Share

Deception can be perfected

New Northwestern University research shows that lying is more malleable than previously thought, and with a certain amount of training and instruction, the art of deception can be perfected.

People generally take longer and make more mistakes when telling lies than telling the truth, because they are holding two conflicting answers in mind and suppressing the honest response, previous research has shown. Consequently, researchers in the present study investigated whether lying can be trained to be more automatic and less task demanding.

This research could have implications for law enforcement and the administering of lie detector tests to better handle deceptions in more realistic scenarios.

Researchers found that instruction alone significantly reduced reaction times associated with participants' deceptive responses.

They used a control group - an instruction group in which participants were told to speed up their lies and make fewer errors, but were not given time to prepare their lies - and a training group, which received training in how to speed up their deceptive responses and were given time to prepare their lies.

How the study was done

In the training group that practised their lies, the differences between deceptive and truthful responses were completely eliminated. "We found that lying is more malleable and can be changed upon intentional practise," said Xiaoqing Hu, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Northwestern.

Hu said they were surprised that even in the instruction group, members who were not given time to prepare their lies and told only to try to speed up their responses and make fewer errors were able to significantly reduce their deceptive response reaction time.

"This was really unexpected because it suggests that people can be really flexible, and after they know what is expected from them, they want to avoid being detected," Hu said, noting the findings could help in crime fighting.

"In real life, there's usually a time delay between the crime and interrogation," said Hu. "Most people would have time to prepare and practise their lies prior to the interrogation." However, previous research in deception usually gave participants very little time to prepare their lies.

Lie detector tests most often rely on physiological responses. Therefore, Hu said further research warrants looking at whether additional training could result in physiological changes in addition to inducing behaviour changes as observed in their study.

(EurekAlert, December 2012)

Read more:

Living without lies makes you healthier

Why we lie

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE