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Does Information about the Frequency of Lying Impact Perceptions of Honesty?

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In the psychological research literature, deception is often discussed as a ubiquitous phenomenon. However, recent research has revealed that the mean of two lies per day is highly misleading due to a skewed distribution, with most people telling zero lies on any given day. We sought to explore how the presentation of statistics on lie frequency affects understandings of lie frequency, veracity judgments, behavioral intentions, beliefs about others’ propensity to lie, suspicion, and attitudes. In Study 1, 176 participants were randomly exposed to two explanations of deception research findings that either described lying as ubiquitous or not. Results revealed that the differing explanations of lie frequency did not produce significance differences on the dependent measures. In Study 2, 114 participants were randomly assigned to watch a video of a researcher discussing one of three deception literature prompts. Results indicated that a more nuanced presentation of the skewed distribution of lie frequency led participants to believe that lying is less ubiquitous, but had no effect on veracity judgments, behavioral intention, beliefs about others’ propensity to lie, suspicion, and attitudes. Implications and considerations for reporting lie frequency are discussed.
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________________________________
Author info: Correspondence should be sent to: Drew A. Curtis, Ph.D.,
Department of Psychology and Sociology, Angelo State University, ASU Station
10907, San Angelo, TX 76909-0907. Email: drew.curtis@angelo.edu
North American Journal of Psychology, 2021, Vol. 23, No. 2, 193-208.
NAJP
Does Information about the Frequency of Lying
Impact Perceptions of Honesty?
Drew A. Curtis
1
, Timothy R. Levine
2
, Christian L. Hart
3
, and
Kim B. Serota
4
Angelo State University
1
, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
2
,
Texas Woman's University
3
, Oakland University
4
In the psychological research literature, deception is often discussed as a
ubiquitous phenomenon. However, recent research has revealed that the
mean of two lies per day is highly misleading due to a skewed
distribution, with most people telling zero lies on any given day. We
sought to explore how the presentation of statistics on lie frequency
affects understandings of lie frequency, veracity judgments, behavioral
intentions, beliefs about others’ propensity to lie, suspicion, and attitudes.
In Study 1, 176 participants were randomly exposed to two explanations
of deception research findings that either described lying as ubiquitous or
not. Results revealed that the differing explanations of lie frequency did
not produce significance differences on the dependent measures. In Study
2, 114 participants were randomly assigned to watch a video of a
researcher discussing one of three deception literature prompts. Results
indicated that a more nuanced presentation of the skewed distribution of
lie frequency led participants to believe that lying is less ubiquitous, but
had no effect on veracity judgments, behavioral intention, beliefs about
others’ propensity to lie, suspicion, and attitudes. Implications and
considerations for reporting lie frequency are discussed.
Keywords: lying, deception, frequency, truth-bias, suspicion, attitudes
Lying has been widely reported as being a prevalent feature of social
interactions, with some declaring that people tell as many as 200 lies per
day (Meyer, 2010) or three lies every 10 minutes (a misinterpretation of
experimentally-induced lies that is frequently repeated by both scholars
and the media; Feldman et al., 2002). However, a series of widely-cited
diary studies from the 1990s reported that participants told approximately
one to two lies per day on average (DePaulo et al., 1996; DePaulo &
Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). Those
studies had participants record the lies they told over the course of a
week. In the deception literature, the mean of two lies per day has been
widely repeated in the decades since those initial reports (e.g., Curtis &
194 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
Hart, 2019; Hancock et al., 2004; Verigin et al., 2019). One dilemma
with reporting the mean number of lies per day is that the mean can be
dramatically inflated when there are extreme outliers or a positively
skewed distribution. In many instances, scholars reference studies
claiming that people tell two lies per day without communicating
information about the shape of the distribution (e.g., Small, 2006;
Triandis et al., 2001).
