Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to assess the extent to which certain situational factors lead to different deceptive behaviors. Based on current deception theory, I assessed the effects of both quantitative and qualitative motivational differences and also of cognitive complexity in producing varying deceptive cues. Four different methods were used to elicit deceptive communications: some participants were induced to cheat or not on some logic problems and were then be accused of cheating and questioned about the event (identity-relevant, volitional), some committed a mock transgression (cheating on logic problems) and were offered monetary compensation for lying convincingly about the event (instrumental, non-volitional), some committed a mock transgression and were instructed to lie without any offer of a monetary reward (no motivation, non-volitional), and others were instructed to imagine a scenario in which they cheated or not, and then were questioned about a supposed cheating incident (essentially "making up a story"). Afterwards, the videos were assessed via behavioral coding and participant impressions. Results indicated moderate support for the contention that motivational level influences deceptive responding. There was stronger support for the idea that motivational type influences deceptive cues, in that, within the two conditions characterized by heightened motivation, students being interrogated under identity-relevant, volitional conditions showed more prevalent and intense deceptive cues than those who were offered monetary compensation. Cognitive complexity was also useful in predicting deceptive cues, but only for speakers in the two higher-motivation conditions. Importantly, perceiver accuracy followed these cue patterns, with perceivers more accurately distinguishing truth-tellers from liars in conditions where more deceptive cues were present (i.e., accuracy was high in the instrumental motivation condition and higher in the identity-relevant motivation condition). The current findings emphasize the importance of considering situational factors in predicting deceptive cues rather than generalizing across deceptive situations. They also lend credence to the contention that eliciting lies via the cheating methodology described in the current investigation is a useful method for creating high-stake, identity-relevant, volitional lies in the laboratory.