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Disentangling deceptive communication : situation and person characteristics as
determinants of lying in everyday life
Backbier, E.H.F.
Publication date
2001
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Backbier, E. H. F. (2001). Disentangling deceptive communication : situation and person
characteristics as determinants of lying in everyday life. Thela Thesis.
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Answeringg Strategies:
Askk Questions and be Told Lies
Iff deceptive communication is regarded as a means towards an end, as Miller and Stiff (1993)) suggest, a question that quickly comes to mind is: when is deceptive communicationn used? Thus instead of asking a more generally addressed question like "Whichh persons tend to lie?", the focus shifts to the communication strategy itself and the circumstancess in which it is deemed effective in achieving a certain communicative goal. Althoughh the notion that situations evoke lie-telling and deception is more widely recognizedd (e.g. Buller & Burgoon, 1994; Burgoon, Callister & Hunsaker, 1994; Ebesu & Miller,, 1994; Millar & Tesser, 1989; Saxe, 1991), we do not know of research that has studiedd the interplay between systematically varied situation characteristics and spontaneouss (deceptive) communication acts. We therefore still have a very flawed understandingg of whether, how, and for what part people's communicative actions are shapedd by the circumstances in which these actions are used. In addition this inhibits our abilityy to more fully understand the function of deceptive communication in everyday interpersonall interactions.
WhatWhat Is Deceptive Communication?
Bullerr and Burgoon (1994), two leading researchers in the field of interpersonal communicationn and deception, proposed that deceptive communication is part of a communicator'ss strategic repertoire of message forms. They thus suggest that deceptive communicationn is an interpersonal communication strategy, a view that we share with otherr deception researchers like Miller and Stiff (1993) and Robinson (1996). What's more,, we also share the perspective of Miller and Stiff (1993) that deceptive communicationn could be regarded best as a means towards an end. Miller conceptualised deceptivee communication as persuasion and therefore proposed it as a general persuasive strategyy that aims at influencing the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of others by means of deliberatee message distortion (Miller, 1983 in Miller & Stiff, 1993, p. 28).
Thee ways in which messages can be distorted in order to deceive an interaction partner,, roughly can be reduced to five types of strategies: lies or falsifications, exaggerations,, half-truths, concealments or omissions, and misdirections or diversions. Bullerr and Burgoon (1994) arrived at this typology after reviewing an array of studies eitherr aimed at identifying the various dimensions underlying different deception types or att identifying the various ways in which people tend to depart from the truth.
HowHow Can Situations Evoke Deceptive Communication Acts?
Itt seems that in many situations telling the truth will lead to the intended course and/or outcomee of an interpersonal encounter and therefore it can probably be regarded as a defaultt option for interpersonal communication. However, as can be observed from self-reportedd lies (e.g. Chapter 4; DePaulo, Kirkendol, Kashy, Wyer & Epstein, 1996), in some situationss interactants (have to) depart from telling the truth, or even tell straightforward lies,, in order to achieve their desired interaction goals. We propose that people may choose too communicate deceptively when somehow within an interaction situation a communicativee dilemma or conflict arises (see also Chapter 3). As lying in general is regardedd morally reprehensible and most people don't like to tell lies, a communicative conflictt arises when an actor experiences that he or she 'has to' choose between telling a painfull or disadvantageous truth (either for the interaction partners), the actor him- or herself,, or both or all of them) and a flattering or advantageous lie. That is, when the actor hass to choose between either a negative outcome or a negative act. We like to stress here, thatt we regard this communicative conflict situation as a more general form of the communicativee dilemmas used by Bavelas, Black, Chovil, and Mullet (1990).
Inn studying equivocal communication Bavelas and colleagues provided their research subjectss with what in fact were avoidance-avoidance conflict situations. These situations weree designed such that interactants were likely to avoid telling the truth as well as telling aa lie in response to the interaction partner's question. Bavelas and colleagues appeared ratherr successful in evoking equivocal messages by offering their participants these differentt situation vignettes. Although their primary interest thus was concerned with the productionn of equivocal messages, their research provided some initial proof for a situation inducedd shaping of answering strategies. What's more, as most research participants spontaneouslyy produced an equivocal message when instructed to verbalize a reaction to thee interaction partner in the situation vignettes, the personal characteristics of the participantss appear to be of little importance for the collected type of communicative acts. Somethingg that seems only possible when situation characteristics can somehow outweigh personn characteristics in the selection and/or production of interpersonal behaviour.
Forr the purpose of the present study, it would be too far reaching to go into the 'person x situation'' debate. Instead, we will take a pragmatically black-box approach and simple statee that we adopt the concept of the 'psychological situation'. This concept implies that individualss form situation perceptions and that the meaning of a situation for each individuall is based on his or her individual perspective, activated cognitions, and knowledgee structures (see Krahé, 1990; and Miller, Cody & McLaughlin, 1994 for extensivee discussions of the relevant literature). Different individuals therefore can have differentt perceptions of allegedly the same situation. Some situations, however, will be perceivedd as more similar than others. As a result we presume that some situations will evokee rather uniform or homogeneous behaviours from different individuals and other situationss rather diverse or heterogeneous behaviours. In addition, we presume that as a resultt of 'objective' differences in situation characteristics, in some situations hardly anyonee will lie, while in others almost everyone will lie.
Thee former line of reasoning leads us to propose two hypotheses, both following fromfrom our general 'situation-induced lying hypothesis' first introduced in the study describedd in Chapter 4. The first hypothesis is, that structural relationships exist between situationn characteristics and answering strategies, and the second hypothesis is, that in somee situations almost everyone will depart from telling the truth while in other situations hardlyy anyone will depart from telling the truth. Both hypotheses will be tested in the presentt study using a scenario methodology.
HowHow Can we Test Situation Characteristics to Be Related to Types of Deceptive Acts?
Inn order to test our situation-induced hypotheses about lying, we will present each of a groupp of research participants with a number of communicative conflict situations and invitee them to write replies to the questions asked by the alleged interaction partners. The naturee and gravity of the conflict-situations will be varied by systematically varying some situationn characteristics. The written replies will be coded by independent coders according too a coding scheme that will be developed from the deception typology of Buller and Burgoonn (1994), taking into account the information that is actually provided to the researchh participants. Next, the coded replies will be treated as the dependent variables and usedd to examine statistically the response patterns in relation to the situation characteristics,, which will be are treated as the independent variables.
Althoughh we could choose to 'simply' select and offer different descriptions of conflict situations,, as appears to have been a rather common strategy among deception researchers (e.g.. Ebesu & Miller, 1994; McComack, 1992; Lindskold & Walters, 1983; Pope & Forsyth,, 1986), we came to the conclusion that in order to test our hypotheses more
rigorouslyrigorously we had to operate differently. In order to be able to distinguish whether variationss in situation characteristics lead to variations in (deceptive) communication acts,
wee decided we should use systematically varied situation characteristics. Only when situationn vignettes differ systematically on a predetermined number of situation characteristics,, is it possible to determine to what the anticipated differences in collected communicationn acts are to be attributed.
Wee assume three variables to be relevant in interpersonal communication situations and thereforee within communicative conflict situations as well. The three variables were first identifiedd in the focus group study of Backbier (1994) and then tested for their relevance in determiningg the acceptability of telling lies (see Chapter 2). The first variable is the communicativee goal, the second variable the relationship with the interaction partner, and thee third variable the importance of the issue the communication situation is about. The threee variables appeared also to be proposed as the first layer of decisive factors in the rationall 'strategic choice model' of interpersonal influence strategies (Seibold, Cantrill & Meyers,, 1985; Seibold, Cantrill & Meyers, 1994). Research on the nature of communicationn goals seems to have indicated that the goals communicators pursue are interwovenn with the relationships of the people involved in the situations (Buller &
Burgoon,, 1994; Miller, Cody & McLaughlin, 1994). Likewise, the issue or content of (deceptive)) communication seems to be related to the kind of interpersonal relationship interactantss have (see Chapters 4 and 5). For the purpose of the present study, however, we usee independently manipulated variables in order to be able to test whether and how the three,, independently and/or in interaction with one another, influence the dependent or responsee variable.
Inn the study described in Chapter 2, each of the three variables was varied on one dimension.. The goal of the lie was defined as the motive of the sender to tell a lie, and variedd across three categories of motives: social, individualistic and egoistic. The person thatt was lied to was either the best friend or an acquaintance of the liar, and therefore the relationshipp was marked by a difference in strength of the social emotional bond. The importancee of the issue the lie was about was either relatively important or relatively unimportant.. The scenarios used in the study described in Chapter 2 already contained formulationss of lies. However, when these lies as well as the explicit reference to the motivess for telling the lies are removed from the scenarios, they become perfectly suitable forr studying the influence of the situation characteristics on answering strategies.
InIn Conclusion
Byy offering situation descriptions in which three factors are systematically varied and invitingg research participants to freely respond to the questions asked by the interaction partnerr in the scenarios, we provided a new paradigm for empirical testing of our situation inducedd lying hypothesis. The statistical tests in which the situational characteristics of Motive,, Relation and Importance are treated as the independent or explanatory variables andd the coded replies as dependent or response variables, revealed structural relations in thee response patterns. It therefore is demonstrated that indeed situations can evoke people too tell lies, and in addition, that in some situations almost everyone lies while in other situationn almost nobody lies.
