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Deception Detection and Relationship Development: The Other Side of Trust
Abstract
This piece was the first in history to posit the notion of "truth-bias," which has now become foundational within the field of deception. It also posits what has come to be known as The McCornack-Parks Model of Deception Detection; namely, that as relational intimacy increases, detection confidence increases, truth-bias increases, and detection accuracy decreases.
... Doing otherwise (such as consciously considering the possibility of deceit) requires some form of prompting or stimulus to propel a person out of their "truth-default" state. This theoretical structure stems from the earlier idea that individuals are typically "truth-biased" (McCornack & Parks, 1986;Zuckerman et al., 1981); this presumption functions under the objective that by assuming veracity, communication and cooperation will reach peak efficacy, and will almost always lead to correctness if honesty is maintained (Levain & Clare, 2014). However, this blind acceptance of truth occasionally leaves individuals vulnerable to deceit. ...
... The existence of truth bias in deception detection literature is a commonly accepted form of bias, and one of the most well-documented findings in research (Bond & DePaulo, 2006;McCornack & Parks, 1986). The truth bias refers to the tendency "to judge more messages as truths than lies," or the uncritically accepting belief of honesty, independent of the actual honesty (Anderson, Ansfield, & DePaulo, 1997, p. 23). ...
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/174726/1/kayleahs.pdf
... TDT's central concept is that people presume, without conscious reflection, that others' communication is honest. In TDT, a novel argument is that both this truth-default state and the well-documented truth-bias, i.e., the tendency to believe that another person's communication is 27 honest, independently of its actual honesty (Levine et al., 1999;McCornack & Parks, 1986), are functional for most of our daily interactions. This notion is demonstrated in TDT by considering the truth-lie base rate to explain the adaptive function of the truth-default state and truth-bias. ...
The General Theory of Deception (GTD) aims to unify and complete the various sparse theoretical units that have been proposed in the deception literature to date, in a comprehensive framework fully describing from end to end how and when deceptive messages are produced, and how this can inform more effective prevention and detection.As part of the elaboration of the theory, the different ways people elaborate deceptive messages were first tracked by the author daily, over 3 years, resulting in the identification, description, and naming of 98 “Elementary Deception Modes” (86 verbal, 12 nonverbal) that can all be combined during one deceptive episode, thus leading to a total estimate of 10^29 different ways to lie.Central to the GTD is the "Five Forces Model", explaining precisely at which times deceptive messages occur and what factors compete to determine the types of messages that are most likely to be produced (truthful, refusal to answer, or deceptive – and with which deception modes). Finally, the process by which deceptive messages come to mind and are compared, both against each other and against the option of disclosing the truth, given memory's capacity and time limits, has been described in the form of a dynamic, continuous, and testable algorithm called the “Deception Decision Algorithm” (DDA).The practical insights derived from this new disruptive theory of lie production are discussed and a theory-based lie prevention and detection enhancement method is introduced. Finally, three series of experiments were carried out to test certain predictions of the theory, in particular the impact of the manipulation of factors within the Five Forces Model on the prevention and enhancement of deception detection, experimentally confirming the main predictions for practical applications of the GTD theory.
... As the name of the theory suggests, the basic assumption of truth-default theory (TDT) [147] is that people trust and believe each other by default, which is called "truth bias" or "truth default" [114], [187]. This theory posits that most people communicate honestly most of the time; therefore, truth bias is beneficial for efficient communication and for improving the accuracy of deception detection, even if this bias causes people to be deceived sometimes. ...
Online reviews influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. However, identifying fake reviews online automatically remains a complex problem, and current detection approaches are inefficient in preventing the spread of fake reviews. The literature on fake reviews detection lacks a comprehensive and interpretable theory-based model with high performance, which enables us to understand the phenomenon from a psychological perspective and analyze reviews based on user-generated content as well as consumer behavior. In this research, we synthesized ten well-founded deception theories from psychology, namely leakage theory, four-factor theory, interpersonal deception theory, self-presentational theory, reality monitoring theory, criteria-based content analysis, scientific content analysis, verifiability approach, truth-default theory, and information manipulation theory, and selected nine relevant constructs to develop a unified model for detecting fake online reviews. These constructs include specificity, quantity, non-immediacy, affect, uncertainty, informality, consistency, source credibility, and deviation in behavior. We characterized the selected constructs using verbal and non-verbal features to validate the proposed model empirically. Subsequently, we extracted features from the Yelp datasets and used them to train four machine learning algorithms, specifically Logistic Regression, Naïve Bayes, Decision Tree, and Random Forest. We demonstrated that quantity, non-immediacy, affect, informality, consistency, source credibility, and deviation in behavior are essential constructs for detecting fake reviews. To our surprise, we discovered that non-verbal features are more important than verbal features and that combining features from both types improves the prediction performance. Our theory-based model outperformed most of the state-of-the-art fake review detection models and yielded high interpretability and low complexity.
