A good liar, a “motivation impairment attenuated” kind of liar, would be wise to choose a rich medium for his deeds (see Hancock’s Digital Deception – model derived from the Interpersonal Deception Theory). Non-verbal cues, in accord with the Hyperpersonal Theory and the supporting theories outlined in Digital Deception, are most heavily relied upon to detect if a person is indeed lying. Yet, the receiver oft relies too heavily on these cues. As noted in last Thursday’s class, averting one’s eyes is a cue that’s actually over-ascribed to be false and thus proves to be a misleading mechanism of deception detection. (Further complicating detection channels in FtF, the deceiver is able to quickly respond to the non-verbal cues of the receiver, if, for example, they appear skeptical.) Still, a combination of non-verbal cues—clamminess, stuttering—will cumulatively prove most successful in confronting someone in a synchronous FtF conversation. So, if a liar can control his self-presentation under FtF circumstances, he should lie face-to-face, because he will disable the relied upon non-verbal cues used by the receiver.
I, however, do not trust my FtF lying skills. My writing ability would better suit my deception needs than any lying strategy in FtF (with all that unintentional “cue leakage”). I recounted a personal story to my friend—about a weekend in NYC—in a CMC. I attempted to conjure up a handful of quasi-believable lies: there was a duck stolen from the zoo, due to a dare, and a gift of $20 dollars from a random, neurotic stranger handing over the contents of his wallet. I was careful to write as I typically do—fairly cryptic—but, regardless, apparently he wasn’t willing to believe me. When I interviewed him, he said he thought my sentences were more serious and purposeful than usual. The Interpersonal Deception Model, found in Digital Deception article, accounts for “experience and familiarity” and their important role in molding the deception-detection interaction. I believe that my friend’s familiarity with my style of storytelling precluded much of my ability to lie. Perhaps, in a FtF environment, with more cognitive resources divided between different non-verbal cues, I might have been able to better lie.
When I told my friend, two days later, a true story that occurred last summer, I did so in the richer FtF medium. Expecting my friend to believe me, I chose a rich medium because I trusted my non-verbal cues to follow my verbal confidence (positive valence, self-locus = rich medium). I managed to not concern myself too much with the thought of telling the exact truth; instead, I simply recounted the story as I would any other day. My friend did not detect any deception, and, at times, supporting my story, asked, “really? Wow, that’s sweet.” It seems, that confidence in one’s story plays a large role in using a richer medium – for experienced liars only.
3 comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42nd-option-facebook-lets-you-lie-like.html
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Andrew Meehan's comments
(Do we even have to do this? Blackboard said something about this, but it seems unnecessary)
Hey Andrew! I found it really interesting that your friend could tell you were lying so easily. According to the Social Distance Theory, your choice of using the online medium would be the most appropriate place for you to lie, especially since you were afraid of giving yourself away with nonverbal cues. Although it is thought that FtF can be the best way to lie if you’re confident about it because you can react to the person you’re talking to, I am a terrible liar as well and would have done the same thing as you had I chosen this option. I thought it was funny how you chose to tell a story about stealing a duck from the zoo, but I wonder if this is something you would normally do or if this story made it easier for your friend to detect the lie.
After reading several of the blogs and my own experiences, it is becoming more and more evident that ones own personality plays a large role in how a lie is accepted. Regardless of facial cues or awkward hesitation, granted these are large factors as well, it seems as though the type of story you tell, the way you tell it, and the medium in which you tell it compared to your expected and known personality can perhaps be the greatest giveaway of all. For example, you mentioned your interviewee said you were more serious than usual. This claim was based completely on the fact that (according to him) you’re more of a laid back non serious person. A stranger would have no clue how you truly are, and thus, would have no basis to claim your story false on any ground related to personality. Your mention of the Interpersonal Deception Model alluded to what I am trying to get at in regard to experience and familiarity. You said that perhaps in ftf you could tell a better lie. I wonder how the Interpersonal Deception Model would predict this. I would imagine, a friend could pick up non-verbal cues which are different than what he/she would otherwise expect, making ftf more difficult to lie.
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