Deceptive communication in the workplace: An examination of beliefs about verbal and paraverbal cues

Abstract

Lies and other forms of deception in the workplace exact a tremendous financial toll on companies and organizations around the world. In this study, 240 employees from numerous businesses and municipal organizations completed a survey in which they indicated the degree to which they believed various aspects of communication change when people lie in the workplace. In support of the hypothesis, the employees held incorrect beliefs about fifteen of the eighteen verbal and paraverbal communication cues that were examined, suggesting that most employees may lack the information necessary to detect liars. The implications of these finding are discussed.

Full text

Individual Differences Research www.idr-journal.com
2010, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 176-183 ISSN: 1541-745X
© 2010 Individual Differences Association, Inc.
176
Deceptive Communication in the Workplace: An Examination
of Beliefs About Verbal and Paraverbal Cues
Christian L. Hart*
Texas Woman’s University
Derek Fillmore
East Central University
&
James Griffith
Shippensburg University
*Christian L. Hart; Department of Psychology & Philosophy; Texas Woman’s University;
Denton, Texas 76204; USA; chart2@twu.edu (email).
ABSTRACT - Lies and other forms of deception in the workplace exact a tremendous
financial toll on companies and organizations around the world. In this study, 240
employees from numerous businesses and municipal organizations completed a survey in
which they indicated the degree to which they believed various aspects of communication
change when people lie in the workplace. In support of the hypothesis, the employees
held incorrect beliefs about fifteen of the eighteen verbal and paraverbal communication
cues that were examined, suggesting that most employees may lack the information
necessary to detect liars. The implications of these finding are discussed.
Many people believe that they are not very skilled at telling believable lies, but they
believe they can detect if someone is lying to them (DePaulo, Charlton, Cooper, Lindsay,
& Muhlenbruck, 1997; Vrij, 2000). However, researchers have found that people are
quite capable of telling convincing lies, but are not very adept at detecting lies told by
others (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; DePaulo, Charlton, Cooper, Lindsay, & Muhlenbruck,
1997; Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991; Vrij, 2000). Studies examining the accuracy of people
attempting to detect lies versus truths have consistently shown that people perform at
only slightly better than chance levels (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; DePaulo, Stone &
Lassiter, 1985; Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). In a recent meta-analysis by
Bond and DePaulo (2006), the authors reported that in the 206 studies they examined, the
average accuracy rate was only 54%, where 50% would be expected by chance alone.
These findings indicate that most people are not able to reliably use cues in another’s
behavior to discern whether a person is lying or telling the truth.
The cues that many people report using to detect deception in everyday situations are
non-verbal behaviors, verbal cues, and paraverbal cues (Hart, Hudson, Fillmore, &
Griffith, 2006; Sporer & Schwandt, 2006; Vrij, 2000). Non-verbal behavioral cues are the
movements of limbs, torso, head, and face that might yield some indication of lying or

