We all know that lying is pervasive in our daily lives, with research showing that each of us tells 1-2 lies a day. This is why I chose to investigate the first assignment option this week because it’d give me the chance to see how successful I really was at online deception.
To start the assignment I thought back to fall break of last year in when my best friend and I went home and went around upstate New York on a few little road trips. I thought this would be the best trip to use for this assignment because there were a lot of stories involved and it was almost a year ago at this point. I began with talking with my friend, who I’ll just refer to as John to keep him anonymous, at dinner on Thursday about how last year’s fall break was a lot of fun. We started reminiscing about where we went and some of the funnier moments of the weekend like when we went on the bumper cars and were attacked by 12 year olds and when a six year old hit me at the baseball hall of fame.
Since all of these events really happened over fall break the conversation flowed really easily and we were able to give each other many cues about how we felt about the issues by smiling, nodding, and laughing.
Then, on Sunday night I was talking with John on AIM and as we were catching up on our weekends (because I had been away) I knew that I had to finish up the assignment and somehow pull off a lie during our conversation. Since we were in an online space I had many more cognitive resources available to me as the hyperpersonal model suggests. This allowed me to think a lot before I even messaged John about my weekend about how I would tell the lie.
I was trying to decide which form of communication would best be suited to pull off my lie and I eventually decided to use AIM because it has many features that would potentially benefit me in my deception. As the featured based model presented by Hancock and his colleagues states, instant messaging is nearly synchronous, is not always recordable, and is distributed. These three features of the technology make it very conducive to deception.
Also, according to the hyperpersonal model, in an online space I am able to selectively represent myself or ideas. I found myself planning what I’d say before I even began talking with John. I started talking to him and told him how I got lost on my way back this weekend (which was my first lie of the night) and I continued to lie and tell him how it reminded me of how we got really lost on the way home from the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown.
At first John questioned my story and said he couldn’t really remember that. But I was ready for this questioning, again due to my preparation, the fact that I was only in a slightly synchronous space, and because I had more cognitive availabilities. I told John how we saw the sign for the highway, but it was at a really odd intersection and we weren’t sure which road we should take, that we decided to go to the left and ended up down a really long and lonely back country road and were driving around for about 20 minutes. John started saying “lol” and that he couldn’t believe he could forget something like that and he played it off because he said that he gets lost a lot when he’s driving and he must have just forgotten about that time.
I decided it was time to come clean and let him on the little experiment and told him it was all a lie and that I was doing it for this class. John acted pretty surprised and he claimed that he couldn’t tell that I was lying because I seemed really convinced that it happened and that I had a whole story to go along with it. He added that he thinks he can tell if I were to lie to him in person though because he claims I have the tendency to get really read and look down if I’m lying to him. I guess that part of the experiment will have to wait until another time.
Links to commetns:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/yo-brahh-on-your-profile-you-forgot-to.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/a4o1-thanks-comm-245-for-forcing-me-to.html
Monday, September 17, 2007
#4, option 2...a ginger spice
For this assignment I decided to have one of my best friends at Cornell rate the accuracy of all the elements of her facebook profile, we'll call her "Ginger Spice." I chose to study Ginger Spice because I know her so well, so I knew I would be able to tell if she was being honest with her ratings. Just as Catalina did with her study, I had Ginger Spice rate the accuracy of all the elements of her facebook profile on a scale of 1 (completely inaccurate) to 5 (completely accurate). Ginger Spice's average accuracy was a 4.1 throughout the levels of Profile Picture, General Information, Groups, Contact Information, Personal Information, and Education Information, and I found that her self-ratings seemed to be very accurate according to the information I know about her personally. According to Goffman and Baumeister's Self-Presentation Goals, the subject were most likely to lie frequently but subtly. The goal of lying frequently is to appear attractive to the viewer, and the goal of lying subtly is to appear honest to the viewer, which is for the most part consistent with what I found with Ginger Spice's facebook profile. While I found that Ginger Spice lied quite frequently throughout her profile, the lies were quite subtle for the most part (usually rated as a 3 or 4). However, there were a fair amount of 1's and 2's (enough for me to notice), and because of this I came to the conclusion that for Ginger Spice, appearing attractive is more important than appearing honest in the facebook environment.
