...Society 57 Legal and Criminological Psychology (2010), 15, 57–75 q 2010 The British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society www.bpsjournals.co.uk The truth about lies: What works in detecting high-stakes deception? Stephen Porter* and Leanne ten Brinke University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada In this paper, we provide our view of the current understanding of high-stakes lies often occurring in forensic contexts. We underscore the importance of avoiding widespread pitfalls of deception detection and challenging prevailing assumptions concerning strategies for catching liars. The promise and limitations of each of non-verbal/body language, facial, verbal/linguistic, and physiological channels in detecting deception are discussed. In observing the absence of a single cue or behavioural channel that consistently reveals deception, a holistic approach with concurrent attention to multiple channels of a target’s behaviour (ideally videotaped for review) and changes from baseline behaviour is recommended whenever possible. Among the best-validated cues to be considered together include: illustrators, blink and pause rate, speech rate, vague descriptions, repeated details, contextual embedding, reproduction of conversations, and emotional ‘leakage’ in the face. While advocating a reliance on empirical evidence, we observe that few studies of high-stakes deception yet have been conducted. Further, some manifestations...
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...Psychological Research Deception Deception in Psychological Research Deception in itself is fraudulent behavior. When someone seldom tells and untruth it appears to be harmless to some, however the same act could be devastating to the next person. Deception can effect one or millions. Take the case of Bernard Madoff who took it upon himself to deceive his clients who trust him to manage their financial holding for them be investing and earning them money in return. Madoff’s level of deception affected and damaged many families. What frame or state of emotional or mental state was he in, what was the thing that initially triggered Madoff to initiate his scheming plan? Ethics Code The code of ethics as it relates to psychology pertains to the educational, scientific, and professionals and their activities in the field of psychology which include training, service to the public and communities, intervention, clinical research, counseling. Some other areas include development and conducting assessments, along with program design, organizational consulting, evaluation consulting. Code of Ethics in Psychology applies in these areas as well forensic activities and administrations. Other venues that is different from the private sector as it applies to the conduct or behavior of professionals in the field of psychology which spam in a large area like the postal service, telephone service, the internet and most electrical communication devices. Detecting Deception Detecting those individuals...
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...Psychology is known to be a complex field of study; the ethics for individual and social are undefined. Though ethical codes could stretch back through history of the Ancient Greek. There have been many up to date versions of ethical codes since then, such as being respected when taking part in psychological research conducted (McGaha & Korn, 1995). Within the departments of psychology there are various ethics committee, the aim of every department is to avoid participants experiencing distress and making sure participants welfare and dignity is kept. Ethics within psychology means the researcher’s key focus have to be to reduce any sort of discomfort or risks which are involved within the study. Also preventing the participants from experiencing any long-term undesirable consequences as well as having to notifying participants on all features of the study which could have an influence on their decision to take part (Hobbs, 1948). Throughout the psychological history many research studies have been conducted by various psychologists. There have been some which have been ethically critisied, with the lack of ethics taken into consideration. The most commonly discussed research study which has many ethical issues is known to be conducted by a behavioral psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963). Leading to many discussions Milgram (1963) purpose of his study was to investigate how far an individual would obey a figure of authority (Bernstein, 2011). Stanley Milgram (1963) introduced...
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...DETECTING DECEPTION To summaries the first two articles topic area Deception may be suggested that both articles are concerned with the investigation of deception from the view point of the verbal and nonverbal reasoning. Their aim is to find predominantly nonverbal cues to when people are telling the truth and when people act in a deceptive manner. They both were found to more or less lack of stance validity Article three however; “Outsmarting the Liars” was chosen as it was more recent; it was corresponding well to the previous two articles topic, but in the same time was offering ultimate solution and entirely new approach to the topic. It was also offering different and new modern continuation of the topic and was moreover offering solutions that work and were based on real life outsets to an extent. Further it was a practical solution to the outstanding unresolved problems of the research on detecting deception. Another reason was that the authors were well known authorities in the research field of deception and they use the most recent research done in the field by others as well as their own. The Methodology used by the first two articles is using controlled experiment and collecting primary data. Both of them rely highly on previous research and are aiming to fill gaps in further research, to minimise limitations and to find solutions to limitation that cannot be overcome until that point. In comparison the three articles are conducted as experiments in which...