M e t h o d d Participants Participants
Thee participants were 342 first year psychology students of the University of Amsterdam, 1233 male and 219 female, who participated as part of a course requirement. Mean age of thee participants was 21.07 (range 1 7 - 4 6 years). Data collection took place during one collectivee session at the beginning of the fall term in 1995.
Design Design
Forr the stimulus material a 3 (Motive) x 2 (Importance) x 2 (Relation) mixed within-betweenn factorial design was used. The within-subjects variables involved manipulations off the motive to lie (social (S) vs. individualistic (I) vs. egoistic (E)) and the closeness of thee relation between the person who was asking the question and the person who had to respondd (best friend (F) vs. acquaintance (A)). The between-subjects variable involved a manipulationn of the relative importance of the issue the question was referring to (importantt issue (I) vs. unimportant issue (U)). A manipulation of the gender of the person askingg the question (male vs. female), was nested within Relation in order to reduce inter-groupp variance due to sex interactions. By crossing the three factors, 12 different situation categoriess could be distinguished.
Scenarios Scenarios
Thee 12 situation categories were operationalised by means of short descriptions of everydayy situations or scenarios. The scenarios, which were previously used in the experimentt reported in Chapter 2, were adapted for the present study. The explicit referencee to the motive for lying and also the lie itself were discarded from the original situationn descriptions (see Appendix A). In order to ensure that the results of the 12 situationn categories would be comparable, and to enlarge the representativeness of the results,, four stories were used for each motive. Within each story, the relative importance off the issue was altered by replacing some words. The closeness of the relationship with thee interaction partner was altered by replacing 'your best friend' with 'an acquaintance'. AA communicative dilemma was created by giving information that (possibly) implied more orr less opposite interests, opinions or expectations for the sender and the target person. Of thee 48 scenarios, the 12 stories representing the important issues and the 12 stories representingg the unimportant issues are presented in Appendix B.
Procedure Procedure
Eightt questionnaires were composed containing six scenarios from the crossing of the three motivee categories (S, I, E) and the two relationship categories (F, A). The relative importancee of the issue (I or U) was held constant across scenarios within the same questionnaire.. The order in which the scenarios were presented, was equal for each questionnairee (S-F, I-A, E-F, S-A, I-F, E-A). By choosing different stories to represent eachh situation category within a questionnaire, finally, all questionnaires differed from one another.. Female participants were instructed to address the scenarios with a female interactionn partner on the top of each page and male participants to address the scenarios withh a male interaction partner on the bottom of each page. Each scenario was followed by thee question that read: "If you find yourself in a situation as described in the scenario, what wouldd you say to your acquaintance?" or "If you find yourself in a situation as described in thee scenario, what would you say to your best friend?". Participants were instructed to try too formulate their answer in one sentence. Since eight questionnaires each containing six scenarioss were randomly distributed over 342 participants, 40 to 45 independent answers perr scenario were collected.
CodingCoding the Answers
Thee development of the categories in which the answers were coded, was a multi-step processs in which we (a) developed a preliminary coding scheme on the basis of the deceptionn typology of Buller and Burgoon (1994) and the definition of lying proposed by Meerumm Terwogt-Kouwenhoven (1993)'; (b) coded a sample of 15 answers per questionnairee and modified the coding scheme as necessary; (c) coded all the answers; (d) reviewedd all coding work for consistency, adding clarifications to the coding scheme; and (e)) recoded all the answers using the final coding scheme. It appeared that seven categories weree sufficient to code the answers of our participants (see below). The categories were rankedd from a totally true to a totally untrue answer (with the exception of the last residual category).. Inter-coder agreement was established by means of calculating Cohen's Kappa (Siegell & Castellan, 1988). For the 48 different scenarios Kappa ranged from 0.64 to 1.00. Forr the eight different questionnaires Kappa ranged from 0.88 to 0.96. It is therefore concludedd that inter-coder agreement is 'substantial' to 'almost perfect' (Eggen & Sanders,
CodingCoding Scheme
Thee complete coding scheme is presented below. Firstly, in order to allow the reader to familiarisee him/herself with the considerations that guided the coding of the answers. Secondly,, in order to allow the reader to familiarise him/herself with the variety of answers thatt were formulated in response to the questions in the scenarios.
1.1. Tells the truth :
-- when the participant formulated an answer that is in accordance with the information
givenn in the scenario as being the truth (e.g. "You look awful", "The snacks taste terrible", "II did not take enough rest");
-- when the participant reported to tell the truth (e.g. "I'll tell the truth", "The truth").
