I am not a good liar (I would give out too many non-verbal and physiological cues), and I know it. So I decided to use a lean media, AIM, to lie. I chose my friend, H, with whom to conduct the experiment because she was the only friend from Cornell who was online on Sunday 12:45AM.
I told her beforehand that I am conducting an experiment for a psych class, which requires me to talk about my traveling experiences. I didn’t specify the purpose of the experiment, just to throw her off a bit.
I planned out what I would say for the lie before I contacted her, so it would seem more realistic. As a Chinese guy, it’s not really surprising if I said I have been to Shanghai, one of the most famous cities in China, but first, to see if she knows about the place better than I do, I asked her if she has ever been to there. Luckily, she has only been to Beijing. So I used the fragments of knowledge I acquired from a TV show about Shanghai a few years back and improvised a bit:
Me (12:52:03 AM): well, I must say that the food there is awesome
Me (12:52:15 AM): love meat buns
Me (12:52:33 AM): even tho I burned myself while eating it in the process
Me (12:53:51 AM): oh yeah, they had this underwater tunnels
H (12:53:56 AM): i dunno, touristy things you did there?
H (12:53:57 AM): XD
H (12:54:19 AM): for what, transportaiton?
Me (12:54:24 AM): kinda
Me (12:54:42 AM): but it's like a information/movie on the railed car thing
Me (12:54:55 AM): they tell you about history of shanghai and stuff
Me (12:55:05 AM): kinda like an underwater museum).
And I made it seem that it’s been a couple of years since I traveled there to make up for the lack of coherent chain of events. I made a few analogies between Shanghai and Beijing so it would seem more realistic for her (it was an easy task since I was born in Beijing), but we sidetracked a lot because of this – she was pretty excited to talk about her experience in Beijing.
After we concluded the first part of the experiment, we agreed to do the second part the next day (the same day considering it was 1AM in the morning) over brunch.
Anyways, we met up in Appel and started the second halve. For this part, I decided to talk about my trip to Boston, Massachusetts with the Math Team during the HMMT competition. I talked about my impressions on MIT and Harvard campus – Harvard seems more alive in comparison. Then, I went into some interesting details: on our way to a food court, we tried to find a bathroom but most of the restaurants were either closed or have no available bathroom; one guy complained that his groin hurts in the cold weather; the same guy proposed that we should urinate in public, etc.
Afterward, I told her about the purpose of the experiment and that I was lying in one instance. She was surprised at first but picked the correct one in the end. Her reason was that she knows that I was in the Math Team in high school so that one must be correct, so if it’s one truth and one false then the Shanghai one must be a lie. But after I told her that there are many competitions in the Math Team and that I could have been to anywhere, she started to waver and eventually reversed her answer. Later, she told me that she thought that I was telling the truth in both instances before I told her about the lying part.
I chose AIM to lie because I felt uncomfortable about lying. This corresponds with the Social Distance Theory which states that lying is uncomfortable and therefore people tend to use the most “socially distant” media to lie. However, I chose AIM over email (a even more socially distant media) because I wanted feedback so that I can see if she is buying my lies and I can adjust as I go. This follows the Feature Based Model as I needed the simultaneity of AIM to see my friend’s reactions to my lie and I needed the relatively long pause allowed in Instant Messaging to think up my next steps. Also, AIM is a distributed media. Though I wasn’t really concerned about the recordless part since I told her that I was lying afterward.
My friend wasn’t able to detect the lie because she was relying on verbal information in both instances, and contrary to the hypothesis discussed in class, her truth bias did not decrease in CMC.
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2 comments:
Hi Rui,
I thought you did a great job of describing your experience with telling a lie through aim as well as relating the theories we discussed in class. I think its really interesting that your friend's truth bias still seemed to affect her even when you lied through CMC. Perhaps the theory that Truth bias is reduced in CMC doesn't apply to all interactions. It seems that as people become more used to having conversations using AIM or other technologies, that they also become more comfortable and trusting of those they are talking to. Also, how well the detector of deception knows the person who is lying could affect their truth bias as well, probably leading your friend to believe more of what you say the better she knows you. Great post!
Rui,
Great post. I liked the way you described your thought processes that went into your decision to lie online and tell the truth in person, and it seemed like you were actually a pretty convincing liar online. You also brought up some interesting points. Firstly, I found it pretty unsurprising that H was more excited to talk about her experience in Beijing; it seems like more often than not, most people are pretty poor listeners. I think this and the fact that we as humans are inclined to believe people are telling the truth might be interrelated. In your case, H was probably formulating what she was going to tell you about herself, even as she was "listening" to you tell about your own vacation. This would make her less likely to pick up on the cues that you were giving, and more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. Clever ideas :)
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