Serota, Levine, and Boster (2010) were the first to closely examine
the distribution of lie frequency. They did this through three studies, one
of which included a large representative sample of 1,000 American
participants. While they generally replicated the finding that, on average,
people tell approximately one or two lies per day (M = 1.65 lies, SD =
4.45), the most illuminating aspect of their analysis was revealing a
strong positive skew in the distribution. They found that most people
report telling no lies (59.9% reported telling zero lies) within a 24-hour
period and a smaller subset of prolific liars report telling a great number
of lies; in fact, 50% of the lies were told by just 5.3% of their sample
(Serota et al., 2010). The researchers also found a similarly skewed
distribution when they reanalyzed data from one of the original diary
studies (DePaulo et al., 1996). Subsequent studies have found similar
positively skewed distributions of lies in large samples of participants in
the United Kingdom (Serota & Levine, 2015) and the Netherlands
(Debey et al., 2015; Halevy et al., 2013), and in an analysis of patients
who reported lying in psychotherapy contexts (Curtis & Hart, 2019;
2020).
Emphasizing the mean or mode of lying behavior suggests starkly
different rates of lying, which may lead to very different understandings
about the prevalence of lying and perhaps different reactions (e.g.,
suspicion or wariness). Since the publication of the “two lies per day”
literature, lying has often been discussed as a ubiquitous, pervasive, and
frequent occurrence (e.g., Farber et al., 2019; Harris, 2013; Meyer,
2010). However, Serota and colleagues (2010) stated that “most
deception research has presumed the ubiquity of lying and moved past
the question of frequency” (p. 3). In fact, it is through knowledge of the
positively skewed lie distribution that commonplace lying can be
understood and differentiated from prolific lying and pathological lying
(Curtis & Hart, 2020; Serota et al., 2010; Serota & Levine, 2015).
Another factor that contributes to the misunderstanding of lying
behavior as ubiquitous is that the number of people who lie is often
conflated with how often people lie. In the third study of Serota et al.
(2010), 71.1% told one or more lies on the survey day (M = 2.34, SD =
2.94) but 92.4% of participants had lied at least once in the past week.
Scholars who emphasize findings of most people having lied tend to
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 195
conclude that lying is pervasive. However, while most people have lied,
it does not follow that most people are lying with great frequency (Serota
& Levine, 2015).
The finding that most people are usually honest aligns with
measurements of suspicion and wariness (Levine & McCornack, 1991).
When interacting with others, most people assume the other is speaking
honestly, and there is very little suspicion that the other person is lying.
Levine (2020) has referred to this as the truth-default. He argues that
through an evolutionary history of living in small cooperative groups,
humans have developed a truth-default stance that has been adaptive,
allowing people to efficiently function socially without the taxing
cognitive burden of constantly assessing the veracity of every statement.
One prediction made by truth-default theory is that people will hold a
truth bias, viewing statements made by others as mostly honest, whether
those statements actually are or not. Numerous studies have provided
robust support for this conjecture (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Levine, 2014;
2020; Levine et al., 1999). Further, when prompting by researchers was
absent, recent evidence suggests that thoughts of honesty and deception
do not even come to mind (Clare & Levine, 2019). While people may
move away from a truth-default stance when situational cues trigger
suspicion, the truth bias remains even when suspicion is high (Kim &
Levine, 2011). Thus, the strong truth bias functionally aligns with the
observation that most people are honest across most interactions.
Both the “two lies per day” and the “a few prolific liars” literature
present readers with an estimate of the base rates of lying in society. In
one case, readers are led to believe that everyone is lying a couple of
times each day, while in the other case, readers are led to believe that
most people are honest, except for a handful of bad actors. However, no
research has investigated the two different presentations of lying
frequency research to determine if it has any effect on attitudes, biases, or
behaviors. In order to better understand how these two different ways of
presenting lie prevalence statistics influence people, we conducted two
studies that examined how presenting the “two lies per day” versus “a
few prolific liars” literature affects understandings of how often people
lie, truth/lie judgments, suspicion, attitudes toward deception, or
evaluation of others’ propensity to lie.
