Would I lie to you? “leakage” in deceptive facial expressions relates to psychopathy and emotional intelligence

This was the first investigation of individual differences in adopting deceptive universal emotional expressions. We hypothesized that psychopathic traits would lead to a heightened ability to suppress emotional expressions and exhibit less “leakage” of inconsistent emotions during deceptive displays. Further, we predicted that emotional intelligence (EI) would lead to a heightened ability to simulate emotional expressions. Participants (N = 100) viewed emotionally arousing (happy, sad, fearful, disgusting) images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive expression. Each video frame (30/sec) was coded for emotion (in)consistent with the intended expression (365,550 frames coded for 2437 expressions). As predicted, psychopathic traits - specifically, high levels of interpersonal manipulation - were related to shorter durations of unintended emotional “leakage” during deceptive expressions. In contrast, the erratic lifestyle element of psychopathy predicted greater emotional inconsistency during deceptive displays. Individuals higher in EI - specifically, the ability to perceive and express emotion - feigned emotions more convincingly than others but were not more immune to emotional leakage.     

Can I borrow your alibi? The applicability of the verifiability approach to the case of an alibi witness

The present experiment tested the applicability of the verifiability approach to the case of an alibi witness. Pairs of truth tellers carried out non-criminal activities. Pairs of liars were separated whereby Member 1 carried out the same non-criminal activities as the pairs of truth tellers while Member 2 committed a mock crime. Participants were asked to provide statements about their whereabouts, whereby pairs of liars were requested to pretend that they carried out Member 1's activities together. Participants were informed that their statements would be assessed in terms of providing verifiable evidence that they had carried out the activities together. Results showed that 88% of the pairs were correctly classified by the verifiability approach. Groups differed in their strategies: Truth-tellers focused mainly on “staying with the truth”, and provided evidence that they were together, whereas liars attempted to make it difficult to refute their claims that they were together.     

How the Eyes Tell Lies: Social Gaze During a Preference Task

Social attention is thought to require detecting the eyes of others and following their gaze. To be effective, observers must also be able to infer the person's thoughts and feelings about what he or she is looking at, but this has only rarely been investigated in laboratory studies. In this study, participants' eye movements were recorded while they chose which of four patterns they preferred. New observers were subsequently able to reliably guess the preference response by watching a replay of the fixations. Moreover, when asked to mislead the person guessing, participants changed their looking behavior and guessing success was reduced. In a second experiment, naïve participants could also guess the preference of the original observers but were unable to identify trials which were lies. These results confirm that people can spontaneously use the gaze of others to infer their judgments, but also that these inferences are open to deception.     

Keeping an eye on the truth? Pupil size changes associated with recognition memory

During recognition memory tests participants' pupils dilate more when they view old items compared to novel items. We sought to replicate this “pupil old/new effect” and to determine its relationship to participants' responses. We compared changes in pupil size during recognition when participants were given standard recognition memory instructions, instructions to feign amnesia, and instructions to report all items as new. Participants' pupils dilated more to old items compared to new items under all three instruction conditions. This finding suggests that the increase in pupil size that occurs when participants encounter previously studied items is not under conscious control. Given that pupil size can be reliably and simply measured, the pupil old/new effect may have potential in clinical settings as a means for determining whether patients are feigning memory loss.     

Does perceived ability to deceive = ability to deceive? Predictive validity of the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale

This research investigated whether the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale predicts ability to deceive in a vocational testing context. Using a quasi-experimental design, participants (N = 85 student and community members) completed the PATD scale and a personality measure under standard instructions before being asked to fake the personality measure as if they were applying for a job in the police force. Based on extant research, successful faking was operationalised as elevated scores on conscientiousness and extraversion and reduced scores on neuroticism. Analysis via independent t-test did not support the hypothesis that PATD predicts faking success. Future research should consider the relationship between PATD and intention to fake, as well as extend examination of PATD to other deception-related contexts.     

Young Children's Trust in Overtly Misleading Advice

The ability of 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children to disregard advice from an overtly misleading informant was investigated across five studies (total n = 212). Previous studies have documented limitations in young children's ability to reject misleading advice. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that these limitations are primarily due to an inability to reject specific directions that are provided by others, rather than an inability to respond in a way that is opposite to what has been indicated by a cue. In Studies 1 through 4, a puppet identified as The Big Bad Wolf offered advice to participants about which of two boxes contained a hidden sticker. Regardless of the form the advice took, 3‐year olds performed poorly by failing to systematically reject it. However, when participants in Study 5 believed they were responding to a mechanical cue rather than the advice of the Wolf, they were better able to reject misleading advice, and individual differences in performance on the primary task were systematically correlated with measures of executive function. Results are interpreted as providing support for the communicative intent hypothesis, which posits that children find it especially difficult to reject deceptive information that they perceive as being intentionally communicated by others.     

I Can't Get You Out of My Head: The Influence of Secrecy on Consumers’ Self‐Brand Connections

Although research provides anecdotal evidence of consumers keeping their brand consumption a secret, there is little empirical corroboration to justify its study or illuminate the resulting consequences. The goals of this research are to provide evidence for the prevalence of keeping brand consumption a secret and to understand the resulting cognitive processing and consequences. Specifically, we first explore the occurrence of secrecy in the context of brand consumption, its types, and its motivations, underscoring the need for further investigation. Then, through a series of three subsequent studies, we demonstrate that keeping brand consumption a secret can lead to enhanced self‐brand connections through the underlying processes of thought suppression and thought intrusion. We rule out alternative explanations and enhance generalizability through the examination of passive (e.g., avoiding) versus active (e.g., lying) secrecy and variations in agency (i.e., instructed vs. voluntary secrecy).     

Is there evidence of robust,unconscious self-deception? A reply to Funkhouser and Barrett

Robust self-deception, in Funkhouser and Barrett’s sense, consists in the strategic pursuit of the goal of misleading oneself with respect to some proposition. Funkhouser and Barrett’s thesis is that an evaluation of the relevant empirical literatures reveals that the unconscious mind engages in robust self-deception. If Funkhouser and Barrett are correct, the psychological evidence vindicates an account of self-deception that challenges the orthodox motivationalist approach and makes clear the distinction between self-deception and other forms of motivated belief formation such as wishful thinking. The aim of this paper is to show that the evidence adduced by Funkhouser and Barrett fails to establish the existence of robust, unconscious self-deception.