Intentional Deception Research Articles

Defining Greenwashing: A Concept Analysis

The lack of a shared, operant definition for greenwashing has led to fragmented scholarly research, unclear guidelines for practice, inconsistent enforcement, and reactive policy frameworks; resulting in ineffective efforts to combat its growth. Using concept analysis, this research establishes a composite definition for greenwashing by identifying the constitutive attributes sourced across 79 scholarly definitions. The analysis finds six requirements necessary for identifying greenwashing: a claim on environmental performance by a private sector organization marketing a product or a service, which cannot be substantiated, made with deceptive intent, and done to establish a competitive advantage. Fulfilling these criteria warrants an accusation of greenwashing. With the aim to prevent its further spread and misuse, the article provides a diagnostic tool for separating similar but often conflated concepts from greenwashing to organize scholarly research, provide guidelines for practitioners, and support regulators’ case analysis.

A knowledge-Aware NLP-Driven conversational model to detect deceptive contents on social media posts

The widespread dissemination of deceptive content on social media presents a substantial challenge to preserving authenticity and trust. The epidemic growth of false news is due to the greater use of social media to transmit news, rather than conventional mass media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Humans' incapacity to differentiate among true and false facts exposes fake news as a threat to logical truth, democracy, journalism, and government credibility. Using combination of advanced methodologies, Deep learning (DL) methods, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches, researchers and technology developers attempt to make robust systems proficient in discerning the subtle nuances that betray deceptive intent. Analysing conversational linguistic patterns of misleading data, these techniques’ purpose to progress the resilience of social platforms against the spread of deceptive content, eventually contributing to an additional informed and trustworthy online platform. This paper proposed a Knowledge-Aware NLP-Driven AlBiruni Earth Radius Optimization Algorithm with Deep Learning Tool for Enhanced Deceptive Content Detection (BER-DLEDCD) algorithm on Social Media. The purpose of the BER-DLEDCD system is to identify and classify the existence of deceptive content utilizing NLP with optimal DL model. In the BER-DLEDCD technique, data pre-processing takes place to change the input data into compatible format. Furthermore, the BER-DLEDCD approach applies hybrid DL technique encompassing Convolutional Neural Network with Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM) methodology for deceptive content detection. Moreover, the BER approach has been deployed to boost hyperparameter choice of the CNN-LSTM technique which leads to enhanced detection performance. The simulation outcome of the BER-DLEDCD system has been examined employing benchmark database. The extensive outcomes stated the BER-DLEDCD system achieved excellent performance with the accuracy of 94 %, 94.83 % precision, 94.30 % F-score with other recent approaches.

Analisis Efektivitas Pengendalian Internal: Deteksi Dini Fraud pada Pertanggungjawaban Keuangan PT. XYZ

In Indonesia, recently there was fraud involving four companies with a total of Rp. 2.5 trillion. Fraud is an act that involves intentional cheating, deception, or manipulation to gain illegitimate gain or gain. This research aims to test the Analysis of Internal Control Effectiveness: Early Detection of Fraud on financial accountability PT. XYZ. Fraud in financial accountability in companies is a serious threat that can harm the company and its shareholders. The method used in the research is a qualitative descriptive method by conducting interviews and direct observation. The population of this research is employees in the Accounting and Finance Unit of PT. XYZ. The sample for this research is Verifier PT. XYZ. The result that can be concluded is that internal control can detect early fraud in financial accountability PT. XYZ.

Catch me if you can: free-living mice show a highly flexible dodging behaviour suggestive of intentional tactical deception.

Intentional tactical deception, the employment of a tactic to intentionally deceive another animal, is a complex behaviour based on higher-order cognition, that has rarely been documented outside of primates and corvids. New laboratory-to-field assays, however, provide the opportunity to investigate such behaviour among free-living mice. In the present study, we placed laboratory-style test chambers with a single entrance near a forest outside Warsaw, where we observed the social interactions of two territorial murids, black-striped and yellow-necked mice, under food competition for seven months. Notably, among the social interactions, we video-recorded 21 instances of deceptive pursuer evasion. In the most obvious cases, an individual inside the chamber, to avoid an incoming mouse, hid by the chamber opening (the only means to enter or exit), paused until the pursuer entered and passed by, and then exploited the distraction of the back-turned pursuer by fleeing through the opening in a direction opposite to the one the pursuer came from. This deceptive dodging is the first evidence of a behaviour suggestive of intentional tactical deception among mice. As such, this deceptive behaviour may be of interest not only for rodent psychology but also, more generally, for the fields of non-human intentionality and theory of mind.

