Deception

Deception

1. What is deception

   • To qualify as interpersonal deception, the communicator must know what they're doing, be acting intentionally, and working to promote the belief
     • Deception is purposeful and goal directed
     • The efforts must be unrequested and unmarked
     • Not neccessarily a verbl behaviour. Transmitting false information doesn't require words
   • 5 forms of deception
     • 1. Lies
       • A person deliberately conveys information they know to be false
     • 2. Concealment
       • A person stays quiet despite possessing wanted info
     • 3. Evasions
       • Involve half-truths and equivocations
     • 4. Overstatements
       • A grain of truth is exaggerated
     • 5. Collusions
       • A person knows they're being decieved but act as though they don't

2. How do we feel about deception

   • Honesty rated 1/19 in terms of desirable traits by students
   • Deception is usually seen as transgressive but is quite common
   • 2/3 agreed there are conditions that demand one's partner be misled
   • It can be considered competent communication that manages boundaries, censors the unpalatable, and maintains independence.
   • People often report being benevolently deceptive and considering it to be synonymous with politness.
     • There are many situations requiring tact, when it would be unkind to be honest, but dishonest to be kind.
     • Being honest is not the same as being virtuous, and we may reprimand kids for their honesty
     • Deception can help to maintain social/relationtional harmony. Life may taste better when it's filtered.
     • Saxe: Compulsive truth-tellers may quickly become lonely

3. Does motive matter

   • Motive affects judgement but not definition.
   • Deception may also considered a neccessary act of professionalism
   • Medical opinion re deception remained consistent from Hoppocrates to the AMA: In each case

4. Are we good at detecting deception

   • We're generally suck lie detectors
   • 54% accuracy rate (probably inflated)
   • Detection may be easier high stakes lies, as insonsequential ones don't generate the nervous arousal that gives the game away.
   • We operate on a truth bias - this form of social cognition is needed for basic functionality, so our default assumption is of honesty.
   • Yet being suspicious impairs our ability to detect deception for 2 reasons.
     • Skilled liars adapt when they suspect others suspect them
     • Our suspicion can make honset people seem shifty.
   • Detecting deception among intimates
     • Spotting intimates lies is harder because of trust bias
     • To spot deceit, the best strategy is likely to listen for insoncistincies.
     • One reason we fail to detect deception is that we focus on the wrong things
       • Vocal cues
         • Long intial pauses or frequent interspersed pauses.
         • Speech errors e.g. fillers, repetitions, partial words
         • Pitch - for 70% of people, it rises when upset
         • No vocal cue, gesture, expression or twich definitely shows someone is lying.
       • Bodily clues to deception
         • Emblems - deliberate movements with specific cultural meanings.
         • A physical slip of the tongue if performed as a fragment or out of position
         • Illustrators emphasize,draw ideas, or physically represent what is said.
         • Manipulators: grooming, massaging, rubbing, holding picking, scratching. They are appealing but unreliable because they show discomfort and relaxation
         • Look for more emblem fragments, fewer illustrators, ignore manipulation
       • Facial cues to deception
         • Facial expressions are universal and evolved
         • Ekman: Involuntary emotional expression are hard to supress
         • Micro expressions are fully formed but last less than 1/4 of a second
         • There other clues that suggest an expression is false
           • Sincere - real expressions are less assymmetrical
           • Timing - long expressions likely to be false
           • Location of an expressoin in flow of speech
         • Eyes - liars know not to arouse suspicion by averting gaze but blinking and pupil dilaton are indicators