,” we find evidence that the highest outcome of the three rolls is reported. Eliminating the ability to observe more than one roll reduces lying. Additional results suggest that observing desired counterfactuals, in the form of additional rolls not meant to determine pay, attenuates the degree to which people perceive lies as unethical. People seem to derive value from self-justifications allowing them to lie for money while feeling honest.     

Anger as a cue to truthfulness

A fairly robust finding in the deception literature is that lie-tellers show more negative emotion than truth-tellers. Ekman (1985), however, has reasoned that a specific type of negative emotion - anger - is especially difficult to feign and therefore should be more prevalent in truth-tellers who are falsely accused of a transgression than in lie-tellers who are guilty. To our knowledge, Ekman’s prediction has not yet been empirically tested. By comparing the verbal and nonverbal cues associated with truths and lies across a number of lie-eliciting situations, we demonstrate that truth-tellers accused of a wrongdoing do show more anger, both verbally and nonverbally, than lie-tellers accused of the same act, but only in situations where students choose to commit a transgression (or not) and actually believe themselves to be in trouble. Results underlie the importance of taking into consideration the type of lie being told in order to accurately predict deceptive cues.     

Me, myself, and lie: The role of self-awareness in deception

Deception has been studied extensively but still little is known about individual differences in deception ability. We investigated the relationship between self-awareness and deception ability. We enlisted novice actors to portray varying levels of deception. Forty-two undergraduates viewed the videotaped portrayals and rated the actors’ believability. Actors with high private self-awareness were more effective deceivers, suggesting that high self-monitors are more effective at deceiving. Self-awareness may lead to knowledge of another’s mental state (i.e., Theory of Mind), which may improve an individual’s deception ability.     

Can intuition improve deception detection performance?

Two studies examined the role of processing style (intuitive vs. deliberative processing) in a deception detection task. In the first experiment, a thin slicing manipulation was used to demonstrate that intuitive processing can lead to more accurate judgments of deception when compared with traditional deliberative forms of processing. In the second experiment, participants who engaged in a secondary (concurrent) task performed more accurately in a deception detection task than participants who were asked to provide a verbal rationale for each decision and those in a control condition. Overall, the results converge to suggest that intuitive processing can significantly improve deception detection performance.     

Understanding deceptive intentions behind pointing gestures in 12-15-month-old infants

We examined the comprehension of deceptive intentions revealed in searching task in infancy, on the theoretical basis of natural pedagogy and epistemic trust. The main findings showed that 12-15-month-old infants are able to discriminate the reliable and the deceptive actions of adults, but they do not generalize their previous experience in connection with a novel person, who is treated as a new reliable source of information.     

The Inter-Relations of Political Attitudes: I. Attitudes toward Candidates and Specific Policies

Abstract

Australian subjects (N = 171) rated 110 personality-trait words on their desirability as personality characteristics. The rank order, mean ratings, and standard deviations of the words were tabulated and were discussed against Anderson's (1968) American list of likableness ratings.     

Children’s lies and their detection: Implications for child witness testimony

The veracity of child witness testimony is central to the justice system where there are serious consequences for the child, the accused, and society. Thus, it is important to examine how children’s lie-telling abilities develop and the factors that can influence their truthfulness. The current review examines children’s lie-telling ability in relation to child witness testimony. Although research demonstrates that children develop the ability to lie at an early age, they also understand that lie-telling is morally unacceptable and do not condone most types of lies. Children’s ability to lie effectively develops with age and is related to their increasing cognitive sophistication. However, even children’s early lies can be difficult to detect. Greater lie elaboration requires greater skill and children’s ability to lie effectively improves with development and as a function of cognitive skill. Different methods of promoting children’s truthful reports as well as the social and motivational factors that affect children’s honesty will be discussed.     

Affordance-based control in deceptive and non-deceptive penalties in soccer goalkeeping: Gender matters!

Only few studies have addressed how soccer goalkeepers adapt to both the spatial and temporal constraints while trying to stop a penalty kick. Moreover, research on penalty kicks has only involved male goalkeepers, even though the resultant constraint (i.e., the relation between the maximum action capabilities defining the time required and ball flight time and direction defining the time available) may or may not differ for female goalkeepers. We therefore compared penalty goalkeeping between male and female goalkeepers of similar skill level. The results showed that the resultant constraint was more stringent for female than male goalkeepers. In accordance with the affordance-based control theory, female and male goalkeepers both adapted to the resultant constraint, but did scale their diving action differently. Female goalkeepers initiated the lateral dive within the action boundaries set by the resultant constraint, while male goalkeepers tended to dive late, beyond the action boundaries. Owing to the early dive, female goalkeepers saved more penalties than male in non-deceptive penalties. Nevertheless, female goalkeepers were also more susceptible to deception by the penalty taker than male goalkeepers. These findings extend our knowledge of the affordance-based control theory in sports and contribute to the understanding of gender differences in soccer penalty goalkeeping.     

Detecting concealed information using feedback related event-related brain potentials

Employing an event-related potential (ERP)-based concealed information test (CIT), the present study investigated (1) the neurocognitive processes when people received feedbacks regarding their deceptive/truthful responses and (2) whether such feedback-related ERP activities can be used to detect concealed information above and beyond the recognition-related P300. During the CIT, participants were presented with rare, meaningful probes (their own names) embedded within a series of frequent yet meaningless irrelevants (others’ names). Participants were instructed to deny their recognition of the probes. Critically, following participants’ responses, they were provided with feedbacks regarding whether they succeeded or failed in the CIT. Replicating previous ERP-based CITs, we found a larger P300 elicited by probe compared to irrelevant. Regarding feedback-related ERPs, a temporospatial Principle Component Analyses found two ERP components that were not only sensitive to feedback manipulations but also can discriminate probe from irrelevant: an earlier, central-distributed positivity that was elicited by “success” feedbacks peaked around 219 ms; and a later, right central-distributed positivity that was also elicited by “success” feedbacks, peaked around 400 ms. Importantly, the feedback ERPs were not correlated with P300 that was elicited by probe/irrelevant, suggesting that these two ERPs reflect independent processes underlying memory concealment. These findings illustrate the feasibility and promise of using feedback-related ERPs to detect concealed memory and thus deception.     

True and intentionally fabricated memories

The aim of the experiment reported here was to investigate the processes underlying the construction of truthful and deliberately fabricated memories. Properties of memories created to be intentionally false (fabricated memories) were compared to properties of memories believed to be true (true memories). Participants recalled and then wrote or spoke true memories and fabricated memories of everyday events. It was found that true memories were reliably more vivid than fabricated memories and were nearly always recalled from a first-person perspective. In contrast, fabricated differed from true memories in that they were judged to be reliably older, were more frequently recalled from a third-person perspective, and linguistic analysis revealed that they required more cognitive effort to generate. No notable differences were found across modality of reporting. Finally, it was found that intentionally fabricated memories were created by recalling and then “editing” true memories. Overall, these findings show that true and fabricated memories systematically differ, despite the fact that both are based on true memories.