In the facebook environment, there are very few assessment signals, and many conventional signals, as is typical with many online environments. As for the assessment signals, there were really only the profile picture and other photos, the email address (which confirmed the Cornell network), and the phone number. These are all assessment signals because they are the most closely linked with Ginger Spice's "real world" identity. What I found interesting with Ginger Spice's assessment signals, though, is that they were all completely accurate except her profile picture, which she ranked as a 1 (it's a picture of an ugly llama she found on google). I found this an interesting stray from the typical way we look at assessment signals online, because while this should be something linked to her identity to signify her real appearance, it was instead replaced with a gag photo, not to make herself seem more attractive physically, but perhaps to seem more attractive in terms of having a sense of humor about herself. I think it is easy to do this however, because she has 245 other photos which represent her accurately (rated a 5), which allows her to turn the profile picture into a conventional signal, really.
As for everything else in the profile, these were all conventional signals as well, because they are simply easy to manipulate text-based self-identification. However, the deception I noticed in these conventional signals as well is similar to the issue with the profile picture. There was frequent deception throughout the conventional signals of the profile, but they weren't necessarily kept close to the truth to appear honest, in fact, there were a few which were intentionally inaccurate (listed as a 1 or 2), the purpose of which was to appear more attractive (again, not attractive physically, but in terms of a sense of humor). For example, she listed her major as "History, Soul Decision," not because it's true, but because Soul Decision is a funny, fake major (check out their hit single "Faded," if you're not familiar).
So, because of the reduced cues and the editable nature of facebook, it is very easy to selectively self-present, and everyone can do it in their own way. Some people take facebook quite seriously as a way for them to network with others and identify themselves in an online social environment, and others see facebook as a kind of joke, where they aren't necessarily deceptive to put their best facebook-foot forward, but as a way of poking fun at the facebook profile and themself for having one (as Ginger Spice is doing). However, the interesting thing about being deceptive as a joke on facebook, is that it really is just another way of selectively self-presenting yourself to others as a person who has a good sense of humor, where you actually put quite a bit of thought into the profile, specifically so that it appears that you don't care about it at all. Therefore, Ginger Spice's facebook profile does align with the Self-Presentational Goals theory in that she used the reduced cues to selectively self-present herself in order to appear more attractive to the viewers who might over-attribute her qualities, but that appearing attractive to the viewer is more important than appearing honest to the viewer, and that in fact appearing dishonest is really just a way of appearing more attractive.
Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-he-didnt-lie.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-anatomy-of-taken-facebooker.html
In the facebook environment, there are very few assessment signals, and many conventional signals, as is typical with many online environments. As for the assessment signals, there were really only the profile picture and other photos, the email address (which confirmed the Cornell network), and the phone number. These are all assessment signals because they are the most closely linked with Ginger Spice's "real world" identity. What I found interesting with Ginger Spice's assessment signals, though, is that they were all completely accurate except her profile picture, which she ranked as a 1 (it's a picture of an ugly llama she found on google). I found this an interesting stray from the typical way we look at assessment signals online, because while this should be something linked to her identity to signify her real appearance, it was instead replaced with a gag photo, not to make herself seem more attractive physically, but perhaps to seem more attractive in terms of having a sense of humor about herself. I think it is easy to do this however, because she has 245 other photos which represent her accurately (rated a 5), which allows her to turn the profile picture into a conventional signal, really.
As for everything else in the profile, these were all conventional signals as well, because they are simply easy to manipulate text-based self-identification. However, the deception I noticed in these conventional signals as well is similar to the issue with the profile picture. There was frequent deception throughout the conventional signals of the profile, but they weren't necessarily kept close to the truth to appear honest, in fact, there were a few which were intentionally inaccurate (listed as a 1 or 2), the purpose of which was to appear more attractive (again, not attractive physically, but in terms of a sense of humor). For example, she listed her major as "History, Soul Decision," not because it's true, but because Soul Decision is a funny, fake major (check out their hit single "Faded," if you're not familiar).