2.2. Softens the truth :
-- when the participant formulated an answer that is in accordance with the truth but adds a singlee word that is meant to make the truth appear less hard (e.g. "Not too nice", "Not too good",, "Not a real good impression");
-- when the participant formulated an answer that is in accordance with the truth but adds somethingg positive to make the truth appear less hard (e.g. "They look beautiful, but taste awful",, "I did do too much, but you know me, I can't sit still"); ;
-- when the participant formulated an answer that reveals his or her real opinion by implicationn (e.g. "You usually look better", "You usually play better", "You look tired").
3.3. Equivocates (Avoids telling the truth as well as telling a lie) :
-- when the participant formulated an answer in the form of a question without revealing his
orr her real opinion (e.g. "Can't you ask somebody else?", "Was he in a bad mood?"); -- when the participant formulated an answer on a question that was not asked (e.g. "He isn'tt my type of guy", "It's not really my taste");
-- when the answer can only be interpreted as the participant avoiding to tell the truth as welll as a lie (e.g. "I do not really know her yet", "I've just come to know him", "I did my best",, "Could be better", "Great, you've won!").
4.4. Omitted part of the truth :
-- when the participant formulated an answer in which a relevant piece of information is omittedd so that the participant makes a different impression on the receiver than when this informationn was revealed (e.g. "I forgot the time" without admitting that s/he was enjoying aa drink on a terrace; "The glass fell" or "It is an accident" without admitting that it was due
too the participants' own clumsiness that s/he spilled the wine; "It was already old" without admittingg that s/he expected the washing machine to break down very soon);
-- when the participant did a concession without revealing that s/he does not actually feel likee having a drink, offering help, or having the friend or acquaintance staying over in the
2 2
weekendd (e.g. "Come over", "I'm coming over", "I'll help you").
5.5. Tells a softened lie :
-- when the participant told something false while adding a single or some words by which hiss or her real opinion emerges (e.g. "nice I guess", "looks OK", "might do").
-- or when the participant stated something truthful in addition to something untruthful (e.g. "Alll right, but could be better", "He seems nice to me, but I do not really know him yet",
4 4
"I'mm busy, and also, I don't really feel like it").
6.6. Tells a lie :
-- when the participant formulated an answer that is totally untrue, a falsification of the truth
orr a denial of the truth (e.g. "They taste delicious", "You look fantastic", "He seems nice to me",, "I did get a flat tire", "I took a lot of rest", "No, I had no idea", "I don't have time", "Sorry,, I already have another appointment");
-- when an essential part of the answer was untrue and something was added that is already knownn to the receiver or that is not revealing the opinion or actual knowledge of the sender (e.g.. "I knew the machine was old, but I had no idea that it would break down so soon", "Youu can come over, but not for too long. I've an appointment later on.").
7.. Something else:
-- when the participant stated that s/he would never do something like the behaviour describedd in the scenario (e.g. "I would never do such a stupid thing", "Doesn't occur", "He needd not ask, I already would have returned the money");
-- when the formulation of the answer was too vague or ambiguous to be coded into one of thee other categories.
R e s uu I t s
Overall Overall
Inn Table 6.1 the frequency distributions are presented that resulted from the coding of the freee responses of the participants. Overall about 25% of the responses could be classified
ass telling the truth and about 75% as departing (to a lesser or a larger extent) from the truth.. The category of telling the truth (category 1) was largest, followed by the category of tellingg a lie (category 6) and the category of telling a softened truth (category 2). In case of thee scenarios appealing to a social motive none of the replies could be categorised as 'tellingg part of the truth' (category 4), suggesting that this type of answering strategy is inappropriatee for the scenarios that were used. Only 2% of the responses were classified as 'somethingg else' (category 7); the most common reason being that participants objected to thee alleged behaviour in the scenarios appealing to an egoistic motive.
