The Classic Wanderer

What Does Deception Mean In Psychology?

• Sabrina Sarro
• 05.05.2023
• 0
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Research involving Deception Guidance on Use of Deception and Incomplete Disclosure in Research The purpose of this document is to assist researchers in addressing issues related to using deception in research with human subjects. Central to the ethical standards governing the participation of human subjects in research is the notion of respect for persons.

This principle demands that subjects enter into the research voluntarily and with adequate information. When deceptive methodologies are used, participants are given incomplete or misleading information about what to expect during the study activities which compromises their ability to give fully informed consent.

Ordinarily, research proposals failing to adhere to the principle of respect for persons by compromising the consent process would not be approved. However, in unique circumstances where the study design requires omission of details that might alter the subject’s responses that are being investigated, vital information about the study or study activities can be withheld from subjects until after their participation.

Deception and incomplete disclosure can be valuable research methods and studies involving the use of deception have resulted in significant contributions to science. However, the use of deceptive methodologies places a special burden of responsibility on researchers to provide scientific justification for the deception.

Researchers must also provide the appropriate additional safeguards, beyond those safeguards normally in place, to protect the rights and welfare of participants. Researchers are urged to explore the literature within and outside of their field in order to fully understand the history and critical issues related to deceptive methods.

• The guidance provided here applies to both deception and incomplete disclosure.
• Examples of Deception :
• Subjects complete a quiz, and are falsely told that they did very poorly, regardless of their actual performance.
• The study includes a researcher’s “confederate” (an individual who poses as a subject) but whose behavior in the study is actually part of the researcher’s experimental design.
• Example of Incomplete Disclosure :
• Subjects are asked to take a quiz for research but they are not told that the research question involves how background noise affects their ability to concentrate.
• Participants are asked to read a list of words or view a series of images but are not told that their memory will be tested.

The use of deception has been historically complex and therefore warrants special consideration and additional safeguards. Milgram’s (1974) study of obedience, Zimbardo’s (1973) prison study, and Humphrey’s (1975) “tearoom” observations are reminders of the risks associated with the use of deception in social and behavioral research.

These studies highlighted not only the risks related to the use of deception, but also the potential for the use of deception or incomplete disclosure to undermine public trust in the research enterprise. Researchers should be cognizant of discipline-specific standards when preparing to engage in research using deceptive methods.

The American Psychological Association provides one such set of standards for researchers.

1. American Psychological Association standards for use of deception
2. 8.07 Deception in Research
3. a) Psychologists do not conduct a study involving deception unless they have determined that the use of deceptive techniques is justified by the study’s significant prospective scientific, educational or applied value and that effective nondeceptive alternative procedures are not feasible.
4. b) Psychologists do not deceive prospective participants about research that is reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress.
5. c) Psychologists explain any deception that is an integral feature of the design and conduct of an experiment to participants as early as is feasible, preferably at the conclusion of their participation, but no later than at the conclusion of the data collection, and permit participants to withdraw their data.
6. Points for Consideration
7. Protocols that include the use of deception should demonstrate that the investigators are aware of, seeking to minimize, and have a plan to address the possible negative impacts on participants, such as:

• Potential of deception to facilitate unwanted and inappropriate invasion of privacy
• Potential coercion of participants into acting against their own will
• Potential for participants to change their mind about the use of their data after the deception is revealed
• Damage to a participant’s self-esteem through feeling ashamed, guilty, stressed, embarrassed, feeling manipulated, or lacking control over their own experience
• Feeling forced to have knowledge about one’s self that otherwise one might not want to know (sometimes called inflicted insight )
• Creation of suspicion and/or distrust in the investigator and/or a generalized distrust of the broader research enterprise.

Protocols that include the use of deception should justify the use of this method and demonstrate that risks to subjects will be minimized by using procedures that are consistent with sound research design including:

• The study must not involve more than minimal risk to the subjects
• The use of deceptive methods must be justified by the study’s significant prospective scientific, educational, or applied value
• The protocol must clearly address why deception or incomplete disclosure are necessary to ensure the research is scientifically valid and feasible and that an alternative, non-deceptive methodology could not be used
• Subjects should not be deceived about any aspect of the study that would affect their willingness to participate

Informed consent Deception and incomplete disclosure may interfere with the ability of the research subject to make a fully informed decision about whether or not to participate in the research. In general, deception is not acceptable if, in the judgment of the IRB, the participant may have declined to participate had they been informed of the true purpose of the research.

• The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;
• The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects;
• The research could not practicably be carried out without the waiver or alteration; and
• Whenever possible, the subjects will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation (a complete debriefing).

When appropriate, researchers are encouraged to consider the use of a prospective consent process that informs participants that a study will not be described accurately or that some procedures will be deceptive and provides them an opportunity to decide whether or not to participate on these terms.

Below is sample language for consent forms: For scientific reasons, this consent form does not include all of the information about the research question being tested. The researchers will give you more information when your participation in the study is over. Debriefing and Dehoaxing Debriefing Debriefing is a process that can be undertaken at the conclusion of any research activities, regardless of the whether deception is part of the research design.

It is appropriate to provide participants with a simple, clear, and informative explanation of the experiment’s purpose and the methods that were used, as well as bibliographical citations advising them where they can obtain additional information on the subject being studied.

