Contextual considerations for deception production and detection in forensic interviews

Abstract

Most deception scholars agree that deception production and deception detection effects often display mixed results across settings. For example, some liars use more emotion than truth-tellers when discussing fake opinions on abortion, but not when communicating fake distress. Similarly, verbal and nonverbal cues are often inconsistent predictors to assist in deception detection, leading to mixed accuracies and detection rates. Why are lie production and detection effects typically inconsistent? In this piece, we argue that aspects of the context are often unconsidered in how lies are produced and detected. Greater theory-building related to contextual constraints of deception are therefore required. We reintroduce and extend the Contextual Organization of Language and Deception (COLD) model, a framework that outlines how psychological dynamics, pragmatic goals, and genre conventions are aspects of the context that moderate the relationship between deception and communication behavior such as language. We extend this foundation by proposing three additional aspects of the context — individual differences, situational opportunities for deception, and interpersonal characteristics — for the COLD model that can specifically inform and potentially improve forensic interviewing. We conclude with a forward-looking perspective for deception researchers and practitioners related to the need for more theoretical explication of deception and its detection related to the context.

Detecting ulterior motives from verbal cues in group deliberations

“…However, the Resume deceivers had to be more proactive in order to promote the less favored candidates. Clearly, the context shapes verbal content and style and argues for conducting experiments in the context of interest rather than “borrowing” conclusions from other investigations (see Markowitz et al, 2023 ).…”

Deconstructing deception: Frequency, communicator characteristics, and linguistic features of embeddedness

“…The relationship between political ideology and deception is more mixed and lie‐type dependent, however. That is, Markowitz et al (2023) suggested people who are more conservative tend to self‐report more big and serious lies (Study 2), but the relationship between conservatism and self‐reported white lying was not statistically significant. Altogether, prior evidence indicates that demographics often matter in predicting deception rates and deception dynamics, which motivated their evaluation in this work.…”

“…tive of embedded deceiving or truth-telling, or if a person's embedded deceiving (or truth-telling) rate in one setting is associated with their embedded deceiving (or truth-telling) rate in another setting (or, as others likeSerota et al, 2022 question, if one's prolific lying status is consistent over time). The contextual similarities and constraints of a deception setting are also worth investigating as they relate to embedded deceiving(Markowitz et al, 2023;Markowitz & Hancock, 2019), since prior work suggests that elements of the context (e.g., psychological dynamics, pragmatic goals, genre conventions, dispositional factors, situational factors, interpersonal factors) can shape how deception affects language. Altogether, while this current work has pushed the concept of embeddedness forward in new ways, future research would benefit from taking this idea more seriously in the deception literature to understand its social, psychological, and cultural antecedents and consequences.Finally, when participants indicated their embedded deceptions, they did not rate the severity of such messages (e.g., as a little white lie or a big lie) beyond a simple Likert-type scale rating of deceptiveness.…”

Deconstructing Deception: Frequency, Communicator Characteristics, and Linguistic Features of Embeddedness

“…It may be helpful to examine if one's tendency to behave deceptively on one-off tasks is predictive of embedded lying or truthtelling, or if a person's embedded lying (or truth-telling) rate in one setting is associated with their embedded lying (or truth-telling) rate in another setting (or, as others like Serota et al 2022 question, if one's prolific lying status is consistent over time). The contextual similarities and constraints of a deception setting are also worth investigating as they relate to embedded lying (Markowitz et al, 2023;Markowitz & Hancock, 2019), since prior work suggests that elements of the context (e.g., psychological dynamics, pragmatic goals, genre conventions, dispositional factors, situational factors, interpersonal factors) can shape how deception affects language.…”