Tablee 6.1 Four-Way Cross-Tabulation of Explanatory Variables (Motive,
Importance, Importance, Explanatoryy variables Mott Imp Sociall Import Unimp p Indivv Import Unimp p Egoistt Import Unimp p Total l Rel l Friend d Acq q Friend d Acq q Friend d Acq q Friend d Acq q Friend d Acq q Friend d Acq q
Relation)Relation) with Response
Responsee variable I I 30 0 13 3 33 3 14 4 63 3 47 7 96 6 72 2 42 2 32 2 52 2 38 8 532 2 2 2 49 9 26 6 76 6 47 7 29 9 28 8 28 8 21 1 9 9 6 6 13 3 8 8 340 0 '' Variable (Answering Answeringg Type (1 3 3 39 9 58 8 32 2 65 5 7 7 6 6 4 4 7 7 8 8 4 4 15 5 3 3 248 8 4 4 . . --27 7 13 3 24 4 17 7 65 5 34 4 26 6 17 7 223 3 5 5 34 4 43 3 29 9 27 7 7 7 14 4 3 3 5 5 5 5 16 6 15 5 11 1 209 9 -7)* * 6 6 17 7 29 9 I I 20 0 30 0 60 0 18 8 50 0 32 2 69 9 42 2 90 0 458 8 Type) Type) 7 7 _ _ --2 --2 --6 --6 1 1 --1 --1 8 8 8 8 10 0 6 6 42 2 Tot t 169 9 169 9 173 3 173 3 169 9 169 9 173 3 173 3 169 9 169 9 173 3 173 3 2052 2
** 1 = Tells Truth; 2 = Softens Truth; 3 = Equivocates; 4 = Omitted Part of Truth; 5 = Softens Lie; 6 = Tells a Lie;; 7 = Something Else
Tablee 6.2 Overview of the Tests of Partial Associations between the Explanatory
VariablesVariables (Motive. Importance, Relation) and the Polytomous Response VariableVariable (Answer) Model l 1.. Motive x Importance x 2.. Motive x Importance x 3.. Motive x Importance x 4.. Importance x Relation 5.. Motive x Importance 6.. Motive x Relation 7.. Importance x Relation 8.. Motive x Answer 9.. Importance x Answer 10.. Relation x Answer 11.. Motive 12.. Importance 13.. Relation 14.. Answer Relation n Answer r Answer r xx Answer df f 2 2 12 2 12 2 6 6 2 2 2 2 1 1 12 2 6 6 6 6 2 2 1 1 1 1 6 6 Partiall %2 6.26 6 51.47 7 29.59 9 11.29 9 2.67 7 2.25 5 0.17 7 857.73 3 39.01 1 133.72 2 0.00 0 0.28 8 0.00 0 634.13 3 Probability y .044 4 .000 0 .003 3 .080 0 .263 3 .325 5 .683 3 .000 0 .000 0 .000 0 1.00 0 .596 6 1.00 0 .000 0 StructuralStructural Relations
Byy means of fitting logit models it was tested whether there are any significant structural relationshipss between the three explanatory variables and the polytomous1 response variablee (c.f. Fienberg, 1994). In Table 6.2 the results for the test of partial associations are presented.. The significant main effect for Answer (model 14) points to the fact that the frequenciess within tfiis variable varied for the answering categories. Five of the six interactionss involving'the response variable have significant test statistics (models 2, 3, 8, 9 andd 10) suggesting that the distribution of the responses were related to the factors
11
operationalisedd in the scenarios. How the variables are related will become clear when we lookk at the frequency distributions of these significant first- and second-order interactions.
Tablee 6 .3 Frequencies of Answering Type Split by Motive (Social, Individualistic, Egoistic), SplitSplit by Importance (Important, Unimportant) and Split by Relation (Best Friend, Acquaintance) Acquaintance) Answeringg Type (1-7) 1 1 Total l Social l Individualistic c Egoistic c Important t Unimportant t Bestt Friend Acquaintance e 90 0 278 8 164 4 227 7 305 5 316 6 216 6 198 8 106 6 36 6 147 7 193 3 204 4 136 6 194 4 24 4 30 0 122 2 126 6 105 5 143 3 1333 67 2 684 811 29 158 8 684 1422 47 233 32 684 1399 119 237 23 1014 844 90 221 19 1038 1422 93 140 26 1026 811 116 318 16 1026
** 1 = Tells Truth; 2 = Softens Truth; 3 = Equivocates; 4 = Omitted Part of Truth; 5 = Softens Lie; 6 = Tells a Lie;; 7 = Something Else
First-OrderFirst-Order Interactions
Inn Table 6.3 the aggregated frequencies of each of the seven answering categories are givenn for the three different categories of motives, the two categories of issue importance andd the two relationship categories. First, we will turn to the distribution of responses involvingg Motive and Answering Type. In the case of social motives the categories of softeningg the truth (category 2) and avoiding the truth (category 3) were about equally large.. In case of individualistic motives the category of telling the truth (category I) was by farr the largest and in case of egoistic motives the category of lies (category 6) was largest. Inspectionn of the distribution of responses involving Importance and Answering Type
revealedd that in case of important issues slightly more lies (category 6) were told than truthss (category 1). In case of unimportant issues this is the other way around, the truth (categoryy I) was told more frequently than were lies (category 6). Finally, the distribution off responses involving Relation and Answering Type revealed that the truth (category 1) wass told most frequently to the participants1 alleged best friend while lies (category 6) were toldd most frequently to an acquaintance.