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177
truthfulness (Vrij, 2000). While previous research on deception cues indicates that a
universal set of non-verbal deceptive behaviors does not exist, some behaviors are more
likely than others to occur during deception. For instance, people tend to move their
arms, hands, fingers, feet, and legs less when lying than when telling the truth (Vrij,
Akehurst, Soukara, & Bull, 2004). When people are lying, they may attempt to control
their behaviors in order to conceal their deception. However, this inhibition of normal
behaviors may, ironically, reveal that a person is being deceptive (Vrij, 2000).
Verbal cues of deception can be defined as the contents of speech that may provide
evidence of deception. Vrij (2000) suggested that the cognitive demands associated with
formulating a believable lie may have some influence on a liar’s verbal responses. As
with the non-verbal behavioral cues of deception, there is no universal verbal evidence of
deception (Vrij, 2000). Some of the verbal cues that have been associated with deception
in previous studies are negative statements, implausible answers, irrelevant information,
over generalized statements, direct answers, and brief responses (Vrij, Akehurst, Soukara,
& Bull, 2004; Vrij, Edward, & Bull, 2001).
Paraverbal cues can be defined as a set of vocal cues that accompany speech behavior
such as voice pitch, response latencies, filled and unfilled pauses, message duration,
speech errors, and repetitions (Sporer & Schwandt, 2006). Analyses of paraverbal cues
associated with deception yield inconsistent findings. For instance, DePaulo, et al. (2003)
found that only three paraverbal cues were significantly associated with deception. They
found that both pitch and vocal tension increased, while message duration decreased.
However, Sporer and Schwandt (2006) found that only pitch and response latency, which
both increased, were positively associated with deception. Ekman, Friesen, and Scherer
(1976) found that liars tended to have a higher-pitched voice and tended to have longer
pauses in their speech than people who were telling the truth. Thus, while some
paraverbal features such as pitch may be consistently associated with deception in the
previous research, other cues are less reliable.
While researchers have detected some cues that may be associated with deception,
most people are nonetheless lacking in their ability to correctly discern who is lying and
who is telling the truth. Perhaps one of the reasons why people are generally such poor lie
detectors is that the folk wisdom and stereotypes that inform most people about the cues
of deception are incorrect. For instance, police training literature incorrectly suggests that
liars often place their hands over their mouth and eyes (Brougham, 1992). Some police
literature also falsely proposes that gaze aversion, shifting posture, and eye blinks are
associated with deception (Vrij & Lochun, 1997). While previous research has failed to
support the notion that liars avoid making eye contact, this type of gaze aversion seems
to be the most common cue that people use when trying to detect deception in other
people (Vrij & Semin, 1996). In a large cross-cultural investigation led by Charles F.
Bond, the researchers asked participants in 75 different countries how they could tell
when people were lying (Global Deception Research Team, 2006). In this international
study, over 63% of the participants reported that gaze aversion could be used to detect
deception. Other common stereotypes are that when a person lies, he or she has a higher
pitched voice, produces speech disturbances, and has a slow speech rate (Akehurst,
Kohnken, Vrij, & Bull, 1996; Global Deception Research Team, 2006). Likewise,
movements like illustrations, and self manipulations are also believed to be signs of

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178
deception, when, in fact, these behaviors are often just indications of nervousness (Stiff,
Miller, Sleight, Mongeau, Garlick, & Rogan, 1989). However, the research fails to
identify these cues as reliable and valid indications of deception.
In the workplace, deceptive communication in the form of lying is widespread
(Robinson, Shepherd, & Heywood, 1998). People lie in the interview process or on the
job as a means for advancement in their workplace or as a strategy for avoiding
punishment. Additionally, individuals in business relationships may lie for financial gain.
It would be a significant advantage for people in the workplace to be able to detect
deception in their fellow employees, customers, and associates for the benefit of their
company. In this study, we examined managers’ and non-managerial employees’ beliefs
about the verbal and paraverbal cues associated with lying, with the goal of determining
whether or not people in the workforce report using valid cues when attempting to detect
deception. In a previous study (Hart, Hudson, Fillmore, & Griffith, 2006), we examined
the non-verbal behavioral cues that people in the workplace associated with deceptive
communication. In that study, we found that most participants reported a reliance on cues
that are not valid indications of deception. In the present study, we examined workplace
beliefs regarding verbal and paraverbal cues associated with deceptive communication.
We expected that, as was found in our previous study, people in the workplace would
report relying on many inaccurate cues to determine when others were lying.
Method
Participants
The participants were 120 managers (68 females and 52 males) and 120 non-
managerial employees (90 females and 30 males). For the managerial employees, the
average age was 43.15 (SD = 12.45). On average, the managers had 12.04 (SD = 10.09)
years of managerial experience and supervised 14.7 (SD = 21.99) employees. For the
non-managerial employees, the average age was 34.71 (SD = 14.24). Participants were
recruited from numerous public and private companies and municipal institutions in
southeastern Oklahoma. Participation was entirely voluntary, and participants were not
compensated for their participation.
Procedure
All participants completed a questionnaire derived from one used by Akehurst,
Kohnken, Vrij, and Bull (1996). The questionnaire contained a list of verbal and
paraverbal cues that had been examined as potential indicators of deception in previous
research. On the questionnaire participants were asked to indicate whether they believed
eighteen separate verbal and paraverbal cues increase, decrease, or remain stable when
people lie to them in the workplace. The questionnaire used a seven point rating scale
where 1 indicated a belief that the cue significantly decreases during lying, 4 indicated a
belief that there was no change in the cue, and 7 indicated a belief that there is a
significant increase in the cue during lying. The eighteen variables that were examined
were speech interruptions, pauses, latency to respond, hectic speech patterns, voice pitch,
length of answers, use of short simple sentences, use of plausible descriptions, logically
consistent statements, detailed descriptions, reporting unusual details, reporting
unnecessary details, describing one’s feelings, reporting what someone else had said,