The content and extent of a debriefing should align with the details and risks of the study. If the study involves deception, a plan for effective and respectful debriefing and dehoaxing is critical to minimizing risks. The process should be conducted by researchers who are qualified to approach the debriefing in a manner that supports subjects in expressing any thoughts or feelings they may have about being deceived and can be appropriately responsive to their reactions.

The APA outlines three basic requirements for debriefing.

• American Psychological Association standards for use of deception
• 8.08 Debriefing
• a) provide a prompt opportunity for participants to obtain appropriate information about the nature, results, and conclusions of the research, and they take reasonable steps to correct any misconceptions that participants may have of which the are aware.
• b) If scientific or humane values justify delaying or withholding this information, take reasonable measures to reduce the risk of harm.
• c) When become aware that research procedures have harmed a participant, they take reasonable steps to minimize the harm.

Debriefing sessions should mitigate the potential harm of deception by explaining the rationale for the deception. Participants should be given a clear and informative explanation for the design of the study and the methods used, and they should have the opportunity to ask questions.

Dehoaxing Dehoaxing is the process of convincing subjects who have been deceived as part of a research study that they have in fact been deceived. The purpose of dehoaxing is to prevent possible future harm to the subject. For example, subjects may be given false pretest scores in order to test the effect of these scores on subsequent tests of motivation levels.

If subjects believe that the false scores represent their true abilities, their level of self-esteem may become jeopardized. In cases such as these, simply informing the subjects that they were deceived and that the pretest scores were false may not be sufficient.

• To repair the breach of informed consent created by the deception
• To remove any confusion or defuse any tensions that might have been generated by the deception
• To repair any breach of trust that has occurred not only between investigator and subject, and preserve the public’s trust in research endeavors
• Dehoax with dignity and an unconditional positive regard for the range of emotions subjects may experience in response to the deception.
• To convince the subject the behavior was due to situational determinants within the experiment rather than to dispositional determinants within the subject. This is also referred to as desensitization.

1. Continuous Debriefing
2. Since subjects may feel a range of emotions at different intervals about being deceived, a process for continuous or staged debriefing may be needed; however, this is usually only done for greater than minimal risk studies
3. Delayed Debriefing

If a study requiring debriefing will run over several days or weeks, subjects who have completed the study might tell others about it. If they have been debriefed and thus know the real purpose of the study activities, they might share that information with prospective subjects, thus compromising the scientific validity of the study.

Under these circumstances, the IRB may consider a delayed debriefing based upon the level of risk to subjects and the justification for delay. There are several strategies to handle a delayed debriefing. Provided that the delay is not extensive and an in-person debriefing is not necessary to assess and address potential harms, debriefing information can be sent via e-mail or mail.

The IRB will consider the length of a proposed delay in relation to the other study details. If names and contact information are not collected, researchers could: Give subjects a URL where they can get debriefing information after a particular date upon which the information will be available.

Have each subject self-address an envelope before they leave the study session for the purpose of receiving post-study (debriefing) information. Note that as the risks related to the study increase, the delay between the conclusion of a subject’s participation and the debriefing should decrease because the potential harms related to the deception could be magnified over time.

Depending on the details of the study and the level of risk, an immediate in-person debriefing may be necessary to minimize risk, even if it jeopardizes future enrollment. Exceptions There are certain circumstances under which the IRB may waive the requirement for debriefing when a study involves deception, such as when the debriefing regarding deception may cause more harm than the deception itself.

• Description of the manner of deception and how the deception will take place
• Explanation of why deception is necessary to the protocol
• Description of whether deception results in increased risk
• A description of any previous use of deception in similar research and a summary of any actual harms or reactions from participants to the use of deception
• A description of alternatives to deception that were considered and an explanation as to why these alternatives were rejected
• Indication of whether deception would impact a participant’s willingness to participate
• Consent process and document that meets the requirement for waiver of one or more elements of consent
• Description of post study debriefing that includes offering the participant the option to withdraw their data from the study
  • If an exception to this requirement is requested the study must be reviewed by the Full Board
  • Debriefing form or script
  • Members must have adequate training to minimize subject’s distress or acquire outside experts to provide needed resources. Qualifications of the person providing debriefing should be commensurate with the level of potential risk to the subject.

Review Level Research involving deception could fall into any of the three review levels (exempt, expedited, or full board) depending on the specifics of the study. Studies involving deception are not eligible for exempt category 1 (research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings) because deception is not a “normal educational practice.” However, these studies may be eligible for exempt category 3 if they do not involve risk or a plan to enroll children and include informing the participants that they will be unaware or misled regarding the nature or purpose of the research.

SAMPLE Debriefing Language Adapted from UC Berkeley Our research actually focuses on the development of “status hierarchies” in small groups. In many small groups such as project teams, ad hoc committees, or juries, some people tend to “take charge” more than others. However, the process by which these small group hierarchies develop is not well understood.

In this study, we are attempting to understand what happens when two members of a group disagree as to who should take charge. To try and obtain unbiased or natural reactions, we had to give you some false information at the beginning of the study. We informed you that, based on your scores on the tests from the prescreening packet, we had determined that you were the most suited to lead the group in the group task, and we told you that you were the only member in the group who received this information.