So, because of the reduced cues and the editable nature of facebook, it is very easy to selectively self-present, and everyone can do it in their own way. Some people take facebook quite seriously as a way for them to network with others and identify themselves in an online social environment, and others see facebook as a kind of joke, where they aren't necessarily deceptive to put their best facebook-foot forward, but as a way of poking fun at the facebook profile and themself for having one (as Ginger Spice is doing). However, the interesting thing about being deceptive as a joke on facebook, is that it really is just another way of selectively self-presenting yourself to others as a person who has a good sense of humor, where you actually put quite a bit of thought into the profile, specifically so that it appears that you don't care about it at all. Therefore, Ginger Spice's facebook profile does align with the Self-Presentational Goals theory in that she used the reduced cues to selectively self-present herself in order to appear more attractive to the viewers who might over-attribute her qualities, but that appearing attractive to the viewer is more important than appearing honest to the viewer, and that in fact appearing dishonest is really just a way of appearing more attractive.
Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-he-didnt-lie.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-anatomy-of-taken-facebooker.html
4: RIP John Smith?
I interviewed my friend, who will go by the pseudonym of Audrey, about her Facebook profile. I’ve known her for quite a while and believe I would be fairly able to tell if she was lying to me. Audrey’s average accuracy rating (on a scale of 1 to 5) was around 4.
Audrey is a fairly relaxed individual, and her Facebook profile illustrates these characteristics quite accurately. For someone who does not know Audrey very well, one might mistake the conciseness of her profile for a lack of interest in Facebook, but because I know her well, I can argue the exact opposite. Just about every aspect of one’s Facebook profile is a Conventional Signal because filling out a text profile is so easy. The closest we get to assessment symbols on Facebook is probably Profile Pictures and Photo Albums.
Audrey only lists three Interests in her Facebook profile: green tea, avocado, and beef. She rated the accuracy of this section of her profile as 5, even though she clearly is interested in more than just those three things. One who doesn’t know better may take this piece of Self Presentation to mean that she really enjoys food and drink. Although this is quite true, the overall impression is deceptive because I know very well that she is interested in more than just food consumption.
Audrey’s Favorite Quotes have the potential to be quite deceptive. One quotation is from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This author shows up again in a Note Audrey posted on her profile, which consists of a longer excerpt from this book. Audrey rated the accuracy of her Favorite Quotes and Notes sections as 5s, but surely there is some Selective Self-Presentation at work here. She might be trying to emphasize intellect. Given that her profile does not say that much about her, the things she chooses to put on display could potentially be Over-Attributed, due to lack of available cues.
Audrey’s Group affiliation section is the only part of her Profile that she admitted as deceptive. Giving her groups an accuracy rating of 3, she confessed that she often joins groups out of guilt, such as philanthropic ones, or groups dedicated to the memory of someone who died. Audrey blames the Facebook News Feed feature for her lack of action in portraying herself accurately here. She would not like to be caught on another person’s News Feed as part of a story reading “Audrey Gold has left the group RIP John Smith,” even though she never knew John Smith! Audrey would not like the Facebook community to think that she is insensitive, so to her, a little deception in the form of a false Social Association is fine with her.
Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-life-is-rap-music-video-assignment.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-thats-her-default-picture.html
Audrey is a fairly relaxed individual, and her Facebook profile illustrates these characteristics quite accurately. For someone who does not know Audrey very well, one might mistake the conciseness of her profile for a lack of interest in Facebook, but because I know her well, I can argue the exact opposite. Just about every aspect of one’s Facebook profile is a Conventional Signal because filling out a text profile is so easy. The closest we get to assessment symbols on Facebook is probably Profile Pictures and Photo Albums.
