For my deception experiment, I spoke to another COMM 245 student, Zeyu, in two different mediums: Face-to-Face and online instant messaging (AIM). I decided to tell the truth in FTF, about my trip several years ago to Italy. He correctly guessed I was telling the truth because of several factors: I kept the conversation fluent, which he thought would eliminate any time needed for equivocation. I included lots of numbers and offered to provide proof by saying I have pictures and videos of my time in Italy. The truth bias played a large part in Zeyu believing my FTF vacation story: we tend to trust others and believe they are telling the truth. Since we were in a rich medium, bias was towards telling the truth. In addition, Zeyu told me that my story seemed very varied and complicated and not a simple story that could easily be made up. The FTF medium definitely affected my strategies for telling the truth: I tried to make eye contact as much as possible and not make extended pauses during my storytelling. I answered his questions quickly and continued telling my story.
I decided to describe a fictionalized vacation to Washington DC over last summer in my CMC deception experiment. I had used common details about such well known Washington DC tourist attractions, especially my visits to the White House, the US Mint, and Georgetown University. To further attempt to deceive in the CMC space, I did some research about tourist attractions on the internet prior to my instant message conversation and pretended I learned many of those new facts while on vacation. With all these factual details, I thought I would certainly deceive Zeyu. I wanted to be fairly specific with those details, but not too specific that it was suspicious. According to the Media Richness theory, in a lean medium like instant messaging, I can best selectively tell the most exciting details and think about how to answer questions before I respond to them. In the Zeyu thought my vacation story told through CMC was a lie because he realized the US mint and White House are no longer completely open to tourists anymore.
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4 comments:
Hi Joe,
Nice post. Although my friend didn't believe either of my stories, I had a very similar experience. She called the details of my online story into question, since she was more familiar with the tourist attraction I described than I was. In your case, do you think Zeyu would have been able to determine which travel experience was a lie even without the aid of errors in your online story? It seems that the very specific information you presented in the FtF context would have allowed him to infer its accuracy, and then by process of elimination, determine that the online story was fabricated. I wonder if the truth bias would have colored his perception of your online story if he had been an unwitting participant in this experiment.
Hello Joe,
Absolutely stunning post, bravo. I would like to especially commend your choice of partner - amazing job on his part. I would like to elaborate by saying that although the truth bias indeed held significant influence over my decisions, I thought your body gestures also helped to indicate the truth. Consistent eye-contact, minimal "fidgeting" and clear, unhesitating response were also crucial in my decision.
Furthermore (and to answer Emily's question), I believe I probably could have detected your lie even if I were not aware of the factual details regarding the sites. I felt that Social Distance Theory played a major part here. Because your previous, true story was far more detailed in comparison to the story you gave over IM, I was swayed by the feeling that you chose IM because you needed the extra time and the impersonal aspect of lean communication in order to mask the deception. Overall it was a great experience and I think either way the outcome would be difficult to predict given the fickle nature of communicating through short messages.
Joe,
It was strange that Zeyu actually found something that was factually wrong with your story, even after you did research (I remember going to the US mint and White House the last time I visited DC though). I am confused why you mentioned the Media Richness Theory though, doesn’t this theory suggest that you should do this in a rich channel because telling a story is high equivocal, especially if you are lying about it, and doing it in a rich media would be more efficient also. I completely agree with you when you said that the truth bias played a role in deception detection.
I had a similar experience to yours, and the truth bias also played large role. In both our cases, even though we did research and tried really hard to sound convincing, the truth bias dominated our CMC interactions.
Hey Joe,
Nice post. I used the same strategies and researched ahead a bit too, but my friend thought I was telling the truth in both instances. Maybe I am a better liar than you are. Haha.
Jokes aside, I have a small question though: do you think we are supposed to tell the "victim" that we are going to tell one truth and one lie? I think we are supposed to simulate a real life situation. I think the result would be drastically different if the person actually knows that if one is true then the other must be false. And since your partner is a student from the same class, he would know what to expect, and this knowledge of his would influence his decision on at least a subconscious level. That might be one of the reasons he was able to detect your lie easily.
And I agree with Zeyu. Your story fits into Social Distance Theory better. I mean you thought you need time to elaborate your lie, time that may arouse suspicion in FtF or phone interactions. That’s why you chose a leaner media, distancing yourself in order to lie more efficiently.
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