STUDY 1
The purpose of our first study was to examine if reporting lying
behavior frequency (i.e., mean vs. mode), based on research findings,
affects people’s understanding of deception and their truth bias.
Specifically, we wanted to determine if reporting the “two lies per day”
versus the updated presentation that includes information about the
196 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
skewed distribution (i.e., “a few prolific liars”) findings would lead to
different outcomes in participants beliefs about lie prevalence, judgments
about whether others were lying or not, truth bias, negative attitudes, and
behavioral intentions (or desire to interact with a person). Based on past
literature drawing conclusions about lying occurring often or that most
people tell two lies per day, we predicted that people who were exposed
to a “two lies per day” research prime would believe that lying is more
ubiquitous than people who were presented with “a few prolific liars”
research prime. We also predicted that those reading the “two lies per
day” research prime would have a lower truth bias, be more likely to
judge others as lying, hold more negative attitudes, and have a lower
desire to interact with a person.
Method
Participants Participants were recruited from undergraduate
psychology courses at a southwestern university. A total of 206
participants were recruited. Thirty participants did not complete any
items and were excluded, resulting in 176 participants who were retained
in the analyses. The final sample yielded statistical power > .87 for tests
of means difference between specific experimental conditions with a one-
tailed moderate effect size of d = .5.
Materials We used twenty brief video interviews from Levine (2007-
2011). Each video consisted of a person being interviewed about
cheating. In each video, the person was truthfully denying having
cheated. Thus, all subjects in the video were being honest. Following
each video, participants were asked to indicate whether they believed the
person in the video was lying or telling the truth. Additionally,
participants were asked how likely they would be to interact with the
individual in the video (1 = Extremely unlikely; 7 = Extremely likely).
An adaptation of the 14-item Lying in Everyday Situations Scale (LiES;
Hart et al., 2019) was used. This modification, the Lying in Everyday
Situations Scale-Others (LiES-O), asked participants how much they
agreed that others have a propensity to lie (e.g., others lie for revenge).
The internal reliability of the LiES-O was good in the current study (α =
.87). We also used the Suspicion Scale, a 12-item scale that assesses
suspicion of others (Levine & McCornack, 1991). The internal reliability
for the Suspicion Scale was acceptable (α = .76). We also employed the
Others’ Deception Attitude Measure (ODAM), which is a 22-item
attitudinal measure about others’ use of deception, based on the
Therapist Attitudes Towards Deception Scale (Curtis & Hart, 2015). The
internal reliability for the ODAM was acceptable (α = .83).
Procedure The study was approved by an institutional review
board. Participants were recruited through a department research
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 197
administration system. Participants were able to select a link, which
presented them with the study, hosted in a secure research database.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three written conditions:
“two lies per day” information condition, updated “a few prolific liars”
information condition, or a control group. In the “two lies per day”
condition, the participants were provided with the following information:
"Classic literature has suggested that people tell two lies, on average, per
day (DePaulo & Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Kashy & DePaulo,
1996)." The “a few prolific liars” group received this information:
"Classic literature has suggested that people tell two lies, on average, per
day (DePaulo & Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Kashy & DePaulo,
1996). However, recent research has revealed that a small set of people
tell many lies but most people tell fewer than two lies per day (Serota et
al., 2010; Serota & Levine, 2015)." The control group received this
information: "Research has revealed that abnormal psychology is the
second most frequently listed undergraduate course, following
introductory psychology (Pearlman & McCann, 1997)." Participants then
watched the 20 videos, made judgments about whether each person was
telling the truth or lying, and answered a behavioral intention question.
After watching all videos, participants were asked to complete the LiES-
O, Suspicion Scale, and ODAM. After completing these measures,
participants were debriefed.