... After all, it is the bread and butter of empirical research that an experimental design balances between keeping the environment as natural as possible while simultaneously controlling for variables that might affect the result. What comes close to fulfilling Fricker's expectations are studies devoted to deception detection in intimate relationships: romantic relationships, friendships, or parent-child relationships (Evans et al. 2016;Levine and Knapp 2018;Mccornack and Parks 1986). Interestingly, many of these studies demonstrate that deception detection accuracy is actually lower in close relationships than between strangers (even though participants are more confident in their judgment). ...
It is often suggested that we are equipped with a set of cognitive tools that help us to filter out unreliable testimony. But are these tools effective? I answer this question in two steps. Firstly, I argue that they are not real-time effective. The process of filtering, which takes place simultaneously with or right after language comprehension, does not prevent a particular hearer on a particular occasion from forming beliefs based on false testimony. Secondly, I argue that they are long-term effective. Some hearers sometimes detect false testimony, which increases speakers’ incentives for honesty and stabilizes the practice of human communication in which deception is risky and costly. In short, filtering prevents us from forming a large number of beliefs based on false testimony, not by turning each of us into a high-functioning polygraph but by turning the social environment of human communication into one in which such polygraphs are not required. Finally, I argue that these considerations support strong anti-reductionism about testimonial entitlement.
... TDT's central concept is that people presume, without conscious reflection, that others' communication is honest. In TDT, a novel argument is that both this truth-default state and the welldocumented truth-bias, that is, the tendency to believe that another person's communication is honest, independently of its actual honesty (Levine et al., 1999;McCornack & Parks, 1986), are functional for most of our daily interactions. This notion is demonstrated in TDT by considering the truth-lie base rate to explain the adaptive function of the truth-default state and truth-bias. ...
The general theory of deception (GTD) aims to unify and complete the various sparse theoretical units that have been proposed in the deception literature to date, in a comprehensive framework fully describing from end to end the process by which deceptive messages are produced, and how this can inform more effective prevention and detection. As part of the elaboration of the theory, the different ways people elaborate deceptive messages were first tracked by the authors daily, over 3 years, resulting in the identification, description, and naming of 99 "elementary deception modes" (87 verbal, 12 nonverbal) that can all be combined during one deceptive episode, thus leading to a total estimate of 10³⁰ different ways to lie. Central to the GTD is the "five forces model," explaining precisely at which times deceptive messages occur and what factors compete to determine the types of messages that are most likely to be produced (truthful, refusal to answer, or deceptive-and with which deception modes). Finally, the process by which deceptive messages come to mind and are compared, both against each other and against the option of disclosing the truth, given memory's capacity and time limits, has been described in the form of a dynamic, continuous, and testable algorithm called the "deception decision algorithm" (DDA). The practical insights derived from this new disruptive theory of lie production are discussed and a theory-based lie prevention and detection enhancement method is introduced. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Several studies demonstrated how people tend to perform not far from the chance level when asked to detect such behaviors (Porter & Ten Brinke, 2008;Porter et al., 2012;Vrij, 2008;Levine et al., 1999;Porter & ten Brinke, 2010). Furthermore, this problem is amplified by people's tendency to believe that the person with whom they are speaking is honest, regardless of whether or not that person is lying or being untruthful (Levine, 2014;McCornack & Parks, 1986). This mechanism called truth-bias belongs to human nature to believe and weakens its ability to detect deception. ...
Facial expressions are among the most powerful signals for human beings to convey their emotional states. Indeed, emotional facial datasets represent the most effective and controlled method of examining humans’ interpretation of and reaction to various emotions. However, scientific research on emotion mainly relied on static pictures of facial expressions posed (i.e., simulated) by actors, creating a significant bias in emotion literature. This dataset tries to fill this gap, providing a considerable amount ( N = 1458) of dynamic genuine ( N = 707) and posed ( N = 751) clips of the six universal emotions from 56 participants. The dataset is available in two versions: original clips, including participants’ body and background, and modified clips, where only the face of participants is visible. Notably, the original dataset has been validated by 122 human raters, while the modified dataset has been validated by 280 human raters. Hit rates for emotion and genuineness, as well as the mean, standard deviation of genuineness, and intensity perception, are provided for each clip to allow future users to select the most appropriate clips needed to answer their scientific questions.
... Previous research into the psychology of communication suggests that people have a 'truth bias' -an inclination to believe and trust others, even though this makes them vulnerable to deception (McCornack & Parks, 1986; but see also, Masip et al., 2009). This is an adaptive strategy in environments where people are honest most of the time, as it facilitates efficient communication, social learning, and cooperation (Baier, 1986;Boseovski, 2010;Hardin, 1993;Levine, 2014). ...