A Study on Financial Scams of the Financial Market in India

Financial scams are intentional deceptions involving financial transactions aimed at personal gain. These scams can constitute criminal activity as well as civil law violations. Many scams are characterized by complex financial transactions executed by professionals with malicious intent.

Anatomy of an AI-powered malicious social botnet

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit impressive capabilities in generating realistic text across diverse subjects. Concerns have been raised that they could be utilized to produce fake content with a deceptive intention, although evidence thus far remains anecdotal. This paper presents a case study about a Twitter botnet that appears to employ ChatGPT to generate human-like content. Through heuristics, we identify 1,140 accounts and validate them via manual annotation. These accounts form a dense cluster of fake personas that exhibit similar behaviors, including posting machine-generated content and stolen images, and engage with each other through replies and retweets. ChatGPT-generated content promotes suspicious websites and spreads harmful comments. While the accounts in the AI botnet can be detected through their coordination patterns, current state-of-the-art LLM content classifiers fail to discriminate between them and human accounts in the wild. These findings highlight the threats posed by AI-enabled social bots.

Unveiling Deceptive Intentions: Insights from Eye Movements and Pupil Size

Recognition of deceptive intentions from the eyes has been of appealing interest in the last decades but is still unresolved. Here, we report the development of a paradigm based on the Concealed Information Test enabling the study of various kinds of deception, that is, faking and concealing. Based on a card game, we compared fixation as well as pupil behaviour while participants were instructed to fake, conceal, or tell the truth. We realized two different layouts of stimulus presentation. Fixations differed between concealing versus faking and telling the truth; pupil size additionally unveiled the object of deception. We infer that various kinds of deceptive behaviour must be carefully distinguished, and contribute to how to use gaze measures as indicators of deceptive intentions.

Digital Competencies in Verifying Fake News: Assessing the Knowledge and Abilities of Journalism Students

The surge of disinformation in the digital sphere following the COVID-19 pandemic presents a considerable threat to democratic principles in contemporary societies. In response, multiple fact-checking platforms and citizen media literacy initiatives have been promoted. The fact checker has indeed become a new professional profile demanded by the sector. In this context, this research delves into the study of digital skills applied to information verification by journalism students. Adopting a comprehensive understanding of digital skills that extends beyond technical proficiency to encompass a shift in mindset, journalism students’ perceptions of their verification abilities are examined using a quantitative survey technique. This examination is based on an original list of competencies prepared specifically for this study. The results indicate that journalism students demonstrate awareness of the implications of disinformation, exhibiting scepticism towards content from unfamiliar sources or displaying clear signs of deceptive intent. Furthermore, they emphasise the importance of verification and fact-checking practices and express confidence in their proficiency in analysis, critical thinking, and social skills. However, their confidence in handling computer applications for verification and specialisation in data journalism is comparatively lower. Notably, significant gender disparities were observed in these areas, with women exhibiting greater confidence in social skills, collaborative work, and innovation, while men displayed a heightened proficiency in computer applications. Consequently, there is a need for improvements in teaching practices, which could potentially create new job opportunities for journalism students.

Who's the deceiver? Identifying deceptive intentions in communication

Recognizing people's deceptive intentions when communicating is crucial to detect statements that may drive us to unintended harmful decisions. This paper studies individuals' intentions in games where players can tell the truth with deceiving purposes. In a preregistered experiment, we combine a sender-receiver game with possible strategic considerations and the associated belief elicitation questionnaire, with a sender-receiver game with no room for strategic considerations. We propose a new method that improves the identification of senders' intentions to deceive. Our findings reveal that relying solely on the strategic sender-receiver game and the elicited beliefs, as previously proposed in the literature, can lead to misinterpreting the actual intentions of a substantial proportion of senders. In particular, our new method helps discern actual deceivers from pessimistic truth-tellers and identifies senders who try to excuse their previous deceiving message. All in all, our method identifies more senders with deceptive intentions compared to previous methods.

Lying by explaining: an experimental study

The widely accepted view states that an intention to deceive is not necessary for lying. Proponents of this view, the so-called non-deceptionists, argue that lies are simply insincere assertions. We conducted three experimental studies with false explanations, the results of which put some pressure on non-deceptionist analyses. We present cases of explanations that one knows are false and compare them with analogical explanations that differ only in having a deceptive intention. The results show that lay people distinguish between such false explanations and to a higher degree classify as lies those explanations that are made with the intention to deceive. Non-deceptionists fail to distinguish between such cases and wrongly classify both as lies. This novel empirical finding indicates the need for supplementing non-deceptionist definitions of lying, at least in some cases, with an additional condition, such as an intention to deceive.

