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Revisiting Perceiver and Target Gender Effects in Deception Detection

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Abstract

Existing research is inconclusive regarding the influence of perceiver gender and target gender on lie detection. Researchers have offered a number of conclusions regarding gender effects in deception detection (e.g., women are better at lie detection than men, participant and target gender interact in predicting deception detection accuracy, there are no gender effects in deception detection). In the current work, we revisit the question of whether and how gender influences lie detection, employing a large database of controlled stimuli, a large sample size, and the analytical advantages provided by signal detection theory. Participants viewed videos of male and female targets telling truths and lies about interpersonal relationships, and after each video, they rendered a truth or lie judgment. Female targets were easier to “read” (i.e., greater sensitivity) and were called liars more frequently than male targets. No effects of participant gender were observed. This work sheds light on an important issue in the lie detection literature (i.e., does gender matter?), and it identifies important considerations for understanding gender biases and cross-gender social interactions.

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Notes

  1. Data collection for this project was conducted contemporaneously with pretesting for the Miami University Deception Detection Database (Lloyd et al. 2018). All stimuli, data, and codebook can be freely accessed by researchers via http://hdl.handle.net/2374.MIA/6067 after requesting an access code from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Darrien Jones for his assistance with this research. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by Miami University Honors College via a Scholarly Activities Grant awarded to the second author and National Science Foundation Grant BCS-1423765 awarded to the third author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Denver, 2155 S. Race St, Denver, CO, 80208, USA

    E. Paige Lloyd & Kevin M. Summers

  2. Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Kurt Hugenberg

  3. Miami University, 90 North Patterson Avenue, Oxford, OH, 45056, USA

    Allen R. McConnell

Authors
  1. E. Paige Lloyd
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  2. Kevin M. Summers
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  3. Kurt Hugenberg
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  4. Allen R. McConnell
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Correspondence to E. Paige Lloyd.

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Lloyd, E.P., Summers, K.M., Hugenberg, K. et al. Revisiting Perceiver and Target Gender Effects in Deception Detection. J Nonverbal Behav 42, 427–440 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-018-0283-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-018-0283-6

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