When People Lie Most!
People lie, research has shown, in one-fourth
of their daily, social interactions. But according
to Cornell University communications researchers,
people are most likely to lie on the telephone.
In fact, the researchers say, phone fibbing is
even more likely than when people use e-mail,
instant messaging or even speak face-to-face.
"Some psychologists did not expect this.
Lies makes us feel uncomfortable, and you would
think we should be using media to reduce that
discomfort, but that's not the case," says
Jeff Hancock, Cornell assistant professor of
communication. In a study of 30 students, his
research group found that, "People lied most
on the telephone and least in e-mail, and that
lying rates in face-to-face and instant message
interactions were about equal," he says. It
is the communication technology, he suggests, that
affects lying.
Hancock and Cornell graduate students Jennifer
Thom-Santelli and Thompson Ritchie are authors of
the peer-reviewed study, "Deception and
Design: The Impact of Communication on Lying
Behavior," to be presented April 24-29 at the
Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) scientific
meeting in Vienna, Austria.
On average, the lies told by the students in
the study were trivial, Hancock says. E-mail lies
tended more often to be planned, and the lies
usually were believed, according to the e-mailers.
Why does the telephone make it easier to tell
untruths? "If you called in sick to your
boss, but you were dressed and ready to ski, you
would succeed in lying on the phone. But if you
claimed to be sick in a face-to-face conversation,
but you were wearing a ski outfit, you would
obviously fail in lying," Hancock observes.
The telephone, he says, allows people in
different physical locations "to communicate
with vocal and inflection cues intact, while
e-mail and instant messages eliminate or distort
nonverbal cues and modify the timing of
communication."
Because the majority of lies are unplanned and
tend to emerge spontaneously from conversation,
"media where interactions are in real time
boost the opportunity for deception," Hancock
says. "If during a conversation one friend is
asked by another what she thinks of his new shirt,
and she does not like it, she is now presented
with a decision to lie or not," says Hancock.
"This type of opportunity is less likely to
arise when composing an e-mail. Thus face-to-face
conversation, telephones and instant messages
present more opportunity for lies."
However, if the conversation is on the record,
Hancock notes, people are less likely to lie.
"Users should be hesitant to lie in a medium
where statements are recorded and are easily
reviewed," he says. Face-to-face and
telephone conversations are typically not
recorded, while e-mail is often saved by both the
sender, receiver and by servers hosting e-mail
accounts. Instant-message conversations are logged
for the duration of an exchange and can easily be
saved.
Participants in the study recorded all social
communications for seven days, including how often
they lied. The rate of deception was calculated by
dividing the number of lies by the number of
social communications. Among 30 students involved
in the study, there were 1,198 social
communications and 310 lies. On average,
participants engaged in 6.11 social communications
daily and lied 1.6 times per day, meaning that
about 26 percent of the reported social
communications involved a lie.
Of the telephone conversations, 37 percent
involved deception, while face-to-face
conversations included lies 27 percent of the
time. About 21 percent of the instant messages and
14 percent of the e-mailing included lies. Hancock
also found that experienced e-mail users were more
likely to lie more often.