Results
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the
truth/lie judgments made across the three groups. There were no
statistically significant differences between groups on truth/lie
judgments, F (2, 152) = .38, p = .68. Participants indicated about 60/40
truth to lie judgments regardless of the research information they read
(“two lies per day” condition: 62%, M = 12.37 videos judged truthful, SD
= 3.03; “a few prolific liars” condition: 60%, M = 12.07, SD = 2.76;
control condition: 59%, M = 11.85, SD = 3.03). A one-sample t-test was
conducted with zero as the test value, which revealed a significant
difference, t(155) = 33.63, p < 0.001, d = 2.7, 95% CI = 7.43–8.36.
Participants from all groups judged 39% (M = 7.89 out of 20) of the
cases as lying. An ANOVA revealed that there were no significant
differences across groups in judging others’ propensity to lie, F (2, 146)
= 1.21, p = .30, η
2
= .02. An ANOVA was used to compare suspicion
scores between the three groups, revealing no significant differences, F
(2, 144) = 2.39, p = .09, η
2
= .03. An ANOVA revealed no significant
differences between groups in attitudes, F (2, 122) = .38, p = .68, η
2
=
.01. Lastly, there was no statistically significant difference found
198 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
between groups in behavioral intentions, F (2, 142) = 1.87, p = .16, η
2
=
.03 (see Table 1).
Table 1 Study 1 Means & Standard Deviations of Dependent Measures
Condition Measure M SD
“two lies per day” Veracity Judgments 12.37 3.030
LiES-O 70.37 11.51
Suspicion 50.98 9.10
ODAM 108.17 12.57
Behavioral Intentions 84.59 16.87
“a few prolific liars” Veracity Judgments 12.07 2.76
LiES-O 73.17 13.86
Suspicion 46.85 11.37
ODAM 110.60 15.27
Behavioral Intentions 77.86 16.10
Control Veracity Judgments 11.85 3.030
LiES-O 74.21 12.24
Suspicion 50.51 10.70
ODAM 110.00 13.17
Behavioral Intentions 80.89 18.94
Discussion
Overall, exposure to differential evidence about the prevalence of
lying did not appear to produce disparate effects on participants’
judgments of veracity, truth bias, others’ propensity to lie, suspicion,
attitudes toward liars, or behavioral intentions. One possible explanation
of these findings is that students may hold strong preexisting beliefs
about deception that were resistant to the new information that was
provided. There is abundant evidence that existing attitudes are often
resistant to modification (Fransen et al., 2015). We only provided a
single written message. Perhaps more extensive information or
information presented in a different format would have been more
influential. Further, both the “two lies per day” and the updated “a few
prolific liars” information contained information that, on average,
deception occurs about two times per day, with the updated “a few
prolific liars” information going on to clarify the shape of the
distribution. It could be the case that statistically naïve participants were
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 199
able to understand the mean but were less able to fully understand the
information explaining the skewed distribution or that the mean was
inflated. Perhaps if we had more fully separated the manners of reporting
lie prevalence, there would have been a more pronounced effect on the
dependent variables. Separating the literature presentations could address
this concern by examining whether the presentation of the mean alone or
discussing the mode and distribution shape influences how people think
about the amount of times people lie.
STUDY 2
We conducted a second study to examine if a truth-default position,
attitudes, and behaviors would be influenced by deception prevalence
information if the mean was presented (approximately two lies per day)
versus if the mode and distribution shape alone was presented
(approximately zero lies per day, with a few lying a lot). The second
study explored three deception literature formats. The first two were
identical to ones used in Study 1: the “two lies per day” information and
the updated “a few prolific liars” information. We also introduced a third
manner of presenting the most recent information that noted a modal lie
frequency of zero times per day with a positive skew. We called this
condition the “mode and skew” condition. We expected that excluding
any mention of the inflated mean in the mode and skew condition would
facilitate participants’ understanding of the actual nature of the lie
frequency distribution. We predicted that participants presented with the
mode and skew condition would believe that lying is less ubiquitous than
the other group, would have a heightened truth bias, would be less likely
to judge others as lying, would hold more positive attitudes, and would
have a higher desire to interact with a person.
