I could do that better.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp14_9.pdf
Indirect Detection of Deception: Looking for Change
This study used indirect methods to detect liars. College students (53 males and 51 females) were asked to watch a video in which half of the people told some lies and half were entirely truthful. They were asked to detect the liars in the video and whom behavior, mannerisms, or speech changed. The participants were from psychology classes and were all given extra credit in the courses in exchange for participation. The people for the interview were asked questions about themselves, half were asked to lie and the other half were asked to tell the truth. The results were that the direct detection of lying resulted in poor accuracy. Yet the indirect method resulted in more accuracy, because they were told to look for changes in behavior.
I think this study was interesting and that it did find that people look more at how people act when lying versus trying to just figure out if the information was true. This is important in the studies of deception that they let the participants know what lying is and what exactly they were hoping to get from the study. I think it could have been done better if the people in the video had to lie about something that was meaningful to them, something that they cared to lie about. Just lying about basic information, the people had nothing they were trying to gain from it. The lies were not important to them. If the study had been done where the lying meant something to the video people, I think there would have been more reaction when the video people lied, because it was meaningful to them. The participants would have been able to pick up more on the lying because it was meaningful lying. I think it would have made the study a little more accurate.
-Megan Hopkins
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I agree completely with your assesment of how it could be done better. You might think to also limit the degree of relationship between the liar and the observer prior to the study. Possibly have them not have had any prior interaction with each other. This way you know that if they are able to detect lies from the liar it has nothing to do with how well they already know them.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right. The test could have been better if they participants lied about something meaningful. Do you think it would be easier to detect a lie in someone that is close to you and you see often? Or do you think it is the the same for anyone who is lying to you? I try to detect lies from my cousin all the time and it is extremely hard. It could be that she lies so much she became good at it I dont know.
ReplyDeleteI agree here too. To just watch random people lie about basic information doesn't mean much. The participants could have been good actors or might not have cared what the truth was in the first place. I think this study would have been a lot more interesting if they would have had to detect lying among acquaintences or like other students said, lied about something that was important to them.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be even more interesting if people tried to detect a lie from both individuals that they know and individuals that are complete strangers. Of course, this is after incorporating the meaningful aspect to the lie. I think it would be extremely fascinating to see whether it was easier for us to detect a lie in somebody we know or in somebody we don't know. I wonder if knowing somebody well enable us to better determine when we're being lied to by the individual or whether the importance of the individual to us may bias our judgment because we may be looking for reasons to trust the individual.
ReplyDeleteI agree as well that asking people about information that isn't important really doesn't make people challenged. What if the subjects that lied were also hooked up to a polygraph? Would the added stress of a polygraph show in a liar's response? Could we do an analysis that compares person to polygraph and their accuracy? Could we replicate that with relevant and irrelevant lies?
ReplyDeleteEven the Secret Service can only predict lies 70% of the time and they protect the President! I guess the better question to ask is if people lie more when they could consciously affect other people and hurt them with their deceit as opposed to giving them meaningless lies to talk about.
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