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Deceiver's Distrust: Denigration as a Consequence of Undiscovered Deception

DOI:10.1177/01461672982411004
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Brad Sagarin at Northern Illinois University
Brad Sagarin
Kelton v. L. Rhoads
Kelton v. L. Rhoads
Kelton v. L. Rhoads
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Robert B Cialdini at Arizona State University
Robert B Cialdini
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Abstract

Although psychologists have long recognized the havoc that a discovered lie can wreak on a relationship, this study indicates that even an undiscovered deception can bring about negative consequences. An experiment explored one such consequence by examining the hypothesis that in a dyadic relationship, if one partner lies to the other, the liar will begin to perceive the recipient as less honest. Participants who were induced to lie to a partner in a believable and, in some conditions, damaging manner then rated the partner on a variety of traits, including honesty. The results indicated a significant reduction in perceived honesty of the recipient of the lie, particularly by participants who told damaging lies. An exploration into the underlying mechanisms of the effect suggested that deceiver's distrust operates through affective means, with the liars justifying their actions in a self-protection motivated version of the false consensus effect.
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... Consistent with this explanation, a phenomenon known as deceiver's distrust has been described, finding that senders who tell lies (vs. truths) perceive receivers to be less honest 25 . Similarly, there is support for a false consensus bias concerning deception in the discovery phase of dating 26 . ...
... Data distribution was assumed to be normal but this was not formally tested. Consistent with H1, participants' who rated themselves as relatively untrustworthy also reported reduced feelings of closeness with their partner, b = 0. 25 To test whether perceived partner trustworthiness mediated this relationship, we used MLmed 45 in SPSS to conduct a multi-level mediation model, nesting Level-1 variables within dyads. As predicted in H2, the indirect effect was statistically significant (ab = 0.18, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.25). ...
Deception is associated with reduced social connection
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Lies can have major consequences if undetected. Research to date has focused primarily on the consequences of deception for receivers once lies are discovered. We advance deception research and relationship science by studying the social consequences of deception for the sender—even if their lies remain undetected. In a correlational study of video conversations (Study 1; N = 776), an experimental study of text conversations (Study 2; N = 416), and a survey of dispositional tendencies (Study 3; N = 399), we find consistent evidence that people who lie tend to assume that others are lying too, and this impedes their ability to form social connections. The findings provide insight into how (dis)honesty and loneliness may go together, and suggest that lies—even when undetected—harm our relationships.
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... Note: We have primarily relied on proximal outcomes to decide whether engaging in negative behavior is detrimental or beneficial to actors because relatively few studies have examined more distal outcomes that arise as a result of these proximal ones. For the moderators and distal outcomes, the initials in parentheses indicate the theoretical perspective into which the study was situated: A Feeling unconstrained-dishonest behavior (Gino & Wiltermuth, 2014) Inclusive behavior-ostracism (Legate et al., 2013) Task-oriented leadership behaviors-abusive supervision (Ju et al., 2019) Creativity-dishonest behavior (Gino & Wiltermuth, 2014) In-group bond-ostracism (Poulsen & Kashy, 2012;Wyer & Schenke, 2016;Zadro et al., 2005) Relational perspective Low connection desire-social rejection (Zhou et al., 2009) Distrust in target-lying (Sagarin, Rhoads, & Cialdini, 1998) Note: For most studies, it is straightforward to categorize a paper by one theoretical perspective, but for some papers we have to use our judgment as the theoretical perspective they have used is unclear or mixed. In addition, some papers have examined different types of negative behavior and used more than one theoretical perspective. ...
... Shu, Gino, and Bazerman (2011) showed cheating behavior caused actors to morally disengage from their behavior by, for example, justifying means with ends, distorting the consequence of cheating, and diffusing their responsibility. Similarly, Sagarin, Rhoads, and Cialdini (1998) found that actors who told a lie were likely to justify their lying behavior via creating a "false consensus" wherein they believed that lying was ubiquitous and everyone else, including whom they lied to, was also dishonest. ...