But in fact, we gave this same information to one other group member, i.e., we also told this group member that he or she was the person best suited to lead the group. Thus, each of you was under the impression that you were uniquely suited to lead the group. This was necessary for us to better understand how status disagreements proceed and how they are resolved.

By telling two of you that you were each best suited to lead the group, it was much more likely that a status disagreement would emerge. Without telling two of you, it was more likely that only one person would attempt to “take charge,” and thus no status disagreement would occur.

We apologize for misleading you, but we believe this was the only way to examine the processes that are the object of our research. In designing this study, we took care to minimize any possible risks or discomforts that might be related to the deception. Now that you understand the true nature of our study, you have the chance to refuse the use of the data we collected from you for research purposes.

You are free to ask us not to use your data in our study analysis. If you decline to let us use your data, you will still receive the $15 payment just as you would if we use your data in our analysis. This is entirely voluntary, but we hope to analyze as much data as possible to better understand the processes by which status hierarchies develop in groups.

Because this experiment is ongoing, we request that you not share the true nature and purpose of this experiment with others who might potentially participate in our study. This document borrows heavily from guidance developed by other academic institutions and established professional codes and standards.

University of Chicago, University of Chicago, University of Chicago, American Psychological Association, Baumrind D. Research using intentional deception. American Psychologist 1985; 40:165–74.45 CFR §46.111(a)(1) Criteria for IRB approval of research.

What is an example of deception in psychology?

Deception involves intentionally providing inaccurate or false information to subjects. Examples include:

In order to induce stress, study personnel tell subjects that they will give a speech that evaluators will observe on video, when the subjects’ speeches will not actually be recorded or observed.Study personnel tell subjects that they will be engaged in a cooperative task with other subjects, but instead subjects will actually be interacting with study personnel.Study personnel tell subjects that they will play a competitive game involving financial rewards based on their performance. In fact, the game is rigged and rewards are not based on performance.

Incomplete disclosure involves withholding information about the study purpose and/or reason for procedures, in order to prevent biasing the results. Examples include:

In order to examine how race and gender impact people’s perception of conflicts between individuals, subjects review several hypothetical scenarios describing confrontations between various characters, which include stock photos to represent the individuals involved, and then are asked to complete questions regarding their perception of each of the individuals involved. The subjects are not informed that the race and gender of the characters are manipulated by the researchers but subjects will know that the scenarios are hypothetical.To further understanding of how representations of same sex couples depicted in commercials influence consumer behavior, subjects are exposed to advertisements featuring gay couples and straight couples while their heart rate, facial muscle movement, and sweat responses are recorded. Subjects are informed that their reactions to the commercials are being studied, but not that the researchers are examining if the sexual orientation of characters in commercials influences them.

Limits on Incomplete disclosure :

Incomplete disclosure does not extend to withholding information from subjects about what they will be asked to do. A protocol that informs subjects that they will be asked to complete one 60-minute session but provides no information about the contents of this session would not be considered incomplete disclosure.Protocols that involve manipulating an individual’s environment, without that person’s prospective agreement to participate in research, are not considered incomplete disclosure. In such cases disclosure to subjects is entirely absent, not merely incomplete.

Disclosed concealment involves the withholding of certain information from subjects in cases where subjects consent specifically to the lack of disclosure. An example is a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which subjects will have information regarding their assignment to a particular study arm withheld; however, subjects are informed of the study arms and that their assignment will not be disclosed.

Why is deception bad in psychology?

Disadvantages –

Deception can lead to suspicion among participants, causing them to behave in a way that they normally would not. Deception takes advantage of the trust of participants and creates a bad reputation for psychological research. As a result, it can leave the subject pool biased by making it less likely that certain people will want to participate. It can be argued that a participant, in order to give informed consent, must know the true objectives of a research study. It is a matter of maintaining experimental integrity. For these reasons, some may argue that any deception is unethical.

What are the two types of deception in psychology?

Deception – This is where participants are misled or wrongly informed about the research aims. Types of deception include (i) deliberate misleading, e.g. using confederates, staged manipulations in field settings, deceptive instructions; (ii) deception by omission, e.g., failure to disclose full information about the study, or creating ambiguity.

1. The researcher should avoid deceiving participants about the nature of the research unless there is no alternative – and even then, this would need to be judged acceptable by an independent expert.
2. However, there are some types of research that cannot be carried out without at least some element of deception.

For example, in Milgram’s study of obedience, the participants thought they there giving electric shocks to a learner when they answered a question wrong. In reality, no shocks were given, and the learners were confederates of Milgram. This is sometimes necessary in order to avoid demand characteristics (i.e., the clues in an experiment that lead participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for).

• Another common example is when a stooge or confederate of the experimenter is used (this was the case in both the experiments carried out by Asch ).
• However, participants must be deceived as little as possible, and any deception must not cause distress.
• Researchers can determine whether participants are likely to be distressed when deception is disclosed by consulting culturally relevant groups.

If the participant is likely to object or be distressed once they discover the true nature of the research at debriefing, then the study is unacceptable. If you have gained participants’ informed consent by deception, then they will have agreed to take part without actually knowing what they were consenting to.

How do psychologists detect deception?