Method
Participants Participants were recruited from undergraduate
psychology courses at a southwestern university. To be eligible to
participate in Study 2, participants could not have participated in Study 1.
A total of 126 participants were recruited, of which 12 participants
indicated that they did not watch the videos and were not included in the
analyses. Therefore, 114 participants were included in the analyses. The
final sample yielded statistical power = .70 for tests of means difference
between specific experimental conditions with a one-tailed moderate
effect size of d = .5.
Materials We created three videos, each consisting of research
information presented verbally by the same male researcher who was
standing and looking into the camera. A manipulation check item was
added, asking participants if they “watched the entire video.” We asked
200 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
participants to indicate how often do people lie on a seven-point Likert-
type rating scale (1 = never, 4 = a moderate amount, 7 = all the time).
Further, we asked participants to indicate how many lies do most people
tell each day. In addition to these items, we used the same 20 videos and
measures that were used in study one. The internal consistency reliability
was acceptable for the LiES-O (α = .87), the Suspicion Scale (α = .76),
and ODAM (α = .83).
Procedure The study was approved by an institutional review board.
Participants were recruited through a research administration system and
to be eligible they could not have participated in Study 1. Eligible
participants were able to select a link, which took them to the study,
hosted in a secure research database. Participants were randomly
assigned to one of three video conditions: “two lies per day”, updated “a
few prolific liars”, or the “mode and skew” condition. In each condition,
the research information was presented verbally by the same male
researcher in a video recording. In the “two lies per day” group, the
participants watched a video of the researcher stating, "Classic literature
has suggested that people tell two lies, on average, per day." In the
updated “a few prolific liars” literature group, the researcher stated,
"Classic literature has suggested that people tell two lies, on average, per
day. However, recent research has revealed that a small set of people tell
many lies but most people tell fewer than two lies per day." In the “mode
and skew” condition, the researcher stated, “Recent research has revealed
that most people tell zero lies within a 24 hour period; however, a small
set of people tell many lies within a 24 hour period." Following these
video presentations, participants were asked if they watched the videos,
as a manipulation check. Then, participants were asked to watch the 20
videos, make judgments about whether each person was telling the truth
or lying, and answer a behavioral intention question. After watching all
videos, participants were asked to complete the LiES-O, Suspicion Scale,
and ODAM. After completing these measures, participants were
debriefed.
Results
Partially supporting our hypothesis, an ANOVA revealed
statistically significant differences between groups with how often they
believe that people lie, F (2, 111) = 7.92, MSE= 1.90, p = .001, η
2
= .13.
Least significant difference (LSD) post-hoc analyses revealed that the
classic literature information resulted in people indicating people lie
more often (M = 4.24, SD = 1.21) compared to the updated “a few
prolific liars” information (M = 3.50, SD = 1.28; p = .03), and mode and
skew alone (M = 3.07, SD = 1.54, p < .001). Regarding the question of
how many lies do most people tell each day, the modal response for the
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 201
“mode and skew” condition and the updated “a few prolific liars”
condition was zero. However, the mode was two for the “two lies per
day” condition (see Table 2). However, an ANOVA showed no
statistically significant differences between groups for number of lies told
per day, F (2, 113) = 2.71, p = .07, η
2
= .05.