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...Social Psychology and the Self Cynthia Durham Social Psychology/400 University of Phoenix “Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention to how we view and affect one another. More precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Social psychology lies at psychology’s boundary with sociology. Compared with sociology (the study of people in groups of societies), social psychology focuses more on individuals and uses more experimentation. Compared with personality psychology, social psychology focuses less on individuals and uses more experimentation. Compared with personality psychology, social psychology focuses less on individuals’ differences and more on how individuals, in general, view and affect one another Sociology is the study of people in society. Social psychology is all about your life, beliefs, attitudes, and relationships. (Myers, D. 2010)” “The discipline of Social psychology is that it uses scientific methods that an individual can understand and explain how the thought, behavior and feelings are influenced by the actual, imagines or implied presence of other beings. Social psychology extends a wide range of social topics, including but not limited to social groups, social perception and social interaction are also vital to understanding social behavior. Social psychology is also closely related to three other discipline; sociology, personality...
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...The Science of Psychology Foundations of Psychology Suzette Lee [ Monday, April 02, 2012 ] PSY300 Psychology is a scientific study that investigates the main components of the brain, the mind and the body in different fields of psychology in order to understand and conduct observations of the mental process of the human mind, and observable behavior. Psychology is often used to understand the unknown of human behavior, and their potential patterns that observe the actions of self expression on how people feel and store memory. The study of the mind is an observation of a person’s mental awareness of both the conscious and unconscious mentality. Structuralism was the dominant school of psychology in Germany and the U. S. between1890-1920, and was the school of thought based on the notion that the object of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related. Structuralism explores areas of the mind, focus mainly with sensation and perception in vision, hearing and, touch through introspection, or the systematic observation of one’s own conscious experiences, although Functionalism was the protest against structuralism and had the assumption that functionalism was more practical and concerned with commonsense issues, structuralism believed that mental functions were not subject to introspective analysis which it was the shaping of the mind that could be analyzed. Another school of thought is behaviorism, in which...
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...comes from not being in control over the outcome of a situation. When you are a optimists everything in the world is good. You see everything as having a positive outlook. You believe that people are good and that every situation will work out. When you are pessimistic you stress about everything. You can always see the negative. Positive Psychology uses scientific understanding and intervention to help in treating the patient. It treats the whole person not just the mental illness. When you think of deception, would you ever think of Psychology? I would not. I think of someone helping someone over a hard time, not deceiving them. But deception is a real ethics problem in Psychology. But unfortunately when you are running a test, if you tell someone what it is really for, they are not going to be one hundred percent honest. Sometimes on certain test it really is necessary to deceive . I had really never thought about that before. It makes sense. Therefore the use of deception in Psychology, although considered unethical, is extremely beneficial in order to gain valid results. Differential Psychology is a study of how a person differs in their...
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...independent across individual investors. The idea ends up with the equilibrium point and correction. However people mostly share similar heuristics gained from experience. Human mind is not designed solely to make good decisions but also to experience pleasantness. Individuals believe that they are better than they actually are. Also decisions are affected by feelings and mood of decision maker individuals. People can learn from past experiences and failures. However learning is hard and self-deception makes people realize their success more than failures and losses. Many (though not all) of the cognitive biases are stronger for individuals with low cognitive ability or skills than for those with high ability or skills, consistent with biases being genuine errors. A. Heuristic Simplification A.1 Attention/Memory/Ease-of-processing effects Lack of full attention, limitations on memory and processing capacities of individuals forces them to create a selective focus. Psychology of investors is affected from those limitations during decision process. If information is able to attract the individual because of any personal or social reasons –past events, background, emotional life etc. - the information becomes more obvious than the rest. People are not usually able to...
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...Notes Sept. 6, 2012 History and Perspectives * Definitions of Psychology * The science of mental life (William James, 1890) * “The study of human or animal behaviour” (Webster’s Dictionary 1988) * “The scientific study of behavior and mind” “The scientific study of behaviour and its causes” (Passer & Smith) * Roots of the Word * Psyche – Greek for soul * Logos – Greek for the study of a subject * Related Fields * Philosophy * Rene Decartes (1595-1650) Dualism (interactionism) * Body is physical entity * Mind is nonphysical entity * Mind and body are separate, distinct entities involved in the production of behaviour * Pineal gland (Used for mind and body to communicate) * Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) * Materialism – position that since nothing exists other than matter and energy the concept of soul is meaningless * Form of monism * Empiricism (Position that all human knowledge and thought are derived from sensory experience * Branch of Biology concerned with the scientific study of how living organisms function (Muller, Helmholtz, Fechner) * Birth of Psychology * Wilhelm Wundt * Established first independent psychology lab at university of Leipzig 1879 (birth of psychology) * Established first psychology journal 1881 * Studied consciousness (one’s awareness of...
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...As my professor Dr. Randy Oberhoff (Forensic Psychology 6101, 2013) said… “It's not as if there are some founding fathers of Forensic Psychology”. My choice of specialty would be in corrections oriented toward involuntary conferment of the mentally ill; this is because I have worked in this field for the last decade; Dr. Oberhoff centres his field of interest in malingering, deception, recidivism, psychopathy, and rehab for criminals. Theorists that contribute to Dr. Oberhoff area of interests are scholars such as Robert Hare (psychopathy); Rick Rogers (Malingering/deception); and Richard Rogers etc. Our evolving world, multicultrism, poverty, and the highest incarceration rate in the globe- the field forensic psychology is still considered at its early stages. (Bartol and Bartol, 2012) My two personal favourite theorists are Dr. Roger Hare, and Dr. Lorna Rhodes. There are many reasons as to why I chose these two theorists as my favorite for their efforts and contribute in to the field forensic psychology, and correctional services. It was noted by Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Katzenbach (2011)… “What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons” (Gibbons and Katzenbach, 2011, p.36). Being surrounded by negativity, fear, anxiety, rumors, hostility, and threat of physical violence have a profound effect on both the staff and offenders in a correctional facility. Dr. Gibbons and Dr. Katzenbach(2011) further state “when people lived and worked in facilities...
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...Dr. Kalkstein General Psychology Unit: Social Psychology Humans are social animals. Social Psychology: study of how people think about, relate to, and influence each other * How we perceive ourselves and others * How we function in groups * Why we hurt or help people * Why we fall in love * Why we discriminate against certain people Our biases 1) We tend to underestimate the power of a situation in determining our behavior (fundamental attribution bias) 2) A great deal of mental thought and behavior occurs automatically and without conscious awareness or intent. Test your implicit biases: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ Confederates’ role in social psychology research: an accomplice of the experimenter for research involving deception, plays an assigned role. Cognitive Dissonance: Uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory viewpoints. Particularly strong if your behavior conflicts with your attitude. -Study: Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959 * Students performed extremely boring task for an hour. * Paid to lie to someone else about it being interesting. * Results: Other example: fraternity hazing, adjusting values to fit behavior Bystander Intervention Effect: failure to help someone observed to be in need. Kitty Genovese story A person is less likely to help if there are other bystanders around. -Study: Latane and Darley, 1968. College students filling out survey while smoke coming...
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...* Aim * Purpose of the study; indicates behavior or mental process that will be studied. * Target population * Group whose behavior the researcher wishes to investigate * Specific group of people whom they are interested in for their study. * Procedure * Step by step process used by the researcher to carry out the study. * Findings * State how the researcher interpreted the data that was collected. * Research findings are always open to discussion and debate. * It is important to interpret findings in terms of the culture in which the research has been conducted, and always to be aware of potential cultural bias. * Participants * People who take part in a psychological study. * Sample * Very important in determining the usefulness of a piece of research. * Obtain a sample that is representative of target population. * Representative sample * Try to obtain a sample that represents a population * The size of the sample matters. * Small groups are more open to distortions than large one. * Small group has an individual that quite influence on the overall result. * Opportunity sampling * A sample of whoever happens to be there and agrees to participate. * Easy way for the researcher to get participants, but one has to question the nature of an opportunity sample. * Can lead to rather biased results, and it is problematic to generalize from studies that use opportunity sampling...