Psychological sleuths-Detecting deception Telling a little white lie may on occasion soothe ruffled social feathers, but covering up a murder plot or withholding information on terrorist cells can devastate individuals and society at large. Yet detecting deception often stumps the most experienced police officers, judges, customs officials and other forensic professionals.

Research has shown that even agents from the FBI, CIA and Drug Enforcement Agency don’t do much better than chance in telling liars from truth-tellers. For example, a recent, as yet unpublished meta-analysis of 253 studies of people distinguishing truths from lies revealed overall accuracy was just 53 percent-not much better than flipping a coin, note the authors, psychologists Charles Bond, PhD, of Texas Christian University, and Bella DePaulo, PhD, of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Spotting the sneaks can be tough. Polygraph tests- so-called “lie detectors”-are typically based on detecting autonomic reactions and are considered unreliable (see “The polygraph in doubt”). That’s why psychologists have been cataloging clues to deception-such as facial expressions, body language and linguistics-to help hook the dishonest.

From this research, psychologists are developing new detection tools such as software to analyze facial expressions and writing style. They’re also training law-enforcement experts. One psychologist doing this is Paul Ekman, PhD, an emeritus psychology professor at the University of California Medical School, San Francisco, who’s studied deception for some 40 years.

As part of the Oakland, Calif.-based Institute for Analytic Interviewing, he teaches interviewing skills to everyone from airport security guards to counter-terrorism agents, foreign-service officers and police interrogators, including officials from the CIA, FBI and other such federal agencies.

Mark Frank, PhD, a Rutgers University associate professor of communications, and Ekman are now gathering data on the demeanor and physiology of a large sample of people who tell “high-stakes” lies-for which they could lose money, their spouse, their reputation, their freedom or their life. Ekman says the findings from this new data set should provide “an awful lot,

I think there’ll be a giant leap.” Deception cues debated Are appearances deceiving? The evidence is mixed. DePaulo and co-author Wendy Morris, a psychology graduate student at the University of Virginia, conducted a meta-analysis into the possible predictors of deception for “Deception Detection in Forensic Contexts” (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press).

They warn readers that detecting deception is an inexact science, but note an association between lying and increased pupil size, an indicator of tension and concentration. Second, they find that people listening to liars think they seem more nervous than truth-tellers, perhaps because their voices are pitched higher.

And liars are more likely than truth-tellers to press their lips together. On the other hand, they note, liars don’t appear to be more fidgety, nor do they blink more or have less-relaxed posture. According to DePaulo and Morris, only when liars are more highly motivated-when the stakes are higher-do they seem unusually still and make notably less eye contact with listeners.

1. Also investigating bodily deception cues-particularly facial ones-are Ekman and his associates, who in 1978 published the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which, when combined with voice and speech measures, reaches detection accuracy rates of up to 90 percent, Ekman claims.
2. He and his colleagues are now automating the FACS for use in law enforcement.

Meanwhile, they’re trying to raise the accuracy rate even higher. Of the FACS Ekman says, “We get our biggest payoff from face and voice cues when dealing with lies about emotions at the moment. We add cues from gestures and words when it comes to lies about beliefs and actions, such as crimes.” Ekman and his colleagues do not reveal or publish each validated sign of deception for a very practical reason: They don’t want to tip off the wrong people.

• Ekman, through close study, learned that “micro-expressions” lasting less than one-fifth of a second may leak emotions someone wants to conceal, such as anger or guilt.
• At the same time, signs of emotion aren’t necessarily signs of guilt.
• An innocent person may be apprehensive and appear guilty, Ekman points out.

He says, “You must use lying as a last interpretation and rule out everything else that’s possible.” To tell the truth Facial expressions aren’t the only clue. Because deception is a social act involving language, researchers are also studying liars’ verbal and written output to find distinctive patterns.

DePaulo and Morris say that liars take longer to start answering questions than truth-tellers-but when they have time to plan, liars actually start their answers more quickly than truth-tellers. And they talk less. On the whole, to other people, liars seem more negative-more nervous and complaining, and less cooperative-than truth-tellers, they say.

The content of conversations can be another tip-off. DePaulo and Morris report that liars seem to withhold information, either from guilt or to make it easier to get their stories straight. “Liars’ answers sound more discrepant and ambivalent, the structure of their stories is less logical, and their stories sound less plausible,” they say.

• Liars also use fewer hand movements to illustrate their actions but are more likely to repeat words and phrases, they add.
• At the University of Texas at Austin, psychology professor James Pennebaker, PhD, and his associates have developed computer software, known as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), that analyzes written content and can, with some accuracy, predict whether someone is lying.

Pennebaker says deception appears to carry three primary written markers:

Fewer first-person pronouns. Liars avoid statements of ownership, distance themselves from their stories and avoid taking responsibility for their behavior, he says. More negative emotion words, such as hate, worthless and sad. Liars, notes Pennebaker, are generally more anxious and sometimes feel guilty. Fewer exclusionary words, such as except, but or nor-words that indicate that writers distinguish what they did from what they did not do. Liars seem to have a problem with this complexity, and it shows in their writing.

The LIWC software-published by Lawrence Erlbaum-has been significantly more effective than human judges in correctly identifying deceptive or truthful writing samples, with an average accuracy rate of 67 percent as opposed to 52 percent. The samples were typed in five-minute sessions by participants who were asked to write-as persuasively as possible-truthful and deceptive essays about their views on abortion.