Second-OrderSecond-Order Interactions
Inn Table 6.4 the distributions of the responses for the two significant second-order interactionss are presented. Inspection of part A of the table reveals that in case of a social motivee the strategy of avoiding to tell the truth (category 3) was most popular when the scenarioss involved a relatively important issue and the strategy of softening the truth (categoryy 2) when the scenarios involved a relatively unimportant issue. The manipulation off issue importance appeared of less influence in case of individualistic and egoistic motives.. Most participants told the truth (category 1) in case of scenarios appealing to an individualisticc motive. In case of relatively important issues the amount of participants tellingg a lie (category 6) was only a little smaller than the amount of participants telling the truth.. In case of scenarios appealing to egoistic motives most participants told a lie (categoryy 6). However, in case of relatively important issues the strategy of telling part of thee truth (category 4) was only slightly less popular than the strategy of telling a lie.
Inspectionn of part B of the table reveals that in case of scenarios appealing to a sociall motive most participants softened the truth (category 2) towards their alleged best friendfriend and avoided to tell truth (category 3) towards an alleged acquaintance. In case of scenarioss appealing to an individualistic motive the truth (category 1) was most frequently toldd towards the participants' alleged best friend, while almost as many lies (category 6) as truthss (category 1) were told towards an alleged acquaintance. In case of scenarios appealingg to egoistic motives the difference between answering strategies towards participants'' alleged friends and acquaintances was clearest. The categories of telling the truthh (category 1) and telling part of the truth (category 4) were almost equally large in casee of the alleged best friend. The category of telling a lie (category 6) was more than twicee as large as the category of telling the truth (category 1) in case of an acquaintance.
Tablee 6.4 Three-Way Cross-Tabulation of Significant Second-Order Interactions
A.. Motive by Importance by Answering Type
Social l Individualistic c Egoistic c Important t Unimportant t Important t Unimportant t Important t Unimportant t 1 1 43 3 47 7 110 0 168 8 74 4 90 0 Answeringg Type (1-6) 2 2 75 5 123 3 57 7 49 9 15 5 21 1 3 3 97 7 97 7 13 3 11 1 12 2 18 8 4 4 --40 0 41 1 99 9 43 3 5 5 77 7 56 6 21 1 8 8 21 1 26 6 6 6 46 6 21 1 90 0 68 8 101 1 132 2 Total l 338 8 344 4 331 1 345 5 322 2 330 0 2010 0 B.. Motive by Relation by Answering Type
Social l Individualistic c Egoistic c Friend d Acquaintance e Friend d Acquaintance e Friend d Acquaintance e 1 1 63 3 27 7 159 9 119 9 94 4 70 0 Answeringg Type (1-6) 2 2 125 5 73 3 57 7 49 9 22 2 14 4 3 3 71 1 123 3 11 1 13 3 23 3 7 7 4 4 --51 1 30 0 91 1 51 1 5 5 63 3 70 0 10 0 19 9 20 0 27 7 6 6 18 8 49 9 48 8
no o
74 4 159 9 Total l 340 0 342 2 336 6 340 0 324 4 328 8 2010 0 ** 1 = Tells Truth; 2 = Softens Truth; 3 = Equivocates; 4 = Omitted Part of Truth; 5 = Softens Lie;66 = Tells a Lie
AdditionalAdditional Analysis
Ass for each of the three different motives four different stories were written in which the relativee importance of the issue and the relative closeness of the relation were systematicallyy varied, logit models also could be fitted to the response distributions of the twelvee stories in order to learn more about the structural relations between situation
characteristicss and answering strategies. It appeared that for 10 stories significant first-orderr interactions were found between Importance and Answering Type and/or Relation andd Answering Type.
Inn case of the scenarios involving the story in which the participant allegedly met the interactionn partners' new partner or friend for the first time (social motive; scenarios 4a and 4bb in Appendix B), a significant second-order interaction was found reflecting a very heterogeneouss response pattern. When the alleged interaction partner was an acquaintance mostt participants avoided to tell the truth. When the alleged interaction partner was the bestt friend and had just married (important issue), participants tended to tell the truth or avoidd the truth. When it was the alleged best friend who introduced her/his new boy/girlfriendd (unimportant issue), participants tended to soften the truth, avoid the truth, orr tell a softened lie.
Inn case of the scenarios involving the story in which the participant allegedly had left some moneyy after buying a birthday present (egoistic motive; scenarios 1 la and 1 lb in Appendix B),, a significant effect only for Answering Type was found. The response pattern was ratherr homogeneous, either participants told the whole truth or told only part of the truth. Fourr of the six participants who did tell a lie, did so in reply to the question of an alleged acquaintance.. Overall the present results confirm the notion that situation characteristic weree related to the obtained answering strategies.