Audrey only lists three Interests in her Facebook profile: green tea, avocado, and beef. She rated the accuracy of this section of her profile as 5, even though she clearly is interested in more than just those three things. One who doesn’t know better may take this piece of Self Presentation to mean that she really enjoys food and drink. Although this is quite true, the overall impression is deceptive because I know very well that she is interested in more than just food consumption.
Audrey’s Favorite Quotes have the potential to be quite deceptive. One quotation is from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This author shows up again in a Note Audrey posted on her profile, which consists of a longer excerpt from this book. Audrey rated the accuracy of her Favorite Quotes and Notes sections as 5s, but surely there is some Selective Self-Presentation at work here. She might be trying to emphasize intellect. Given that her profile does not say that much about her, the things she chooses to put on display could potentially be Over-Attributed, due to lack of available cues.
Audrey’s Group affiliation section is the only part of her Profile that she admitted as deceptive. Giving her groups an accuracy rating of 3, she confessed that she often joins groups out of guilt, such as philanthropic ones, or groups dedicated to the memory of someone who died. Audrey blames the Facebook News Feed feature for her lack of action in portraying herself accurately here. She would not like to be caught on another person’s News Feed as part of a story reading “Audrey Gold has left the group RIP John Smith,” even though she never knew John Smith! Audrey would not like the Facebook community to think that she is insensitive, so to her, a little deception in the form of a false Social Association is fine with her.
Comments:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-life-is-rap-music-video-assignment.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/42-thats-her-default-picture.html
4,2: He didn't lie...
For this assignment, I investigated the accuracy of a friend’s Facebook, in its entirety. I made sure that my friend, who from this point forth will be referred to as “the subject”, had set a significant amount of time aside in order to take part in the in depth questioning. At first, the subject seemed reluctant to allot the requested amount of time for the interview but I kept insisting and eventually succeeded. The subject’s immediate response to my task at hand was, “I don’t know why you think, it’ll take that long, I don’t lie on my Facebook”. After a thorough sweep of the subject’s profile and life, I came to the conclusion that the subject’s first few words had not been a lie.
Recently, the subject had updated and removed a significant amount of superfluous (potentially inaccurate) information from their profile. The breakdown in terms of Catalina’s study yielded as follows:
All contact information: 5
Pictures: 5
Groups: 5
Interests/Personal information: 5
Everything else: 5
During my verification process, I was convinced that the information provided was in fact accurate. I could not find a lie on the profile. This was as I had expected.
Based on the results, I would say that the Recordability of a Facebook profile kept the subject from presenting any inaccurate information on it. Since my subject is very self-confident, there was no need for an alteration in the presentation. The one thing that was mentioned was that previously the subject had joined many groups that were not necessarily an accurate representation of the subject’s interest. Therefore, prior to my interview, the subject’s profile had agreed with the experiment in that small lies were quite honest and very infrequent.
Overall, my friend’s profile barely showed any lies and the very few lies were conventional signals (groups) that had been manipulated. I believe that it is Facebook’s very nature that promotes accurate assessment signals. One must have a valid email address, others know you and may be able to keep track of any inaccuracies, it is recordable and it’s mostly used to network between friends to whom people do not feel the need to display an improved self-presentation masking their insecurities. The only things that can successfully be manipulated are the groups one joins (since they’re not taken seriously in the first place when assessing an individual’s interests).
Yea, I wish he had lied some more, talking to him was boring.http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-opt-1-true-or-false-type.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-option-1-its-officialim-bad-liar.html
Assignment #4, opt.1: Truth or Lie?
This is probably my favorite blog thus far to write. How often do you get to lie to a friend and it be for educational purposes? For this experiment, I put my best friend Michelle up to the task. She knows me very well but she is very gullible at the same time, so I was dying to see which one would overcome the other. I began by using the rich media to discuss the 1st memory. I called her and struck up a conversation about my trip to Puerto Rico this summer, seeing as she just got back from her own vacation in England. I told her that I had gone bungee jumping and trash can sliding down the side of the mountains. I went on to describe my horse back riding experience and scuba diving on the south shore. Mind you these were all lies, as I did not one thing of resemblance. I spoke to her the next day and switched it over to the lean media. I signed onto AIM began a conversation about my road trip up to Cornell from Long Island, NY. I told Michelle about the long 4.5 hour ride and the interesting things I saw along the way: three car accidents, two motorcyclists arguing and cursing each other out on the road and a group of deer walking along the highway. Now you would wish this was all fabricated but it was actually true.