When trying to form accurate beliefs and make good choices, people often turn to one another for information and advice. But deciding whom to listen to can be a challenging task. While people may be motivated to receive information from accurate sources, in many circumstances it can be difficult to estimate others’ task-relevant expertise. Moreover, evidence suggests that perceptions of others’ attributes are influenced by irrelevant factors, such as facial appearances and one’s own beliefs about the world. In this thesis, I present six studies that investigate whether messenger characteristics that are unrelated to the domain in question interfere with the ability to learn about others’ expertise and, consequently, lead people to make suboptimal social learning decisions. Studies one and two explored whether (dis)similarity in political views affects perceptions of others’ expertise in a non-political shape categorisation task. The findings suggest that people are biased to believe that messengers who share their political opinions are better at tasks that have nothing to do with politics than those who do not, even when they have all the information needed to accurately assess expertise. Consequently, they are more likely to seek information from, and are more influenced by, politically similar than dissimilar sources. Studies three and four aimed to formalise this learning bias using computational models and explore whether it generalises to a messenger characteristic other than political similarity. Surprisingly, in contrast to the results of studies one and two, in these studies there was no effect of observed generosity or political similarity on expertise learning, information-seeking choices, or belief updating. Studies five and six were then conducted to reconcile these conflicting results and investigate the boundary conditions of the learning bias observed in studies one and two. Here, we found that, under the right conditions, non-politics-based similarities can influence expertise learning and whom people choose to hear from; that asking people to predict how others will answer questions enhances learning from observed outcomes; and that it is unlikely that inattentiveness explains why we observed null effects in studies three and four.
... Consequently, such individuals were vulnerable to believing misinformation. The tendency for individuals to believe most statements has been referred to as the "truth bias" (Mccornack & Parks, 1986), and has been shown in a variety of contexts (Levine et al., 1999), including when individuals judge the veracity of political statements (Clementson, 2017). The present work suggests that, in the political realm, the truth bias may not be a general effect. ...
More work needs to be done to understand how mental well‐being and interpersonal factors are associated with biases in judging the veracity of true and false political information. Three days before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, 477 participants guessed the veracity of true and false political statements. Interpersonal factors (e.g. high prosociality and a need to belong) and mental health risk factors (e.g. high depressive symptoms and low eudaimonic well‐being) were highly associated with believing false information. Further, positive well‐being was associated with assessing news with a partisan bias. Next, hierarchical regression was used to better understand the combination of factors which best predict accurate judgements. To reduce the chances of overfitting, out‐of‐sample validation was used. 40% of the variance for believing false information was explained by high prosociality and low well‐being. In addition, well‐being mediated the effects of political ideology when assessing the veracity of political information.
Purpose
This paper aims to explore various cultural and behavioral issues associated with the problem of investment fraud in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
By examining multiple cases of investment fraud in Indonesia as well as reviewing publicly available government reports, this study highlights several important cultural and behavioral issues associated with the susceptibility of Indonesian financial services consumers to investment fraud to understand better the dynamics of the victimization process. By using multiple cultural and behavioral theories, this study demonstrates how such issues shape the interactions between investment fraudsters and investment fraud victims.
Findings
This study demonstrates that multiple cultural and behavioral factors have created and shaped an environment where fraudsters can exploit people’s behavioral loopholes for their fraudulent schemes. In particular, the high power distance and high collectivism have been identified by this study as contributing to the high level of materialism in the country, which in turn makes people more susceptible to the temptation of get-rich-quick schemes. Investment fraudsters, being students of human behavior, use their behavioral knowledge to devise various means to deceive their victims. They use multiple psychological principles to stimulate target victims “gullibility to make them more vulnerable to fraudulent persuasion. In many cases, even financially literate people are not immune to fraudsters” deceitful messages. This study highlights gullibility production as a foundation for investment fraudsters to devise their means by which victims are manipulated to accept certain beliefs that depart from facts and evidence.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to the innovation in anti-fraud practice by building a better understanding of multiple cultural and behavioral issues associated with investment fraud victimization.
Originality/value
This paper brings a new perspective into the field of anti-fraud to stimulate innovation, in particular in investment fraud prevention.
The role of social networks has been largely overlooked in research on dyadic involvement. Hypotheses linking network involvement and romantic involvement were developed from an analysis of the interpersonal processes undelying structural transitivity. Data were gathered on 193 premarital romantic relationships. Results showed that romantic involvement was positively associated with perceived support from the subject's own network of family and friends, perceived support from the partner's network, attraction to the partner's network, communication with the partner's network, and the number of people met in the partner's network. Further analysis indicated that the network factors were tightly interrelated. Differences in support received from various network sectors were small, but significant. The "Romeo and Juliet" effect only occurred in one sector of the network and then for only some levels of some variables. The predominant relationship between social support and romantic involvement was positive and linear.