D i s c u s s i o n n
Inn order to arrive at a better understanding of why people communicate deceptively in everydayy interpersonal interactions, we decided to test whether and how situational characteristicss evoke deceptive communication acts. For this purpose we developed a scenarioo study with a free-response format. The scenarios were slightly adapted versions of thosee that had been previously developed for a study of the situational determinants of the acceptabilityy of telling lies (Chapter 2). The scenarios sketched so-called 'conflict situations'.. Situations in which the actor feels that a choice has to be made between telling aa painful or disadvantageous truth and a flattering or advantageous lie, either to the actor
him-- or herself, to the target or both of them. The results showed that most replies could be labelledd as softened or even straightforward lies. The category of telling the truth, however, wass very large as well. Softening the truth and avoiding the truth were the most popular answeringg strategies in case of scenarios appealing to a social motive. The scenarios appealingg to an individualistic motive led to a preference for the truth, while the scenarios appealingg to an egoistic motive led to a preference for lies. Complete lies and complete truthss were used equally often in reply to questions about relatively important issues. In replyy to questions about relatively unimportant issues, telling the truth was used more often thann telling a lie. Finally, lies were told almost twice as often in answer to a question of the participants'' alleged acquaintance than to a question of the participants' alleged best friend. Thee significant second-order interactions between the dependent and independent variables revealedd that the distribution of answering strategies depend largely on the specific combinationn of situation characteristics. The pattern of results thus lead us to conclude that bothh our hypotheses were confirmed by the collected data. First, that structural relationshipss exist between situation characteristics and answering strategies, and second, thatt in some situations almost everyone will depart from telling the truth while in other situationss hardly anyone will depart from telling the truth.
Ass said, three factors were purposely varied in the scenarios. The additional analysis revealed,, however, that response patterns varied with the different operationalizations of thee factors within a category. For instance, although the birthday present scenario was originallyy designed to appeal to an egoistic motive, the majority of participants did not tell aa lie and therefore did not act egoistically. Only six of the 167 participants who were providedd with one of the four variations on the story denied that (a little or large) amount off money was left that according to prevailing social norms should be equally divided amongg the two interactants. Although it is possible that most participants may have decidedd to resist the temptation to keep the money to themselves, some of them may not evenn have been tempted. Reasons for resisting the temptation may involve: the possibility thatt the real price of the present will be found out, seeing the perfect opportunity to show offf one's' honesty, or perceiving oneself as a person who is not able to lie very well. Reasonss for not even being tempted may involve: holding strong values about 'who is or is nott entitled to what', earning abundant money, or not seeing the opportunity to enrich oneselff at the expense of the interaction partner. An example of a story that actually did leadd the majority of participants to tell an egoistic lie, was the scenario with the old
machinee that had broken down soon after it had been sold to the interaction partner. Comparisonn of the two scenarios led to the insight that as in the second scenario a social normm had already been broken, the villainous act of selling a machine you expect to break downn soon, participants had only one option to save their face and/or their finances. This optionn was concealing the previous misconduct by denying the implicit accusation of foul playy by the interaction partner.
Thee observations described above thus forced us to consider a fourth factor as being of influencee to the pattern of answering strategies that are found in relation to the three situationn characteristics. This fourth factor seems to originate from the different ways we operationalisedd the motive, situation importance and relationship in the scenarios. This fourthh factor we will call 'action possibilities', as it appeared that the amount of action possibilitiess a situation offers the interactant(s) can actually vary extensively. For instance, ass in all of the scenarios a question was asked by the interaction partner, participants did nott have the option to say nothing. They had to respond and thus the option to conceal informationn was greatly reduced compared to situations in which a person is not addressed withh an (explicit or implicit) question. Second, some questions in fact appeared to mark the beginningg of a long conversation while others marked the casual exchange of only two or threee sentences. Third, sometimes the facts as presented in the scenarios left room for severall alternative interpretations or goal perceptions, while in other scenarios the facts left roomm for only one or two options. Fourth, in some situations lying is the more convenient optionn compared to the truth, while in other situations lying is the necessary means too meet aa certain goal (instrumental, interpersonal or identity related; Buller & Burgoon, 1994). Furthermore,, in some situations it is possible to stay rather close to the truth in order to bringg the interaction to a satisfactory end, while in other situations one has to resort to an outrightt lie to achieve the same. Finally, in some situations it seems relatively easy to get awayy with either the truth or a lie, while in other situations this seems much harder to accomplish. .
Hadd we not decided to use the previously developed scenarios and discarded the lies as welll as the explicit reference to the motives for telling the lies, and had we not used a free-responsee format, we probably would never have considered the importance of this fourth situationn characteristic for deceptive communication. With this new hindsight knowledge, however,, it appears rather obvious to envisage that the more action possibilities a situation
bears,, the more individual interpretation possibilities the actors have, as a consequence of whichh interactants will come to more varied communication acts based upon their more variedd cognitions, knowledge structures, perceived skills, etcetera. However, one should alsoo bear in mind the possibility that although people might seem to act in a similar fashion,, this act may still come from largely different mindsets. Future research might fruitfullyy examine the influence of action possibilities and restrictions on telling lies or the truth.. Equally, it might address the considerations that underlie the selection or fabrication off various (deceptive) communication acts.