They had given their true views, making it possible to know when they were lying. At New Mexico State University, psychology doctoral student Gary Bond and his colleagues replicated the accuracy rates of LIWC in the field, analyzing the transcribed speech of felons jailed in New Mexico, Kansas and Mississippi and asked to tell the truth or lie about a video they had just seen.

What’s more, truthful statements again had fewer negative emotion words and more self-referencing and exclusive words than false statements. Human lie detectors Computer programs aren’t the only methods of detecting lies. Some scientists believe that people-such as law-enforcement officers-can be trained to recognize liars through behavioral clues.

• In June, APA teamed up with the FBI and the National Institute of Justice on a comprehensive workshop for top law enforcers on the use of intuition.
• Experts presented the latest research on detecting deception and related psychological topics such as bias and event memory.
• Ekman thinks such behavioral training may help authorities spot subtle cues that they might miss because they deal with so many liars.

There are no signs of lying per se, but rather signs of thinking too much when a reply should not require thought, or of emotions that don’t fit what is being spoken, he says. “We train people to look for ‘hot spots,’ where they’re not getting a full account,” he explains.

His Institute for Analytic Interviewing trains people to detect deception in the context of research findings on personality, memory and more. For example, Ekman says that skilled interrogators build rapport with suspects: “People will tell their story if they think you’re being open-minded.” Meanwhile, Ekman has teamed with psychologist Maureen O’Sullivan, PhD, of the University of San Francisco, the lead investigator on a study of the hard-to-find, very small fraction of emotionally intelligent people who can very accurately distinguish deceptiveness from truthfulness.

Some of them use the demeanor and vocal clues mentioned in this article, but others base their judgments on behaviors and word usage that no researcher has previously identified, O’Sullivan explains. Can psychologists learn from these divining rods to train less-sensitive people? Ekman thinks more research is needed.

1. O’Sullivan speculates that it could work only for those with some core skill: “Not everyone can be an Olympic athlete,” she explains.
2. Agencies should identify people with basic talent and train them.” Shedding more light on the matter is Frank of Rutgers, who, with Tom Feeley, PhD, of the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York communication department, recently examined the research on training in the detection of deception.

“It showed that although the training methods used by most researchers were clearly inferior, there was still a significant-if weak-training effect. So we speculated that if training were done properly, it could work considerably better,” says Frank.

Psychology could have a lot to offer, write DePaulo and Morris in their forthcoming book chapter: “Good human lie detectors, if there are such persons, are likely to be good intuitive psychologists. They would figure out how a person might think or feel if lying in a particular situation, then look for behavioral indications of those thoughts or feelings.” In the end, detecting deception is all about honesty.

Ekman concludes, “It’s much harder to find the truth than to find a lie. A good lie-catcher is good at identifying truthfulness.” Rachel Adelson is a writer in Raleigh, N.C. : Psychological sleuths-Detecting deception

What is a good example of deception?

Deception is when a researcher gives false information to subjects or intentionally misleads them about some key aspect of the research. Examples include: Subjects complete a quiz, and are falsely told that they did very poorly, regardless of their actual performance.

Is deception a form of lying?

Deception refers to the act—big or small, cruel or kind—of encouraging people to believe information that is not true. Lying is a common form of deception —stating something known to be untrue with the intent to deceive.

What behaviors may indicate deception?

What People Believe – Psychological folklore tells us that it is. Studies on what people believe about lying and deceit identify a number of non-verbal cues associated with lying ( Vrij, 2000, 2008 ; The Global Deception Research Team, 2006 )—gaze avoidance, fidgeting, restless foot and leg movements, frequent body posture changes.

Such beliefs are not restricted to lay persons but held by law and psychology professionals as well ( Bogaard et al., 2016 ; Dickens and Curtis, 2019 ). Based on such everyday ideas, many countries offer courses and programs that promise lie detection competence. Internationally well-known examples are the SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program aimed at identifying possible terrorists at airports by behavior analysis, and the SYNEROLOGY program aimed at disclosing deception in interviewing situations in the courts or in job application interviews ( Denault et al., 2020 ).

In our country in 2018, a professional organization which offers advanced courses to members of the legal professions, announced a course called Spot a liar, given by a US professor of law. He “teaches scientifically proven methods to see concealed emotion and detect lies, including how to identify micro-expressions of emotion that last less than a second, recognize when body language reveals lies and when it is meaningless, detect lies in interviews, meetings, investigations, and even over the phone”.

What is one of the signs of deception?

Body Language – When it comes to detecting lies, people often focus on body language “tells,” or subtle physical and behavioral signs that reveal deception. For example, shrugging, lack of expression, a bored posture, and grooming behaviors such as playing with hair or pressing fingers to lips can give away a person who is lying.

1. However, although such body language cues can sometimes hint at deception, research suggests that many typical “suspect” behaviors are not always associated with lying.
2. Howard Ehrlichman, a psychologist who has been studying eye movements since the 1970s, has found that they don’t signify lying at all.

In fact, he suggests that shifting eyes mean that a person is thinking, or more precisely, that they are accessing their long-term memory, Similarly, other studies have shown that, although individual signals and behaviors are useful indicators of deception, some of the those most often linked to lying (such as eye movements) are among the worst predictors.