Then came the test. I met up with her later on that day and revealed my assignment and the part she played in it. I revealed that one of the two stories I told her was a lie and she was to figure out which one was not true. After careful thought she concluded that the story I told her over the telephone about my trip to Puerto Rico was false. I was shocked she actually got it because I’ve done all the things that I told her about before so it wasn’t like anything was unbelievable. Michelle stated that over the phone I paused a lot as if I was thinking about what to say next. I also didn’t get into much detail as I would normally. I brushed over everything with a "yea" or "uh huh". Online she felt that even if I had paused or been thinking she didn’t notice because the conversation just kept flowing. The tone of my voice apparently also changed slightly and to her it just seemed a little fishy as if I had been exaggerating.
This experiment clearly supported the idea of lean versus rich media selection. The rich media made it easier to detect my lie because she had more cues to work with. She didn’t have my physical body language but my wording and tone of voice was sufficient. The AIM conversation gave me a bigger amount of ambiguity, decreasing the chance of deception detection. This intentional control of information to create false beliefs is exactly what digital deception covers.
Commented on:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment_4_humor_me_and_tell_me_lies.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/facebook_do_people_really_show_face.html
Then came the test. I met up with her later on that day and revealed my assignment and the part she played in it. I revealed that one of the two stories I told her was a lie and she was to figure out which one was not true. After careful thought she concluded that the story I told her over the telephone about my trip to Puerto Rico was false. I was shocked she actually got it because I’ve done all the things that I told her about before so it wasn’t like anything was unbelievable. Michelle stated that over the phone I paused a lot as if I was thinking about what to say next. I also didn’t get into much detail as I would normally. I brushed over everything with a "yea" or "uh huh". Online she felt that even if I had paused or been thinking she didn’t notice because the conversation just kept flowing. The tone of my voice apparently also changed slightly and to her it just seemed a little fishy as if I had been exaggerating.
This experiment clearly supported the idea of lean versus rich media selection. The rich media made it easier to detect my lie because she had more cues to work with. She didn’t have my physical body language but my wording and tone of voice was sufficient. The AIM conversation gave me a bigger amount of ambiguity, decreasing the chance of deception detection. This intentional control of information to create false beliefs is exactly what digital deception covers.
Commented on:
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment_4_humor_me_and_tell_me_lies.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/09/facebook_do_people_really_show_face.html
#4 option 1: It's official...I'm a bad liar
When we received this assignment I wasn’t thrilled. I am an awful liar and people can always tell when I am lying. For this reason I will never attempt to play poker and I am pretty bad at MAFIA (the card game). So conducting my own deception experiment was a bit challenging at first. However, after I thought about deception and the different media in which one can lie in, I realized I might only be a terrible liar FtF because of the facial cues available to the impression developer and the quick thinking it involves to cover your lies. In FtF lying, I am too close to the impression developer. There is no distance, which makes me feel uncomfortable. So I decided to try my luck on the telephone. According, to the feature based approach, lying on the phone is optimal because it is synchronous, recordless, and distributed. I called my friend “Lola”, and told her that I had to cancel our dinner plans this weekend because I forgot that I was going home for Rosh Hashanah. I felt pretty confident with the lie, until she started questioning me. Apparently, I did not think through my lie all that well. I forgot that I usually wear a cross around my neck and I had told her that my parents were in a Europe for a couple of weeks. When Lola started questioning me about these inconsistencies in my story, I was unable to respond to her quick enough. There were a few awkward pauses in our phone conversation, along with “umm….well”. I tried to tell her that part of my family was Jewish and my parents were already back from Europe, but the tone of my voice and the slow speed at which I replied gave it all away. So I guess I am not a very good lier FtF or on the phone. However, I do feel that my lie could have worked and would have supported the feature based model. If only I had though out my lie better, or lied to a different friend, my lie would have passed. Even though, in this case, my lie failed, the phone did help me feel more comfortable in lying to my friend, and it allowed me to get feedback and adjust to the situation (although clearly not that well).