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179
describing interactions with others, spontaneous corrections, reporting a lack of memory
for information, and story contradictions. Other researchers have previously examined
each of these variables in people who were lying and reported on whether changes
occurred in each variable (DePaulo, et al., 1985; DePaulo, et al., 2003; Granhag & Vrij,
2005; Vrij, 1995; Vrij, 2005; Zuckerman, et al., 1981)
Results
The results of independent samples t-tests indicated that managers and non-managers
did not differ significantly in their beliefs about any of the deception cues (see Table 1).
This was an expected result, as we did not find any differences between mangers and
non-managers beliefs about non-verbal behavioral cues in our previous study (Hart,
Hudson, Fillmore, & Griffith, 2006). Given that managers and non-manager did not differ
significantly, all employees’ responses were grouped together for subsequent analyses.
One-sample t-tests were conducted for each of the verbal and paraverbal variables in
order to determine if employees’ ratings were significantly different from 4, indicating a
belief that the verbal and paraverbal cues either increase or decrease during lying (see
Table 2). Furthermore, Table 2 indicates whether the previous research has identified
changes that occur in these cues during lying (DePaulo, et al., 1985; DePaulo, et al.,
2003; Granhag & Vrij, 2005; Vrij, 1995; Vrij, 2005; Zuckerman, et al., 1981).
Table 1
Comparison of Managers’ and Non-managers’
Beliefs About Lying Behaviors
Deception Variable Managers
mean (SD) Non-Managers
mean (SD) t
Speech interruptions 5.61 (1.11) 5.63 (1.16) .114
Pauses 5.19 (1.03) 5.37 (1.04) 1.299
Latency to respond 5.29 (1.05) 5.37 (1.13) .595
Hectic speech 5.05 (1.00) 5.19 (1.15) 1.033
Pitch 4.98 (.93) 5.13 (1.12) 1.134
Answer length 4.98 (1.47) 4.89 (1.67) .453
Short simple sentences 3.85 (1.47) 4.12 (1.60) 1.356
Plausible descriptions 4.39 (1.49) 4.39 (1.51) .026
Logical consistency 3.31 (1.43) 3.34 (1.58) .144
Detailed description 4.41 (1.54) 4.53 (1.63) .570
Unusual detail 5.03 (1.14) 4.97 (1.37) .309
Unnecessary detail 5.33 (1.12) 5.23 (1.28) .672
Description of feelings 4.70 (1.36) 4.56 (1.51) .747
Describe what someone had said 4.26 (1.59) 4.06 (1.69) .937
Describe interaction with others 4.51 (1.33) 4.50 (1.43) .047
Spontaneous corrections 5.26 (.97) 5.40 (1.12) 1.067
Claim lack of memory 5.58 (1.05) 5.50 (1.30) .519
Story contradictions 5.83 (1.06) 5.92 (.98) .689
Note: * p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001