Table 2 Descriptive information for perceived number of lies told each
day
Condition M SD Mdn Mode N Max (SE) (SE)
LL UL
"mode and skew" 1.45 2.76 0 0 42 10 0.59 2.31 2.3 (.37) 4.7 (.72)
"a few prolific liars" 2.50 1.61 2 0 30 10 1.90 3.10 3.9 (.43) 16.8 (.83)
"two lies per day" 2.02 0.60 2 2 42 5 1.84 2.21 2.1 (.37) 17.4 (.72)
Skew
ness
Kur
tosis
95% CI
Regarding truth judgments of videos, an ANOVA revealed no
statistically significant differences between groups, F (2, 102) = .89, p =
.42, η
2
= .02. Participants indicated about 60/40 truth to lie judgments
regardless of the video they watched (“two lies per day” condition: 64%,
M = 12.85, SD = 3.09; update “a few prolific liars” condition: 64%, M =
12.77, SD = 2.49; “mode and skew” condition: 60%, M = 12.03, SD =
3.07). A one-sample t-test with zero as the test value revealed a
significant difference, t(113) = 26.59, p < .001, d = 2.5, 95% CI = 6.88–
7.98. Participants from all groups judged 37% (M = 7.43 out of 20) of the
cases as lying. There were no statistically significant differences between
groups for judging others’ propensity to lie, F (2, 103) = 1.51, p = .23, η
2
= .03, in suspicion, F (2, 107) = 1.39, p = .25, η
2
= .03, with attitudes, F
(2, 90) = 1.09, p = .34, η
2
= .02, and behavioral intentions, F (2, 99) =
.60, p = .55, η
2
= .01 (see Table 3).
Discussion
The second study revealed that video recorded presentations of
various deception literature presentations affected understandings of
lying behavior or how people understand the frequencies of lying
behaviors. Specifically, after being presented with findings from recent
literature about the skewed distribution of lie frequency (Serota et al.,
2010; Serota & Levine, 2015), participants indicated that people lie less
frequently than if they were only presented with the mean (two lies per
202 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
day). Failing to support our hypothesis, there were no significant effects
for truth/deception judgments, truth bias, behavioral intentions, thoughts
Table 3 Study 2 Means and Standard Deviations of Dependent Measures
Condition Measure M SD
“two lies per day” Veracity Judgments 12.85 3.09
LiES-O 75.14 13.89
Suspicion 46.45 10.85
ODAM 108.72 13.22
Behavioral Intentions 80.26 11.76
“a few prolific liars” Veracity Judgments 12.77 2.49
LiES-O 70.14 12.73
Suspicion 50.28 8.32
ODAM 110.32 12.91
Behavioral Intentions 77.48 17.24
“mode and skew” Veracity Judgments 12.02 3.07
LiES-O 73.14 13.13
Suspicion 48.29 8.68
ODAM 113.47 13.89
Behavioral Intentions 76.78 14.87
about others’ propensity to lie, suspicion, and attitudes. The results of
this study were somewhat surprising, as the information presented to
participants did seem to influence their understanding of lie prevalence,
yet that understanding did not significantly influence their attitudes and
judgments. Once again, attitudes can be fairly resistant to change
(Fransen et al., 2015). Further, the veracity effect, which is influenced by
truth-bias, is robust (Levine et al., 1999).
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Even though research has corroborated that lying is not as
commonplace as once thought (Serota et al., 2010, Serota & Levine,
2015), there is a strong tendency to infer the ubiquity of lying based on
the true premises of lie averages. The true premises are that most people
have told a lie and that the average number of lies per day is one to two
(DePaulo et al.,1996; Serota et al., 2010; Serota & Levine, 2015).
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 203
However, the conclusion that most people are frequently telling lies does
not follow. Even so, some scholars discuss lying as a pervasive and
frequent occurrence, which communicates the image that most people lie
most of the time. Most human interactions are honest, and while most
people do lie, they do so infrequently (Levine, 2014; 2020; Serota et al.,
2010; Serota & Levine, 2015). Although people tend to hold a truth bias
(Levine et al., 1999), it is unclear if truth-bias is based on the prevalence
of honesty.
We found that the deception literature prompts did affect students’
beliefs in the predicted direction when presenting information about the
skewed distribution, yet interestingly, the truth biases and other measures
were still unaffected by the prompts. The current levels of truth bias were
similar to levels of truth bias observed in experiments exposing people to
both truths and lies. Thus, not only was truth unaffected by the various
information we provided, it was apparently not impacted by the actual
base-rate of deception in the communication being assessed. While
attention to base-rate affected perceptions of information, it did not alter
the truth-default heuristic.