My second situation was conducted in a leaner media (e-mail). The feature based model claims that the least lies occur via e-mail because e-mail is recordable and asynchronous (no feedback to adjust to). In this case I was telling the truth to my friend. I told Lola that I have been to Thailand. To make sure she would believe me (after the terrible lie I had told her previously), I made sure to include details and personal experiences, since emotion is difficult to express in e-mail. I told her of the different cities I went to, but I also made sure to include particular events that I encountered. Unfortunately, Lola thought I was lying again! Apparently, this time I was trying to hard. Lola said I provided too much detail and though I just looked on Google to find the names of Thai cities.
In conclusion, I am a bad liar and should not attempt to deceit people, because I will be caught. But if I were a good liar (oxymoron), I would most likely follow the feature based approach.
Comments:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2015420513633824972&postID=7206234105969121026
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2015420513633824972&postID=3503255274952514317
My second situation was conducted in a leaner media (e-mail). The feature based model claims that the least lies occur via e-mail because e-mail is recordable and asynchronous (no feedback to adjust to). In this case I was telling the truth to my friend. I told Lola that I have been to Thailand. To make sure she would believe me (after the terrible lie I had told her previously), I made sure to include details and personal experiences, since emotion is difficult to express in e-mail. I told her of the different cities I went to, but I also made sure to include particular events that I encountered. Unfortunately, Lola thought I was lying again! Apparently, this time I was trying to hard. Lola said I provided too much detail and though I just looked on Google to find the names of Thai cities.
In conclusion, I am a bad liar and should not attempt to deceit people, because I will be caught. But if I were a good liar (oxymoron), I would most likely follow the feature based approach.
Comments:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2015420513633824972&postID=7206234105969121026
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2015420513633824972&postID=3503255274952514317
A,4,O,1 Syracuse Trip
When receiving this assignment I knew that it more then likely was going to be a failure. In my old age and much more wiser time of life I make it a point to let everyone know how much I despise lying and how much I really hate it when I am lied to. Most of my friends know this but not many know why. When I was a youngin I was rebel amongst my friends, I caused the trouble and I lied about it, all the time. By the time I was about half way through middle school I was starting to get in serious trouble because of this. I decided to make a change in my life and I from that point on attempted to not tell a lie no matter how much it hurt me. Still to this day I don’t lie and I am very honest, which still tends to get me in some trouble but not near what I was about to be in a few years back. So on to the assignment, over the weekend I traveled out to Syracuse to visit my best friend that lives up there. Unfortunately he does live in one of the worst sections of town. I attempted to use this to my advantage when calling up my girlfriend and telling her where I was and what I was doing. When I called her up I told her I had traveled up to Syracuse to visit my friend. That when by with no problem, I guess because I had really traveled up there I made it believable enough. When I moved onto the part of the conversation where I had parked around the corner of his house and I was going to be stuck up there for a while because someone had jacked the wheels off my car, even though such a thing happens commonly in this part of time she immediately did not believe me. Now she is from near Syracuse and knows of this part of town and know that big chrome wheels on a vehicle are always targets, but I suppose because of how I said it she immediately did not believe me. She detected it right on the phone and called my bluff. Now according to O’Sullivan’s Impression Management Model (IMM) this type of media I chose was perhaps to rich in order to tell this lie, perhaps I should have attempted to try text messaging instead. What ever I did I was not very good at and my lie was detected immediately. I attempted to give as little information as possible and be as ambiguous as possible, providing little to no clarity when talking to my girlfriend about the situation. I attempted to sound shook up like a person might be in that situation, unfortunately I was unable to pull off the experiment.
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