What emotions cause deception?

Wharton research shows that spillover anger – not sadness or another emotion – leads to deception.

Is deception a learned behavior?

Answer and Explanation: Lying is a learned behavior rather than an innate behavior. We know this because small children are still cognitively developing their ability to recognize that other people are different from them complete with inner thoughts and different perspectives.

How to avoid deception psychology?

Key Takeaways –

• It is your responsibility as a researcher to know and accept your ethical responsibilities.
• You can take several concrete steps to minimize risks and deception in your research. These include making changes to your research design, prescreening to identify and eliminate high-risk participants, and providing participants with as much information as possible during informed consent and debriefing.
• Your ethical responsibilities continue beyond IRB approval. You need to monitor participants’ reactions, be alert for potential violations of confidentiality, and maintain scholarly integrity through the publication process.

What are the 4 factors of deception?

Four-factor theory – Zuckerman et al. ( 1981 ) proposed the influential Four-Factor Theory of deception. It postulates that deception involves (a) generalized arousal, (b) anxiety, guilt, and other emotions accompanying deception, (c) cognitive components, and (d) liars’ attempts to control verbal and non-verbal cues to appear honest.

What are the six principles of deception?

A good reference point is the six principles of military deception as defined by Joint Publication (JP) 3-58: focus, integration, timeliness, security, objective, and centralized control.

What part of the brain controls deception?

Regions of deceit – Although several brain areas appear to play a role in deception, the most consistent finding across multiple fMRI studies is that activity in the prefrontal cortex increases when people lie. The prefrontal cortex, situated just behind the forehead, is a collection of regions responsible for executive control (the ability to regulate thoughts or actions to achieve goals).

• Executive control includes cognitive processes such as planning, problem solving, and attention — all important components of deception — so it’s no surprise the prefrontal cortex is active when we lie.
• Dishonesty requires the brain to work harder than honesty, and this effort is reflected by increased brain activity.

Studies even show people take longer to respond when lying. While lies lead to greater activity in the prefrontal cortex, so do many everyday tasks, such as cooking dinner or playing a game of chess, explains Josh Greene, who studies moral judgment and decision-making at Harvard University.

What is the body language of deception?

Body Cues – The hands: Liars tend to use gestures with their hands after they speak as opposed to during or before a conversation, says Traci Brown, who has participated in a deception training program with members of the FBI and occasionally helps work on investigations.

“The mind is doing too many things including making up the story, figuring out if they’re being believed and adding to the story accordingly,” she says. “So normal gesturing that might normally happen just before a statement happens after the statement.” A 2015 study conducted by the University of Michigan looked at 120 media clips of high-stakes court cases in order to understand how people behave when lying versus when they’re being truthful.

The study found that those who lie are more likely to gesture with both of their hands than those who are telling the truth — people gestured with both of their hands in 40% of the lying clips, compared to 25% of the truthful clips. When people are being dishonest, they also tend to face their palms away from you, says Traci Brown, who regularly gives keynote speeches at financial institutions to help them detect and prevent fraud.

• It’s an unconscious signal that they’re holding back information, emotions or even lying, she says.
• They may put them in their pockets or even slide them under the table.” Itching and fidgeting : Rocking the body back and forth, cocking the head to the side or shuffling the feet can also be signs of deception, says Glass, who completed a post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA focusing on Psychology and Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication.

Fluctuations in the autonomic nervous system, which regulates bodily functions, can also have an effect, she says. When people are nervous, these fluctuations in the nervous system can prompt people to feel itches or tingles in their body, which in turn can cause more fidgeting, she explains.

What is the best indicator of deception?

AUTONOMIC INDICATORS – The polygraph is the best-known technique for psychophysiological detection of deception. The goal of all of these techniques is to detect deception by analyzing signals of changes in the body that cannot normally be detected by human observation.

1. The physiological phenomena recorded by the polygraph are only a few of the many physiological phenomena that have been characterized since the polygraph was first introduced and that might, in principle, yield signals of deception.
2. The polygraph relies on measurements of autonomic and somatic activity.

That is, it analyzes signals of peripheral physiological activities associated with arousal and emotion. The traditional measures used in polygraph testing are cardiovascular (i.e., changes in heart rate and blood pressure), electrodermal (i.e., changes in the electrical properties of the skin that vary with the activity of the eccrine sweat gland), and respiratory (see Chapter 3 ).

These are among the oldest measures used by psychophysiologists. A wider variety of visceral events can now be recorded noninvasively, including myocardial contractility, cardiac output, total peripheral resistance, skin temperature (thermography), and vascular perfusion in various cutaneous tissue beds (Blascovich, 2000; Cacioppo, Tassinary, and Berntson, 2000a).

Several of these measures provide clearer information than traditional polygraph measurements about the underlying neurophysiological events that produce visceral adjustments. Given appropriate measurement contexts and controls, for instance, respiratory sinus arrhythmia can be used to reflect cardiac vagal activation, and myocardial contractility (e.g., as assessed by pre-ejection period) can be used to Suggested Citation: “6 Alternative Techniques and Technologies.” National Research Council.2003.