Thee present study is rather unique, in the way that it is the first and only experiment known of,, that collected about 40 to 45 truthful and untruthful reactions to 48 systematically differingg situation descriptions. Although our research participants were not instructed to telll lies, as is the case in most other studies on deceptive communication (c.f. Riggio, 1994),, a huge amount of answers appeared to depart (to a lesser or greater extend) from the truth.. Participants were simply instructed to formulate a response that would be in accordancee with their reaction to a real life situation. Although no mention was made of thee possibility of lying as an answering strategy to solve the dilemma evoked by the story inn the scenarios, participants spontaneously reacted by formulating lies. They lied to the allegedd interaction partner in the scenario, seemingly without fearing detection or sanctioningg on the part of the researcher. As the real state of affairs (the truth) was explicitlyy presented in the scenarios, it would have been easiest for the participants to copy thiss part in their answers. They did not do this, however, and therefore it seems warranted too conclude that the participants' first concern was not to present oneself as a very honest person.. As no pressure was laid on them, as they were really anonymous to the researcher andd no actual interaction between target or researcher took place, the results can not possiblyy be strongly affected by social desirability bias. In addition, when participants felt offendedd by their alleged behaviour in a situation description, they revealed this fact in theirr answer. Finally, it is noteworthy to mention that none of the participants solely formulatedd truths nor did participants solely formulate lies.
Althoughh the present findings seem to warrant the conclusion that reactions are largely situationn specific, several issues need more elaboration and/or empirical support. Our researchh participants were mainly young, white, middleclass, Dutch psychology students andd therefore the structural relations and response patterns that were found probably are
prototypicall for this group. When different participant groups are provided with the same scenarios,, for instance elderly persons, religious persons, or persons with a different culturall background, we expect to find different response patterns and possibly different structurall relations as well. The reason for this is, that we expect different conventions, sociall norms and values to play a role in the situation interpretation and action selection or fabricationn sequence. When other scenarios are created to represent the different situation categories,, we anticipate to find different response patterns as well. As only same sex dyadss were used and only social-emotional relationships varying in closeness, it remains to bee demonstrated what mixed dyads and for instance differences in legal authority between interactantss will bring. Finally, the present study was solely about reactive lies and thereforee proactive lying still needs to be addressed.
Thee present findings affirm previous conclusions regarding the notion that most people don'tt really have a problem with lying now and then, as it can be regarded as a highly adaptive,, often social, often important, often acceptable and sometimes even necessary communicationn strategy. In addition, it seems that most people must have the experience thatt most of the time they don't have to fear detection of their deceptive communication acts,, as the amount of distrust on the part of the targets usually is small and therefore the numberr of detection attempts they take upon. Equally, it seems to be true that targets frequentlyy are hearing what they were expecting or even willing to hear. Consequently, interactionn partners tend to accept each others messages and answers and therefore both quitee often must succeed in achieving their intended communication goals.
Wheree the present findings point to as well, is the fact that one can not reasonably generalisee from the observation of someone's deceptive communication act in one random situationn to another random situation. As deceptive acts are tailored to meet a specific interactionn goal in a specific and perhaps unique situation or context, one or even several incidentss of a person telling a lie, is not likely to be representative for the general behaviourall repertoire of that person. Therefore, deception researchers, both those who are interestedd in lie detection as well as those who are interested in gaining a more thoroughly understandingg of the function of deceptive communication, are strongly encouraged to studyy this highly complex and intriguing phenomenon with a clear awareness of the contextt in which it is normally used.
Notes: :
1.. A lie is a message of which the messenger is aware that what he or she is communicatingg does not correspond with the knowledge, views, feelings or motives he or shee holds; and that he or she is making the statement with the intention of creating a discrepancyy between the information known to himself or herself and that known of the receiverr (Meerum Terwogt-Kouwenhoven, 1993, p. 25).
2.. We figured that choosing such an answer in fact reveals that the participant gives priorityy to his or her opinion that one ought to help others (especially when the person who askss you for help, or asks for a favour, is a friend). See also P. Drew (1984): 'Instead of sayingg that they did not or are not going to do something, speakers commonly assert an inabilityy to do it." In other words, people tend to refer to an external factor in order to make (implicitly)) clear that they will or do not fulfil an expectation or request.
3.. As this way of formulating an answer might be typically Dutch, the kernel of the formulationn may be lost in the translation from Dutch to English.
4.. The truthful part of the answer is probably meant to signal to the receiver that the opinionn formulated in the other part of the answer should not be taken too seriously. In otherr words, it is probably a signal that the sender does not really want to tell a lie.
