IngentaConnect Halfe the world knowes not how the other halfe lies: Investigatio...

Authors: Porter, Stephen¹; Doucette, Naomi L.²; Woodworth, Michael³; Earle, Jeff⁴; MacNeil, Bonnie⁵

Source: Legal and Criminological Psychology, Volume 13, Number 1, February 2008 , pp. 27-38(12)

Publisher: British Psychological Society

Abstract:

PurposeThis study examined the verbal and non-verbal behaviours exhibited by criminal offender and non-offender participants while they related planned truthful and deceptive accounts about emotional autobiographical events.

MethodsIn a 2 × 2 (participant group × veracity) quasi-experimental design, offenders (N=27) and university students (N=38) provided videotaped accounts of four autobiographical emotional events: two honest and two fabricated (counterbalanced). Patterns of behaviour exhibited during the truthful and the deceptive accounts were then compared.

ResultsIn general, offenders and non-offenders showed similar patterns of deceptive behaviour. Deceptive accounts by both groups contained fewer details than honest accounts. Deception was associated with an increase in illustrator usage and self-manipulations; however, univariate analyses indicated only that offenders exhibited significantly more self-manipulations when lying. A significant interaction emerged in which offenders showed a reduction in smiles when lying about the emotional events, while students showed no difference.

ConclusionsOffenders and students showed similar patterns of lying on most cues. However, unlike non-offenders, offenders smiled less and showed an increase in self-manipulations when lying. We theorize that offenders may have been aware that smiling and laughing are negatively related to perceived credibility in the speaker and used self-manipulations to distract listeners from the content of their lies.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/135532507X186653

Affiliations: 1: Dalhousie University, Canada 2: University of New Brunswick, Canada 3: University of British Columbia, Canada 4: Correctional Service of Canada, Canada 5: Queen's University, Canada

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Halfe the world knowes not how the other halfe lies: Investigation of verbal and non-verbal signs of deception exhibited by criminal offenders and non-offenders