Attributes of Truthful Versus Deceitful Statements in the Evaluation of Accused Child Molesters

Shawn Johnston,Syeda Rahmani,Dana Powers-Green,Alexis Candelier

doi:10.1177/2158244014548849

Abstract

The ability to detect deception, in everyday social interactions and psychological evaluations, can literally mean the difference between life and death. Beyond physiological and nonverbal techniques for detecting deception, research has focused on criteria designed to evaluate the content of verbal statements to distinguish between true or actually experienced events versus internally manufactured or fabricated events. Criteria from two techniques that have received empirical support, criteria-based content analysis and reality monitoring, were used to create an 11-item Deception Detection Checklist (DDCL). In this study, 130 college undergraduates used the DDCL to rate the exculpatory statements of two accused child molesters: one truthful, the other untruthful. The 11 items composing the DDCL, as well as a measure of perceived truthfulness, were all scored on 7-point Likert-type scales. Nine of the 11 items on the DDCL significantly differentiated between the true and untrue statements in the predicted direction. Overall scores on the DDCL indicated that the false statement was rated as significantly more deceptive than the true statement. The DDCL possessed good reliability, and a series of factor analyses provided strong support for the construct validity of the measure. The 7 psychometrically strongest items from the DDCL included variables assessing the extent to which statements included clarity of detail, spatial details, temporal details, and contextual details, as well as the relevance, reconstructability, and realism of the statement. These results indicate that subjects were able to use this measure to reliably differentiate between true and false statements made by accused child molesters.

Highlights

In a recently published book, ten Brinke and Porter (2013) describe considerable research indicating that people in general are rather bad at detecting lies, with most rating little better than chance at detecting deception
Research indicates that police officers and trial court judges, those society has entrusted with the job of dispensing justice, may be no better at detecting deception than the average person
If the subjects failed to perceive any difference in truthfulness between the true and untrue statements, it would be difficult to argue that scores on the Deception Detection Checklist (DDCL) differed as a function of the statements being true or untrue

Summary

Introduction

In a recently published book, ten Brinke and Porter (2013) describe considerable research indicating that people in general are rather bad at detecting lies, with most rating little better than chance at detecting deception. Research relates that police officers are trained to focus on signs of nervousness, statistically one of the weakest predictors of deception. In their published work, ten Brinke and Porter cite research indicating that judges and jurors, as well as people in general, are less likely to attribute deceit to attractive rather than unattractive persons. While some lies can be innocuous, even benign, depending on the vulnerability of the person and the seriousness of the situation, some lies can have devastating even deadly results This is obviously true in police investigations as well as criminal trials.

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Conclusion