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... This may also be the case for lying, where those who engage in more frequent dishonesty expect others to do so as well. In fact, those who lie also perceive others as more likely to be dishonest both in laboratory and day-to-day (Sagarin et al. 1998) contexts. This may also be the case in parent-child relationships, where parents who model and are more accepting of dishonesty may also perceive their children as being more dishonest. ...
... Future studies could continue to understand this by asking parents and adolescents to report on their own and each other's lie-telling as well as relationship quality to understand this relationship further. Parents' biases may also be harmful towards their relationship; their own dishonesty may lead to greater perceptions of dishonesty in their children, thus decreasing trust in their relationship (Sagarin et al. 1998). Another extension of this work applies to educating parents on effective methods of parenting about honesty. ...
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Previous studies suggest parents lack knowledge regarding child and adolescent lie-telling; however, no study to date has examined children’s and parents’ reports of lying within parent–child dyads. The current study examined parents’ knowledge of and influence on children’s and adolescents’ lie-telling. Parent–child dyads (N= 351) completed self-report surveys. Children (8–14 years, 52.3% children female) reported on prosocial and antisocial lie-telling. Parents (Mage = 41.68, 89.5% parents female) reported on their child’s lie-telling, as well as their own honesty-targeted parenting strategies and modeling of dishonest behaviors. Parents’ reports were unrelated to children’s and adolescents’ reports of prosocial and antisocial lie-telling. Additionally, parents’ honesty-targeted parenting strategies and modeling of dishonesty did not predict children’s lie-telling. Parents’ behaviors predicted their reports of children’s lie-telling, suggesting parents’ behaviors bias their reports. Parents’ biased perception of adolescents lie-telling may have negative implications for parent–child relationships.
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... The act of lying to the GP may be at odds with principles governing close relationships in which lying can lead to disrespect of the other, decreased trust, and other negative relationship outcomes (McCornack & Levine, 1990;Sagarin, Rhoads, & Ciladini, 1998). However, GCs are keenly aware that rules governing relationship-maintenance in other relationships (e.g., their other GPs) no longer apply to their GPs with moderate and severe dementia. ...
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CHAPTER IV. VISUAL INTERACTION IN RELATION TO MACHIAVELLIANISM AND AN UNETHICAL ACT1
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: The study is based on the proposition that communication between and among persons is carried on at several levels at once. The activity of the other's eyes is an extremely important source of the expressive information one gathers and sifts in the process of forming impressions of others.
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This chapter focuses on theory of cognitive dissonance. The proliferation of research testing and extending dissonance theory results for the most part from the generality and simplicity of the theory. Although it has been applied primarily in social psychological settings, it is not limited to social psychological phenomena such as interpersonal relations or feelings toward a communicator and his communication. Rather, its domain is in the widest of places—the skull of an individual organism. The core notion of the theory is extremely simple: Dissonance is a negative drive state that occurs whenever an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent. The very simplicity of the core of the theory is its greatest strength and most serious weakness. Many of the hypotheses that are obvious derivations from the theory are unique to that theory—that is, they could not be derived from any other theory. One of the intriguing aspects of dissonance theory is that it frequently leads to predictions that stand in apparent contradiction to those made by other theoretical approaches, most notably, to a general reward-incentive theory. The implication of the chapter is that dissonant situations are ubiquitous and that man expends a great deal of time and energy attempting to reduce dissonance. It should be obvious that man does many other things as well.
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Evidence from 4 studies with 584 undergraduates demonstrates that social observers tend to perceive a "false consensus" with respect to the relative commonness of their own responses. A related bias was shown to exist in the observers' social inferences. Thus, raters estimated particular responses to be relatively common and relatively unrevealing concerning the actors' distinguishing personal dispositions when the responses in question were similar to the raters' own responses; responses differing from those of the rater, by contrast, were perceived to be relatively uncommon and revealing of the actor. These results were obtained both in questionnaire studies presenting Ss with hypothetical situations and choices and in authentic conflict situations. The implications of these findings for the understanding of social perception phenomena and for the analysis of the divergent perceptions of actors and observers are discussed. Cognitive and perceptual mechanisms are proposed which might account for distortions in perceived consensus and for corresponding biases in social inference and attributional processes. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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