Individual differences and cues to deception.

Abstract

In an extension of previous studies on deception and deception detection, the present research investigated the relations among individual differences, behavioral cues displayed when deceiving and telling the truth, and the perceptions of naive observers. Sixty-three students were measured on the Self-Monitoring Scale, the Affective Communication Test, the Personality Research Form, The Eysenck Personality Inventory, their acting ability, and their overall appearance. They were then videotaped while deceiving and truth telling, and their verbal and nonverbal cues were rated and coded. Finally, their success at creating an honest appearance was assessed by showing edited videotapes of their faces or their bodies to naive judges, with and without sound. It was found that behavioral cues could validly discriminate truthfulness from deception but that these valid cues were not necessarily used or were incorrectly used by the naive judges. Comparison of the facial 'and body conditions suggested explanations for the relative inaccuracy of faceviewing judges. In addition, key individual difference variables were found to be related to the overall display of behavioral cues, to variance in the display of cues from deceptive to truthful conditions, to overall perceptions of truthfulness, and to successful deception. The findings demonstrate the importance of including personality and social skill measures as well as nonverbal cue analyses and judges' perceptions in any attempt to understand fully the process of deception in social interaction. In everyday social interaction, situations arise in which the wary interactanjt will carefully observe the behavior of another individual in search of clues that may signal deception. Deception can be denned as any intentional verbal or nonverbal act performed in order to direct another away from what the deceiver believes to be the truth. Whereas much attention is given to the plausibility of the suspected deceiver's verbal message, the observer may also adopt rules for determining whether the other individual's nonverbal behaviors reveal deceit. This notion that deception may be detected through observation of