University of Twente Student Theses
How Does the Content of a Lie Affect How Lies and Liars Are Perceived?
Meyer, Emmett Louis (2024) How Does the Content of a Lie Affect How Lies and Liars Are Perceived?
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| Abstract: | The view that humans are ultimately poor in detecting deception despite the existence of some objective cues was predominant in the past decades. However, research highlighting the context-dependency of widely accepted objective cues and the involvement of processes outside conscious awareness in deception detection underlines a need to shift back to basic assumptions about objective and subjective cues. The present study aimed to explore the role of a narrative’s emotional valence. In a laboratory study, video stimuli in which speakers talked about topics with varying emotional valence were presented to 31 university students in a 3 (emotional valence) x 2 (veracity) full-factorial within-subjects design. For each video, perceived accuracy, perceived sender impression, and perceived emotional valence were measured with single items to investigate the direct effects of the independent variables on the participants’ perception and shed light on processes underlying these perceptions. A linear mixed model revealed a significant interaction of emotional valence and veracity on perceived emotional valence. Ratings of negative truthful stimuli were more extreme than of negative deceptive stimuli, but such a difference was not observed for positive stimuli. However, compared to neutral stimuli, positive truthful ones were perceived as more positive than deceptive ones. While no direct effects of the independent variables were found on perceived accuracy and perceived sender impression, positive associations between all the dependent variables were observed. The findings provide support for the view that deception detection performance is generally rather poor and context-dependent and that liars could hypothetically present themselves and their stories in a positive light to appear more credible. Future research can build up on these findings by focusing on more specific contexts and investigating the extent to which positive self-presentations are used by liars. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/100055 |
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