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Communicating Deception: Differences in Language Use, Justifications, and Questions for Lies, Omissions, and Truths

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Abstract

The use of linguistics to detect deception is a growing field of study. This experiment used naturally-occurring deception to test the propositions and fundamental assumptions of this line of inquiry. One participant (allocator) was given 6 dollars to divide between herself and another participant (receiver). Receivers were not told how much money allocators received. In 1/3 of interactions, the recipient was deceived either with a lie or deceptive omission. Linguistic differences associated with deception (fewer first person pronouns) were found for lies and omission, but higher word count was only found for omission. We found no evidence of a relationship between negative emotion and linguistic factors related to emotion (negative emotion words, negations, pronouns). Coding of justifications found allocators used more justifications for their offers when recipient was suspicious. Liars used more justifications providing details about how they obtained the money. Justifications about offer fairness were related to increased detection accuracy.

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Notes

  1. Participants communicated either face-to-face or through computer chat. Previous data from this experiment (AUTHORS) analyzed differences in deception and detection accuracy for communication channel. In this paper, we do not have any specific hypotheses about how communication channel will affect linguistic differences, but present differences between communication channel for the main dependent variables. For total, rather than percentage, measures of linguistic patterns, there were significant differences between the two conditions for word count (CMC \(M = 56.47, SD = 41.58\); FTF \(M = 95.94, SD = 84.88; F (1, 151) = 13.06, p < .001\)) and question marks (CMC \(M = 2.36, SD = 2.44\); FTF \(M = 1.62, SD = 2.36; F (1, 151) = 4.20, p = .042\)). For percentage measures, there was a significant difference for negations (CMC \(M = 1.91, SD = 2.27\); FTF \(M = 2.64, SD = 2.00; F (1, 151) = 4.51, p = .035\)). There were no other significant differences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 821 University Ave., Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Lyn M. Van Swol

  2. Department of Communication, Millikin University, 1184 W. Main St., Decatur, IL, 62522, USA

    Michael T. Braun

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  1. Lyn M. Van Swol
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Correspondence to Michael T. Braun.

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Van Swol, L.M., Braun, M.T. Communicating Deception: Differences in Language Use, Justifications, and Questions for Lies, Omissions, and Truths. Group Decis Negot 23, 1343–1367 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-013-9373-3

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