Differences between Japanese and British participants in self-reported verbal strategies to appear convincing

Abstract

We compared the self-reported verbal strategies employed to appear convincing when lying and truth telling from 101 British (a low-context culture) and 149 Japanese (a high-context culture) participants. They completed a web-based survey and rated the degree to which they would use 16 verbal strategies when telling the truth and lying. British participants were more concerned with providing innocent reasons and avoiding/denying incriminating evidence when lying than when truth telling (no veracity effect emerged for Japanese participants). Japanese participants were less concerned with avoiding hesitations and lack of consistency when lying than when truth telling (no veracity effect emerged for British participants). The findings suggest that it is important to examine whether interview protocols developed to determine veracity in low-context cultures, such as the Strategic Use of Evidence and Cognitive Credibility Assessment, are equally effective in high-context cultures.