Improving the Competence of MSME Customers through Mentoring: Holding BRI and PT Permadani Nasional Mandiri

Fraudulence is an unethical act that can occur within both commercial and noncommercial contexts. This type of behavior involves intentional deception and can have serious negative consequences for individuals and organizations alike. This study aims to identify a fraud triangle to mitigate fraud risks in the public sector. The objects in this study are pressure, opportunity, rationalization, and fraud risk. The subject area is the public sector. The population is the villages in the Tasikmalaya Region. The method of sampling involves the use of probability sampling with a cluster sampling approach. The villages included in this study are located in the Cibalong sub-district: Cisempur, Setiawaras, Eureunpalay, Cibalong, Singajaya, and Parung— research methodology using a quantitative and survey approach. The data analysis used multiple regression analysis. The findings of this research are that pressure and opportunity have no significant effect but rationalization has a significant positive effect on risk fraud. The sustainability of the village can be ensured by promoting ethical behavior among village officials and enforcing punishment for fraud. Therefore, the central government must take action on this matter

A harm reduction approach to improving peer review by acknowledging its imperfections

This candid perspective written by scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds is intended to advance conversations about the realities of peer review and its inherent limitations. Trust in a process or institution is built slowly and can be destroyed quickly. Trust in the peer review process for scholarly outputs (i.e., journal articles) is being eroded by high-profile scandals, exaggerated news stories, exposés, corrections, retractions, and anecdotes about poor practices. Diminished trust in the peer review process has real-world consequences and threatens the uptake of critical scientific advances. The literature on “crises of trust” tells us that rebuilding diminished trust takes time and requires frank admission and discussion of problems, creative thinking that addresses rather than dismisses criticisms, and planning and enacting short- and long-term reforms to address the root causes of problems. This article takes steps in this direction by presenting eight peer review reality checks and summarizing efforts to address their weaknesses using a harm reduction approach, though we recognize that reforms take time and some problems may never be fully rectified. While some forms of harm reduction will require structural and procedural changes, we emphasize the vital role that training editors, reviewers, and authors has in harm reduction. Additionally, consumers of science need training about how the peer review process works and how to critically evaluate research findings. No amount of self-policing, transparency, or reform to peer review will eliminate all bad actors, unscrupulous publishers, perverse incentives that reward cutting corners, intentional deception, or bias. However, the scientific community can act to minimize the harms from these activities, while simultaneously (re)building the peer review process. A peer review system is needed, even if it is imperfect.

Euphemism as Doublespeak in Jhonny Depp-Amber Heard Defamation Trial

Euphemism means a word or phrase that is used to safeguard the feelings of other people. However, this is not the only function of euphemism; nowadays people use it for persuasive, misleading, and/or deceptive intentions instead of being simply polite. The present paper addresses euphemism as a tool of doublespeak used in the famous defamation hearing between Jhonny Deep and Amber Heard; it took place in 2022 in Virginia, and the jury ruled that Depp had been defamed by Heard. It is hypothesized that Amber Heard, while she is cross-examined by Depp's lawyer Camille Vasquez, tries to defend herself by the use of euphemism as a doublespeak function. In this paper Warren's model (1992) is adopted for analyzing the selected texts. The model categorizes euphemism formation, namely, semantic innovation, i.e., a novel sense for some established word or word combination is created.

Suspicion About Suspicion Probes: Ways Forward.

Suspicion probes are the traditional tool employed to assess the extent to which participants suspect intentional misdirection or deception within the research context. A primary reason psychologists use deception in research settings is to prevent participants from altering their behavior in light of knowing what is being studied, which could undermine internal validity as well as threaten the generalizability of findings to the real world (i.e., external validity). The present article elucidates a number of challenges with suspicion probes. A definition and framework for conceptualizing the construct of suspicion in research settings are proposed. Following a literature review, an analysis of existing evidence, and new data on the prevalence of using and reporting suspicion probes, we conclude that suspicion is a likely problem in research practice. We provide a decision guide to help researchers navigate the numerous choices involved in addressing potential suspicion and call for a combination of (a) renewed research leading to empirically supported tools and best practices and (b) systemic changes to editorial policies, funding practices, professional standards, and research training that would increase rigor and focus on this aspect of research methodology.