Two studies of the relations among observer familiarity, perceived behavioral discrepancy, and judgmental accuracy in detecting deception are reported. In Study I, observers receiving either no prior exposure to baseline information on a communicator, one prior exposure, or repeated exposure made judgments of truthfulness or deceit on the part of 16 different communicators. Results indicated that observers having prior exposure to baseline information were significantly better at detecting deception, though repeated exposure did not significantly increase accuracy. In Study II, truthful baseline and potentially deceptive samples of behavior were compared and discrepancies estimated by a group of observers. Results indicated a strong and significant positive correlation between these discrepancy estimates and attributions (accurate or not) of deceit.
Despite the considerable importance often attributed to interpersonal perception between married partners, family members, and other intimates, there have been few theoretical developments that address the distinctive factors affecting perception in these contexts. This article draws upon a broad literature review to suggest how interpersonal perception between intimates may be affected by such factors as familiarity, emotionality, behavioral interdependence, and ideological beliefs about intimacy. Particular attention is given to the role of perceptual bias in intimate conflict and relationship adjustment.
Lying and lie detection are the two components that, together, make up the exchange called as the “communication of deception.” Deception is an act that is intended to foster in another person a belief or understanding that the deceiver considers false. This chapter presents a primarily psychological point of view and a relatively microanalysis of the verbal and nonverbal exchange between the deceiver and the lie detector. The chapter discusses the definition of deception. It describes the deceiver's perspective in lie-detection, including the strategies of deception and behaviors associated with lie-telling. The lie-detector's perspective is also discussed in the chapter, and it has described behaviors associated with the judgments of deception and strategies of lie detection. The chapter discusses the outcomes of the deceptive communication process—that is, the accuracy of lie detection—and explores methodological issues, channel effects in the detection of deception, and other factors affecting the accuracy of lie detection.
This study sought to expand uncertainty reduction theory (Berger & Calabrese, 1975) by exploring network and dyadic correlates of uncertainty and stability in premarital romantic relationships. Respondents completed questionnaires and participated in telephone interviews three months later. Results generally showed that respondents experienced less uncertainty about their romantic partners and were less likely to break up when they communicated more often with their partners' family and friends, received greater support for their romantic relationship from family and friends, communicated more often with their partners, and perceived greater similarity to their partners. Uncertainty combined with the other variables to predict break ups over the three-month period with almost 90% accuracy. However, the presence of collinear lies, the global focus of the study, and the inadequate data base for longitudinal analysis placed several limitations on the findings. These limitations are discussed in terms of the need for more specific research and further theoretical development.
This study investigated the relationship between an observer's familiarity with the normal, truthful communicative behavior of an individual, and the observer's ability to detect deception on the part of that individual. Specifically, an attempt was made to provide an experimental test of the degree of linearity between familiarity and judgmental accuracy in detecting deception. After exposure to varying amounts of a communicator's normal, truthful behavior (baseline segment), observers made judgments of a communicator's veracity following observation of truthful or lying behavior (test segment). The results indicate a significant deviation from linearity in the relationship between familiarity and judgmental accuracy, and that the relationship is better described by an inverted parabolic curve (quadratic function). The possibility of information overload, the possibility of communicator-specific characteristics which provide clues to deception, and the possibility of observer fatigue were proposed as possible explanations of these results.
A questionnaire was disbributed to 56 individuals (28 heterosexual cohabiting couples, both married and unmarried) to test a nine-axiom theoretical system designed to explain and predict dyadic communication behavior and satisfaction levels in personal phase relationships. Questions were asked to measure such factors as the following: time spent in communication daily, the degree of intimacy experienced, the number of surprises in the relationship per week, the degree of "liking" felt for the partner and the estimation of the partner's liking in return, and levels of satisfaction for each year of cohabitation. The theory is derived from Berger and Calabrese's model of initial interaction and is based on attributional uncertainty reduction, used here to refer to interactants' levels of confidence in their own ability to retroactively explain and proactively predict their partner's behavior. Data support eight of the nine axiom-specified hypotheses. Tables and graphs are included. (Author/DF)
This study investigated the effects of familiarity and self‐monitoring on observer accuracy in deception detection. Observers varying in self‐reported self‐monitoring made judgments of truthfulness or lying after either exposure or no exposure to segments of a communicator's truthful behavior. Results indicated that observers familiar with a communicator's truthful behavior were significantly more accurate than those who were not; that accuracy increased significantly as self‐reported self‐monitoring increased; and that there was no significant interaction between self‐monitoring and familiarity.