Our findings revealed that the presentation of deception frequency
literature impacted participants’ understanding of deception. Specifically,
the most congruent schema of how often people lie was found when
participants were presented with recent research findings of the mode and
skewed distribution. Participants who were presented with literature
referencing only the average of two lies told per day had reported that
others lie more often. Consequently, when presenting lie frequency
averages, participants may assume that the average is equivalent to the
mode rather than understanding the skewed distribution. Explaining the
skewed distribution and modal responses explicitly would advance
understanding of lying behavior. Clarifying statistical nuances of lying
behavior may be especially important, as many people have difficulties
understanding statistics and these skills continue to decline (Carpenter &
Kirk, 2017; Hogg, 1991; Rancer et al., 2013).
The presentation of deception frequency literature did not influence
participants’ judgments, attitudes, or suspicion. It is possible that these
components are more fixed or resilient to influence and relatively
unaffected by thinking about how often people lie. Simply, the truth bias
is very robust and is moved only marginally by even very large
interventions (Levine, 2020). In both studies, participants demonstrated a
truth bias, in which more videos were judged as truthful. The more
honest judgments made by students reflects the typical truth bias (Levine
et al., 1999). Even though the prompts revealed a difference in how often
people assumed others to lie, this did not appear to carry over into
veracity judgments of others’ statements. Thus, knowing that most
204 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
people do not lie often did not affect the lie detection task. Participants
across all groups maintained a similar ratio of truth to deception
judgments. The lack of significant difference in ratings of others
propensity to lie may be due to asking people to infer reasons why others
lie, which is not tied to the frequency of others’ lies.
The lack of attitudinal changes may demonstrate the pervasive
attitudes people hold about deception (Petty & Krosnick, 1995). People
generally hold negative attitudes toward being the victim of deception
(Curtis, 2015; Curtis & Hart, 2015). Even after an educational
intervention, some negative attitudes toward deceivers remain (Curtis et
al., 2018). Attitudes can be strong and resistant to change, especially
when they are deemed important (Petty & Krosnick, 1995; Petty &
Wegener, 1997). Hence, mere knowledge of people telling fewer lies
does not seem to influence people’s aversion to being lied to.
Lastly, suspicion was fairly unchanged across both studies. The mere
presentation of information about lying behavior may not have altered
suspicion due to that information not being within a communication
context. Perhaps, the presentation of lying behavior primes could have
affected participants’ suspicion if informed prior to some interaction with
another and being asked about their suspicion specific to that interaction.
Conclusion
One of the limitations of the current studies is the amount of exposure
to the deception literature each participant experienced. Participants were
briefly presented with literature or they watched a short video discussing
the literature. It is unclear how longer exposure and greater discourse
over the nuances of the lie average, mode, and distribution may affect
understanding and responses. While we explored several dependent
measures, we did not explore how thinking about lie frequency may
affect one’s own lying behavior or propensity to tell lies. Assuming
others lie more frequently than they do could justify a decision to tell a
lie or to become morally disengaged (Bandura, 2016). Future research
could explore this avenue.
The current studies sought to investigate how the presentation of lie
prevalence statistics affect people’s understandings, attitudes, and
judgments about lying frequency and the ubiquity assumption (Serota et
al., 2010). As some scholars may report that lying is pervasive and
commonplace, we explored how a more nuanced presentation of
deception literature may affect understandings of lying frequency. The
results of our two studies suggested that people may develop different
understandings about lying depending on how the statistical prevalence
data are presented. Specifically, presenting the inflated mean seems to
lead to an overestimation of how often lying occurs, even though that
Curtis, Levine, Hart, & Serota FREQUENCY OF LYING 205
understanding did not lead to changes in attitudes and judgments.
Statistics about lies can be misunderstood and miscommunicated. In
efforts to accurately understand and discuss lying behavior, it is
imperative to communicate the heavily skewed distribution of lying
frequency, rather than presenting it as a ubiquitous phenomenon.
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