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Table 2
Employees’ Beliefs About Lying-related Changes in Behavior
Compared to a “No Change” Rating of 4.00
Deception Variable Mean (SD) t Belief Prior Research
Speech interruptions 5.62 (1.13) 22.108*** Increase No change
Pauses 5.28 (1.04) 19.032*** Increase No change
Latency to respond 5.33 (1.09) 18.830*** Increase Increase
Hectic speech 5.12 (1.08) 16.052*** Increase No change
Pitch 5.06 (1.03) 15.867*** Increase Increase
Answer length 4.94 (1.57) 9.208*** Increase No change
Short simple sentences 3.98 (1.54) .169 No change Increase
Plausible descriptions 4.39 (1.50) 4.029*** Increase Decrease
Logical consistency 3.32 (1.50) 6.922*** Decrease Decrease
Detailed description 4.47 (1.58) 4.548*** Increase Decrease
Unusual detail 5.00 (1.26) 12.281*** Increase No change
Unnecessary detail 5.28 (1.20) 16.503*** Increase No change
Description of feelings 4.63 (1.43) 6.766*** Increase No change
Describe what someone had said 4.16 (1.64) 1.504 No change Decrease
Describe interaction with others 4.50 (1.38) 5.648*** Increase No change
Spontaneous corrections 5.33 (1.05) 19.572*** Increase Decrease
Claim lack of memory 5.54 (1.18) 20.292*** Increase Decrease
Story contradictions 5.88 (1.02) 28.482*** Increase No change
Note: * p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001
Discussion
In this study, the employees held incorrect beliefs about 15 of the 18 verbal and
paraverbal indications of lying. Of the cues examined, participants only held correct
beliefs about the increase in latency to respond, the increase in voice pitch, and the
decrease in logically consistent responses by liars. Supporting our hypothesis, the
participants in our study, for the most part, reported relying on unreliable or invalid
verbal and paraverbal cues to detect deception in the workplace. These finding are
congruent with previous research that has indicated a general lack of knowledge of and
reliance on accurate cues of deception (Akehurst, Kohnken, Vrij, & Bull, 1996; Vrij,
2000; Vrij, Akehurst, & Knight, 2006).
One conclusion that could be drawn from these results is that the widespread
ignorance about the cues associated with deception could partially account for the
abysmal performance by people who are attempting to detect liars. It may be that when
trying to detect liars, people simply look for the wrong indications, and perhaps fail to
attend to the cues that might give a liar away. Perhaps it should not be surprising that
people are such poor liar detectors. Improved performance in cognitive tasks involving
behavioral observations is typically contingent on some form of operant feedback (Ray &
Ray, 2008). However, people usually do not receive immediate feedback regarding their
judgments about whether others are lying or not. An alternative explanation for the
results we found is that the employees in our study simply lacked insight into the ways in
which they actually detect deception in the workplace. Work in the field of social
cognition suggests that there are numerous automatic features of person perception that
occur outside of conscious awareness (Chen, Fitzsimons, & Anderson, 2007). The

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detection of detection may be one of these automatic cognitive processes about which we
lack conscious awareness.
Although our results show that participants in our study held many incorrect beliefs
about the verbal and paraverbal cues to deception, one should consider several factors
that could have influenced our results. The data for our study were collected in a
somewhat rural and geographical restricted part of the country. This sampling error may
limit the ability to generalize our results to the larger population. It should also be noted
that while the list of deception cues that were listed in our survey were based on previous
research, it may be the case that our survey did not include an exhaustive list of the cues
people use when detecting deception. Thus, participants in this study may not have had
the option of indicating some cues to deception that they use to detect liars. This potential
limitation could obviously provide us with an incomplete picture of the cues employees
associate with deception.
The results of this study may provide a partial explanation for why people are not
very accurate in distinguishing truths from lies. These findings are important because
they highlight the potential for errors in social communication in the workplace. It may
be possible that because of the incorrect beliefs that employees use in deception
detection, they could erroneously believe someone who is trying to deceive them, or
incorrectly cast suspicion upon someone who is telling the truth.
In future studies, it might be advantageous to examine the degree to which various
verbal and paraverbal variables influence the perception of truthfulness in
communications that occur in actual workplace contexts. Future studies should also
examine whether employee education about deception cues could influence the accuracy
of deception detection.
Deceptive communication in the workplace undoubtedly results in significant
financial losses in many organizations and businesses. The disheartening results of this
study suggest that employees may not be well-equipped to reduce these losses by
detecting liars. Although employees appear to have somewhat limited knowledge about
the actual signs of lying, perhaps increasing awareness of these limitations will draw
more attention and resources to the problem of detecting deception in the workplace.
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