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...Ryan Perrin Research Essay 12/12/13 Othello William Shakespeare’s Othello could be viewed as an allegory that represents the frailty of human reason and the ease as to which a person can manipulate rational thought through the utilization of skillful rhetoric and deception. In the essay Allegory and Irony in ‘Othello’ by Antoinette B. Dauber, she says “he [Shakespeare] is not committed to the maintenance of allegory, and so he freely dramatizes the internal weaknesses and external onslaughts that lead to its destruction.” The readers, or viewers of the play, then are meant to be able to apply the stories moral problems to everyday situations and realize the harm that can be done by using rhetoric and deception to manipulate others. Rhetoric, when used as a tool of deception, can lead others to come to “reasonable conclusions,” yet these conclusions may be based upon irrational reasons and emotion; which in turn makes such a conclusion irrational. In reality these irrational reasons are only as rational as a persuader can convince a person to believe. In Othello, Shakespeare shows that even in the minds of people that are most confident of themselves, there is a self-doubt that can be increasingly apparent by very simple means of ignition. Iago ignites, or maybe even re-ignites this self-doubt by leading Othello to believe that Desdemona would prefer Cassio over him, which could cause Othello to believe that he is not worthy of having Desdemona since he is black. This situation...
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... that outline the validity of facts that we aren’t comfortable with so that our beliefs can remain unaffected. Similarly, people tend to handle the cognitive dissonance caused by global warming by giving it conspiracy attributes. “Positive illusions”, and self-deception always come in handy when we want to handle difficult situations. In trying to avoid confrontations with situations that we are not comfortable with, we tend to convince ourselves that everything isn’t as bad as it actually seems. This is the same case with the author of the blog “Greeting Fellow climate-truthers”. It is difficult to thoughtfully think about the challenges scientists attribute to global warming and climate change, and according to them, give up luxuries for the sake of the challenges that might come with it. For instance, the writer of the blog can’t contemplate giving up property because of ‘scientific fallacies’. “No way am I giving up my SUV without a fight” is an absolute example. Like when friend was recently diagnosed with diabetes, he didn’t want to accept the heftiness of the issue as much as he believed his medical expert. He was supposed to make changes to his lifestyle but he still wanted to live like before in self-deception that his kind of diabetes wasn’t as serious. It is so difficult to think that the activities that we engage in that give us comfort and fun, like the writer’s case, owning a SUV, could compromise earth’s ability to sustain life. To counter this, the writer, from...
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...Deception by the Investigating Officer in the Investigative, Interrogative, and Testimonial Processes Anita L. Levy AJS/532 Ethics in Justice and Security June 8, 2015 Professor Melba Pearson Deception by the Investigating Officer in the Investigative, Interrogative, and Testimonial Processes Deception involves “acting in such a way which leads another person to believe something that you, yourself, do not believe to be true” (Alonso-Quecuty, 1992). Deception can occur in any or all of the three stages of the detecting process which include, investigation, interrogation and court testimony. Each stage is subject to increasingly tough normative constraints (Skolnick, 1999). In the investigation phase of a case police are permitted by the courts to engage in deception and they are trained to do just that. The method that they use may include wiretaps, informants, undercover agents, and the possession and sale of illegal materials or substances (Skolnick, 1999). The line between what is acceptable and what is not is that of entrapment. The deception may be employed up to the point that an “agent of the government initiates a court of action that induces an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime in order that the government may then prosecute” (Skolnick, 1999). It is being recognized that these deceptive practices will be used against those who are reasonably suspected of engaging in criminal behavior or otherwise acting in an unjust manner, to include people...
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