(Option 1) The construction of the best lie is based on the foundation of truth, built with bricks of monotony, and roofed with planks of exaggeration. Books, articles, self-help guides, and even university studies have been written and established in dedication of lying. (After all, what is a Theatre class other than to present the most convincing lie possible – that is to say, acting?) But why is deception so easy for some, yet so difficult others? To what extent can our body language betray our words? And, most importantly, since the average success rate of a lie-detection machine is only a bit above 50%, why do we still use it?
Those are all valid questions, and perhaps except the last one, I was able to answer all of them during my experience with intentional deception. I decided to give a lie during the Face to Face setting, a rich medium for communication. I claimed to have visited England in the summer of 2003 in order to see my grand-parents.
My partner was unsuccessful in identifying the lie and thus incorrectly detected the truth/deception in this case. In my deception we observed many adherences to the Media Richness Theory in my behavior. I took clear advantage of truth bias – I projected an air of confidence and answered questions briskly in order to avoid having to delve into excessive detail. My knowledge of the English society helped tremendously (as did Monty Python shows), so my ability to come up with arbitrary but believable anecdotes was, to say the least, quite adequate. I recognized that in a rich medium, there are many cues that are difficult to control – body language, tone of voice, reaction time, consistency of detail, etc. In order to avoid the pitfall of “erring” and giving off excessive counter-signals, I chose a boring story – I did little in England aside from watching television shows in my grand-parents’ house. By claiming that I was not able to travel much, I instantly eliminated any potential questions regarding subjects that I’m not familiar with, e.g. How did the tubes work, what were Londoners like, etc. I also made sure I had my hands occupied at all times – either hold a cup of water or a piece of food/utensil; this way my hands are less likely to twitch, tap the table, or exhibit any common behavior of discomfort and hesitancy, two glaring signs of lying.
In order to detect my lies, my partner tried to scrutinize my response time and body actions, two major factors that I was ready to deal with. He approached using the methods from Media Richness Theory (focusing on the inability of people to control many cues in FtF), but fell to the pitfalls of Social Distance Theory when he gradually fell under my deception when I failed to show any initially noticeable signs of lying. That is, he tried to be careful at first but lost focus when I put up a bulwark of simple, straightforward responses.
My next vacation story, a trip to Singapore when I was 8 years old, was told through Instant Messaging, a decidedly lean form of communication. Since the event took place 11 years ago, I had difficulties recalling many details. Again Media Richness Theory homes in on my behavior – I chose to tell the truth since it’s easier to modulate my responses to represent a believable truth. The asynchronous nature of Instant Messaging gave me the time needed to remember certain facts, such as the main attractions we saw and the general atmosphere of the country. I took my time to best phrase my answers so they sound less awkward, as it was challenging enough to share experiences that I can barely remember. As poor a choice as it was, the truth was still easier to tell than the lie, since I did not have to exaggerate with details and anecdotes, so the whole ordeal seemed rather plain and simple from my perspective.
My partner, however, detected the truth as a lie. The most obvious “sign” for him was that since the vacation was so long ago, I should not have been able to remember much. Also, since I did not respond as readily as I did in a FtF setting, he mistook my slowness for hesitancy in order to come up with lies even though I simply needed a bit more time to construct the response. A few brief hiatus and lack of strong anecdotes are supportive of the Social Distance Theory, so my partner decided that my story was fabricated. However, his method of deception detection was clearly befuddled with my unfortunate choice, so in this case there is a counter-balancing interaction between the Media Richness Theory and the Social Distance Theory – that is, even though I chose a lean medium because the truth happened a while ago, he took my choice as representative of my inability to lie in FtF.
After the analysis, I believe that our ability to deceive is highly situational. My enthusiasm about England helped me to throw out fake responses quickly, but I gave the “wrong” signals for my truth due to poor choice. Body language can be controlled but only with planning, so in a normal day to day situation we probably cannot hold back some behaviors. Lastly, my experience shows that sometimes cues can be taken in the entirely wrong and opposite way, so perhaps our reliance on lie-detection machine is partially for reasons of consistency – while body language and other physical behaviors can be easily faked or misconstrued, brain waves are comparably regular and dependable.
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/4-option-1-deception-experiment.html#comment-6155766050953580161
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-4-i-know-when-youre-lying.html#comment-7102227322098703829