1. The Polygraph and Lie Detection,
2. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
3. Doi: 10.17226/10420.
4. × measure cardiac sympathetic activation (e.g., Berntson et al., 1994; Cacioppo et al., 1994).
5. Because some of these measures are closer than polygraph-based measures to the specific physiological processes associated with arousal, there are theoretical reasons to expect that they might offer better indicators of arousal than those used in polygraph testing.

However, although some of these measures have advantages over polygraph measures on grounds of theoretical psychophysiology, they may not actually map more closely to psychological variables. Like the polygraph indicators, measures such as myocardial contractility and respiratory sinus arrhythmia are influenced by sundry social and psychological factors (e.g., Berntson et al., 1997; Gardner, Gabriel, and Diekman, 2000).

1. These factors might result in false positive test results if an examinee is aroused by something other than deception (e.g., a concern about false accusations) or might provide a basis for countermeasures.
2. Despite these caveats, various researchers have proposed the use of some of these autonomic measurements as alternatives or adjuncts to the four basic channels that are part of the standard polygraph measurement instrument.

The limited research on these measures does not offer any basis for determining where they may fit in the array of possible physiological measurements. The studies generally report on the accuracy of tests using a particular measure in small samples or in uncontrolled settings.

1. A recent report on thermal imaging illustrates the difficulties we have had in assessing whether these peripheral measures are promising and precisely how research on them should be pursued.
2. In 2001, investigators at the U.S.
3. Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI), collaborating with outside researchers, carried out a pilot study (Pollina and Ryan, 2002) using a comparison question format polygraph for a mock crime scenario with 30 examinees who were trainees at an army base.

Their goal was to investigate the possible utility of a new device for thermography that measures the radiant energy emitted from examinees’ faces, as an adjunct or alternative to the traditional polygraph measurements. Thermography has an important potential advantage over the polygraph in that it does not require an examinee to be hooked up to a machine.

1. Five of the original examinees in the study were dropped because they were uncooperative or had other problematic behavior.
2. Of the remaining 25, 12 were programmed to be deceptive and 13 were programmed to be nondeceptive.
3. The outside researchers published a report (Pavlidis, Eberhardt, and Levine, 2002) claiming that the thermal imaging results alone achieved higher accuracy than the polygraph on nondeceptive examinees (11 of 12 subjects correct for thermal imaging compared Suggested Citation: “6 Alternative Techniques and Technologies.” National Research Council.2003.

The Polygraph and Lie Detection, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10420. × with 8 of 12 for the polygraph) and equivalent accuracy on deceptive ones (6 of 8 correct). Unfortunately, the published report uses only a subset of the examinees and offers no information on the selection process.

1. It also gives no information on the decision criteria used for judging deceptiveness from the thermographic data.
2. The DoDPI researchers were interested in the possibility of combining the new information with that from the traditional polygraph channels.
3. This required a new effort at computer scoring, as well as an explicit effort at extracting statistical information from the thermal recordings.

The DoDPI report indicates moderately high correspondence with experimental conditions for polygraph testing (an accuracy index of 0.88), relatively low correspondence with thermal signals alone (A of 0.70), and some incremental information when the two sets of information are combined (A of 0.92).

What is the difference between deception and manipulation?

2.2 Manipulation as Trickery – A second approach to manipulation treats it as a form of trickery, and ties it conceptually to deception. The connection between manipulation and deception is a common theme in both non-philosophical and philosophical discussions of manipulation.

In his 1980 book Manipulatory Politics, Robert Goodin argues that manipulation is inherently deceptive, and offers this test for whether an influence is manipulative: “1. Is the interference deceptive? 2. Is the interference contrary to the putative will of those subject to it?” (Goodin, 1980: 35). In the literature on advertising, the charge that (at least some) advertising is manipulative often rests on the claim that it creates false beliefs or misleading associations (e.g., linking the vitality of the Marlboro man to a product which causes lung cancer).

Similarly, in his discussion of promises, T.M. Scanlon condemns manipulation as a means of inducing false beliefs and expectations (Scanlon 1998: 298–322). Shlomo Cohen offers a somewhat different account of the relationship between manipulation and deception, according to which the distinction lies in the methods by which the target is induced to adopt a false belief (Cohen 2018).

But even on this more nuanced view, there is still a strong connection between manipulation and deception. Other views in this family treat manipulation as a broader category of which deception is a special case. Whereas deception is the deliberate attempt to trick someone into adopting a faulty belief, these versions of the trickery account see manipulation as the deliberate attempt to trick someone into adopting any faulty mental state—belief, desire, emotion, etc.

An early example of this version of the trickery approach to manipulation can be found in a 1980 paper by Vance Kasten, who writes that manipulation occurs when there is a difference in kind between what one intends to do and what one actually does, when that difference is traceable to another in such a way that the victim may be said to have been misled.

Asten 1980: 54) Although many of Kasten’s examples of misleading involve deception, he also includes examples in which manipulation involves inducing the target to have inappropriate emotions like guilt. More recently, Robert Noggle has defended a version of this more expansive approach, writing that There are certain norms or ideals that govern beliefs, desires, and emotions.

Manipulative action is the attempt to get someone’s beliefs, desires, or emotions to violate these norms, to fall short of these ideals. (Noggle 1996: 44) The norms or ideals in question will vary by mental state: a belief falls short of its ideal if it is false; a pattern of attention falls short of its ideal if excessive attention is being paid to something less relevant for choice at hand; an emotion falls short of its ideal if it is not appropriate to the situation (Noggle 1996: 44–47).