Truthful yet misleading: Elementary second-order deception in school-age children and its sociocognitive correlates

In highly competitive contexts, deceptive intentions might be transparent, so conveying only false information to the opponent can become a predictable strategy. In such situations, alternating between truths and lies (second-order lying behavior) represents a less foreseeable option. The current study investigated the development of 8- to 10-year-old children’s elementary second-order deception in relation to their attribution of ignorance (first- and second-order ignorance) and executive functions (inhibitory control, shifting ability, and verbal working memory). An adapted version of the hide-and-seek paradigm was used to assess children’s second-order lie-telling, in which children were asked to hide a coin in either of their hands. Unlike the standard paradigm, the opponent did not consistently look for the coin in the location indicated by the children, so children needed to switch between telling simple lies and truths (elementary second-order lies about the coin location) to successfully deceive the recipient. The results showed that older children were less likely to tell elementary second-order lies. However, across the sample, when children decided to lie, this ability was positively related to their second-order ignorance attribution and their verbal working memory. Moreover, we obtained preliminary evidence for the presence of a habituation effect in second-order lying, with children being more accurate and having less variability in their truthful-to-deceive responses (this being the more frequently elicited response) than when telling lies to deceive. Our findings could have implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying children’s ability to alternate between truths and lies to deceive.

Detection of Cash Flow Shenanigans in The Financial Reports of PT Waskita Karya Tbk

To better understand if fraud occurs in the financial reports generated by PT Waskita Karya Tbk in 2020–2022, the research problem is linked to the Cash Flow Shenanigans hypothesis. Positive and negative aspects of the contemporary, still-evolving age exist, such as an increase in dishonesty or fraud. Intentional deception has the dual goals of deceiving others and enhancing one's personal benefit. Financial statements that are false, especially those that mention cash flow, are one of the most typical forms of fraud. The information reviewed in this article suggests that PT Waskita Karya Tbk may be using the company's cash flow to conduct fraud or perpetrate it again. Using the company's cash flow ratio and keywords from the available references, this research approach combines qualitative and quantitative analysis. According to reports, the company transferred monies intended for financing activities to operational funds in the first cash flow scam. Reviewing the study's findings revealed that the company had stolen money. The fourth Cash Flow Shenanigan is an increase in operational cash flow caused by unsustainable operations. Finding out if PT Waskita Karya Tbk has ever engaged in fraud is vital since fraud may hurt all parties, especially investors.

Bullshit, Pragmatic Deception, and Natural Language Processing

Fact checking and fake news detection has garnered increasing interest within the natural language processing (NLP) community in recent years, yet other aspects of misinformation remain unexplored. One such phenomenon is `bullshit', which different disciplines have tried to define since it first entered academic discussion nearly four decades ago. Fact checking bullshitters is useless, because factual reality typically plays no part in their assertions: Where liars deceive about content, bullshitters deceive about their goals. Bullshitting is misleading about language itself, which necessitates identifying the points at which pragmatic conventions are broken with deceptive intent. This paper aims to introduce bullshitology into the field of NLP by tying it to questions in a QUD-based definition, providing two approaches to bullshit annotation, and finally outlining which combinations of NLP methods will be helpful to classify which kinds of linguistic bullshit.

A Conversation With … Adrian Fisher, the World's Leading Designer of Landscape Mazes.

A Conversation With … Adrian Fisher, the World's Leading Designer of Landscape Mazes.

Lying: revisiting the ‘intending to deceive’ condition

Abstract This paper refines the received analysis of deceptive lies. This is done by assessing some cases of lies that are supposedly not intended to deceive and by arguing that they actually involve sophisticated strategies of intentional deception. These lies, that is, merely seem not to be intended to deceive and this is because our received analysis of deceptive lies is insufficiently sophisticated. We need to add these strategies to our analysis of deceptive lying. The argument ends by presenting this refined analysis.

Distortion of Information in Politics: Based on the Work of Paul Ekman <i>Telling Lies</i>

Conceptual analysis of the mechanism of information distortion in the political domain of public life and the issue of lies in politics undertaken in this study stems from the work of the American psychologist, Professor Paul Ekman Telling lies (1985). As the research question raised concerns about the cultural determination of these phenomena in politics, the authors attempted to determine whether deception and lies in public life depend on cultural background. In his work, Ekman presents the interconnection between personal meanings, emotional perception, self-censorship, features of human memory, metaphors, and narratives with the manipulation of public opinion. The paper indicates factors that may affect the study of intentional distortion of information and increase the possibility of error. The methods proposed in Telling Lies coupled with vivid examples enable us to identify patterns of political lies and investigate the meaning of lies as a specific cultural strategy. Specifically, this essay compares Ekman’s arguments with the ideas of the cultural and historical approach of Soviet psychology, as well as with the ideas of prominent foreign authors concerning the acceptability of using lies in certain political cultures. In particular, the authors are interested in considering political metaphor and group thinking in studying reasons goals, and results of employing lies to create political clout. According to research, personal meaning is closely related to group values and meanings. Based on the example of American foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century, it is shown that across cultures there are some manipulation techniques and patterns. Accordingly, the authors conclude that intentional and unintended deception is typical of politicians despite their cultural background.