Lying

1
Lying

• Male/female differences
• Prevalence
• DETECTION

2
Freud on Lying

• No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are
  silent, he chatters with his fingertips, betrayal
  seeps out of him at every pore.

3
In the beginning

• We start lying at about age 3 but are poor at it
• Deception really begins at 5
• Prior to that, have difficulty deceiving people

4
Parents train child to lie

• That is, socially appropriate deception
• E.g. white lies

5
Small gender differences in good liars

• Girls lie by omission more often
• Boys by commission (distort information)
• At this pt, boys more successful liars

6
Rapid escalation

• How often do adults lie?
• At least one lie a day
• One lie in every 5 social encounters
• Lie to at least 30 of the people in our lives

7
Relationships

• Highest rate of lying is to strangers
• Lowest to best friends
• Lie a bit more to romantic partners
• Spouses lowest rate 1 lie in 10 transactions

8
Romantic partners

• May lie to protect relationship (e.g. about
  infidelity)
• Also tell more altruistic lies (e.g. you dont
  look fat in that dress).

9
Are women better at detecting lies?

• Should be, because women read emotion cues better
  
• Women can tell genuine liking or dislike
• Thus women are NOT better at lie detection

10
Are some people better at detection?

• Yes, professionally trained police detectives
• But not cops in general
• Clinicians who look for lies
• But not clinicians in general

11
Truth Bias

• Poor at detecting lies because we expect the truth

12
Detection

• Few agreed upon cues
• Agreed that it is idiosyncratic
• That is, depends on person to a large extent

13
Lies cause anxiety

• Either due to guilt over lie
• Or worry about being detected

14
Lie Detection

• 3 main areas to search

15
3 Different Channels of Communication

• 1. verbal channel
• 2. paralinguistic channel
• 3. nonverbal channel

16
Verbal Behavior

• Truthful subjects respond directly liars answer
  evasively.
• Ex when did you last see Ms.X?

17
Answers Compare A B

• A. It was Fri at 530. I drove her home from work
  because we carpool that was my night to drive.
  I dropped her off at her home at about 530.
  Thats the last time I saw her alive.

18
Answer B

• B. She and I car pool and Friday was my day to
  drive so I drove her home from work and I arrived
  at her house around 530.

19
Deceptive people also say

• If my memory is correct
• As far as I know
• At this point in time
• To the best of my knowledge
• Etc.
• QUALIFIERS

20
Alibi statement

• Answer includes an alibi as well as a deniallie
• Ex. I know I didnt do it because I was in the
  library.

21
Final verbal clue

• Truth tellers use contractions
• Liars do not
• EX. I did not have sex with that woman.

22
Paralinguistic behavior

• Primarily response time

23
Response latency

• Take longer to answer
• Especially if they also repeat the question

24
Responses

• Longer answerstruth
• Shorter answerslying
• More grammatical errors, less fluent speechlying
• Higher pitched voicelying

25
Nonverbal Behavior

• Especially lint picking

26
Visual clues

• Rapid blinking
• Dilated eyes
• Lack of eye contact

27
Gestures

• Hair grooming-often lying
• Lint picking-always lying (opinion of LM)

28
Hand Gestures

• Moving away from the body, usually telling the
  truth
• Steepling, chest thumping, fairly clear truth
  telling gestures

29
Change in posture

• If at key question, probably lie
• Hand coming in contact with face-lie (may cover
  lips, eyes)

30
Anger after accusation

• Goes away fairly quickly if lying
• Does not fade if telling the truth

31
Projection

• Is your partner suspicious of you?
• Probably doing it him/herself.