1. In a similar vein, Anne Barnhill writes that manipulation is directly influencing someone’s beliefs, desires, or emotions such that she falls short of ideals for belief, desire, or emotion in ways typically not in her self-interest or likely not in her self-interest in the present context,
2. Barnhill 2014: 73, emphasis original; for a similar view, see Hanna 2015) Claudia Mills offers a theory that can be considered as either a version of, or a close relative to, the trickery account: We might say, then, that manipulation in some way purports to be offering good reasons, when in fact it does not.

A manipulator tries to change another’s beliefs and desires by offering her bad reasons, disguised as good, or faulty arguments, disguised as sound—where the manipulator himself knows these to be bad reasons and faulty arguments (Mills 1995: 100; see Benn 1967 and Gorin 2014b for somewhat similar ideas).

• A similar picture of manipulation emerges from the work of the political theorist Keith Dowding (2016, 2018).
• Dowding does not attempt to characterize manipulation directly.
• Rather, he proposes ideal conditions for persuasion in a deliberative democracy—conditions that would exclude manipulation.
• These conditions prohibit appealing to reasons that the persuader does not accept, and appealing to emotions that the persuader does not share.

These prohibitions seem to suggest a characterization of manipulation as the attempt to influence the target by appealing to what the manipulator sees as bad reasons or inappropriate emotions. This picture of manipulation is either a version of, or a close cousin to, the picture of the manipulator as trying to trick the target into making choices based on faulty beliefs or inappropriate emotions.

• Thus, while all versions of the trickery view retain the connection between manipulation and deception, some extend it to include tricking the target into adopting any faulty mental state, including beliefs, desires, emotions, etc.
• This view might be further expanded by adopting Michael Cholbi’s observation that the phenomenon of ego depletion might induce targets of manipulation to form faulty intentions (that is, intentions that do not reflect their considered values) because their resistance to temptation has been worn down (Cholbi 2014).

The trickery view can be motivated by appeal to various examples, one especially fruitful set of which is Shakespeare’s Othello, It seems natural to describe Shakespeare’s character Iago as a manipulator. The activities in virtue of which he merits this label seem to involve various forms of trickery.

• For example, through insinuation, innuendo and cleverly arranging circumstances (like a strategically placed handkerchief) he tricks Othello into suspecting—and then believing—that his new bride Desdemona has been unfaithful.
• He then plays on Othello’s insecurities and other emotions to lead him into an irrational jealousy and rage that both overshadow his love for Desdemona and cloud his judgment about how to react.

The trickery view accounts for our sense that Iago manipulates Othello by noting that Iago tricks him into adopting various faulty mental states—false beliefs, unwarranted suspicions, irrational emotions, and so on. Proponents of the trickery view disagree over several details, most notably how to define a faulty mental state.

• Some proponents of the trickery view argue that manipulation occurs when the influencer attempts to induce what the influencer regards as a faulty mental state into the target’s deliberations (Mills 1995; Noggle 1996; this idea is built into Dowding’s account).
• Others argue that we should define manipulation in terms of the attempt to introduce an objectively faulty mental state into the target’s deliberations (Hanna 2015: 634; see also Sunstein 2016: 89).

Anne Barnhill suggests that our usage of the term “manipulation” is inconsistent on the question of whose standards determine whether the influencer attempts to induce the target to adopt a faulty mental state (Barnhill 2014). Although the trickery account has considerable appeal, it faces an important challenge: It apparently fails to count as manipulative a whole class of tactics that seem, intuitively, to be manipulative.

What is deceitful behavior?

: having a tendency or disposition to deceive or give false impressions : : not honest. a deceitful person. : deceptive, misleading.

Is deception dishonesty?

Dishonesty requires not that an unacceptable behavior occurs, but that it is characterized by deception —tacit in this definition is the deliberate presentation of a dishonest claim, which is known to be untrue.

What is the most common form of deception?

Lying is a common form of deception—stating something known to be untrue with the intent to deceive.

What behaviors may indicate deception?

What People Believe – Psychological folklore tells us that it is. Studies on what people believe about lying and deceit identify a number of non-verbal cues associated with lying ( Vrij, 2000, 2008 ; The Global Deception Research Team, 2006 )—gaze avoidance, fidgeting, restless foot and leg movements, frequent body posture changes.

1. Such beliefs are not restricted to lay persons but held by law and psychology professionals as well ( Bogaard et al., 2016 ; Dickens and Curtis, 2019 ).
2. Based on such everyday ideas, many countries offer courses and programs that promise lie detection competence.
3. Internationally well-known examples are the SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program aimed at identifying possible terrorists at airports by behavior analysis, and the SYNEROLOGY program aimed at disclosing deception in interviewing situations in the courts or in job application interviews ( Denault et al., 2020 ).

In our country in 2018, a professional organization which offers advanced courses to members of the legal professions, announced a course called Spot a liar, given by a US professor of law. He “teaches scientifically proven methods to see concealed emotion and detect lies, including how to identify micro-expressions of emotion that last less than a second, recognize when body language reveals lies and when it is meaningless, detect lies in interviews, meetings, investigations, and even over the phone”.

What are acts of deception?

: the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid : the act of deceiving.