Unpacking variation in lie prevalence: Prolific liars, bad lie days, or both?

Serota, Kim B.; Levine, Timothy R.; Docan-Morgan, Tony

doi:10.1080/03637751.2021.1985153

Cited by 42 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…It is important to recognize, however, with more investigations into prolific lying, the orientation of characteristics in Figure 1 might change (e.g., the relative importance of the variables). Plus, measuring the stability of these characteristics over time is a critical next step for this type of research to examine if those who lie prolifically are indeed prolific liars (Serota et al, 2021). The current work still develops a new systematic and evidence-based model of prolific lying relative to everyday lying as described by demographic, situational, dispositional, and communication characteristics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chief among them is the stability of prolific lying and lie behavior based on the characteristics identified in this paper. Participant cheating and self-report behaviors should be measured at multiple time points (e.g., Serota et al, 2021) because it is unclear if someone who cheats in one situation will cheat on other occasions as well (a type of test-retest reliability for deception characteristics). To make claims about particular individuals and their prolific lying tendencies, future work should calculate their average lying rate and standard deviation, plus their distribution of lies, to evaluate if someone who lies prolifically in one setting also lies prolifically in another setting longitudinally (e.g., are they a prolific liar?).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This figure is misleading, however, because averaging across participants gives an imperfect description of deception prevalence. In fact, most people are fairly honest (e.g., they self-report telling zero or few lies per day) and a few people (prolific liars) tell a large number of lies over an extended period of time (for a review, see Levine, 2020;Serota et al 2021). Prolific liars skew the deception prevalence rate of most populations and failing to account for them makes researchers miss important information about who is telling the bulk of lies in a sample.…”

Section: Building a Profile Of Situation-level And Individual-level C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Before proceeding, however, several terms require clarification because they are distinct in this paper and undifferentiated in the deception literature at large: prolific liars (vs. everyday liars) and prolific lying (vs. everyday lying). Recent work by Serota et al (2021) evaluated the lying rates of university students longitudinally and observed several key findings. First, like other studies, lying rates were not normally distributed and had a long right-hand tail.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on this new work, prolific liars are defined as people who demonstrate a longitudinal pattern of higher-than-average lying rates compared to everyday liars, who are individuals reportedly “telling few or no lies” longitudinally (Serota & Levine, 2015, p. 21). Alternatively, people who lie prolifically or engage in prolific lying tend to have “a high lie count” for a particular day (Serota et al, 2021, p. 19), but do not demonstrate a long-term trend of such deceptive behavior. Those who engage in everyday lying tell few or no lies for a particular day, but do not demonstrate this trend longitudinally, either.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Toward a Deeper Understanding of Prolific Lying: Building a Profile of Situation-Level and Individual-Level Characteristics

Markowitz

2022

Communication Research

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Prior work suggests those who lie prolifically tend to be younger and self-identify as male compared to those who engage in everyday lying, but little research has developed an understanding of prolific lying beyond demographics. Study 1 ( N = 775) replicated the prior demographic effects and assessed prolific lying through situation-level (e.g., opportunistic cheating) and individual-level characteristics (e.g., dispositional traits, general communication patterns) for white and big lies. For these two lie types, prolific lying associated with more opportunistic cheating, the use of fewer adjectives, and being high on psychopathy compared to everyday lying. Study 2 ( N = 1,022) replicated these results and observed a deception consensus effect reported in other studies: the more that people deceived, the more they believed that others deceived as well. This piece develops a deeper theoretical understanding of prolific lying for white and big lies, combining evidence of situational, dispositional, and communication characteristics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Building a Profile Of Situation-level And Individual-level C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toward a Deeper Understanding of Prolific Lying: Building a Profile of Situation-Level and Individual-Level Characteristics

Markowitz

2022

Communication Research

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

Markowitz

2024

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Deceptive and truthful statements draw on a common pool of communication data, and they are typically embedded within false and truthful narratives. How often does embeddedness occur, who communicates embedded deceptions and truths, and what linguistic characteristics reveal embeddedness? In this study, nearly 800 participants deceived or told the truth about their friends and indicated the embedded deceptions (e.g., false statements told within entirely false or truthful messages) and truths (e.g., truthful statements told within entirely false or truthful messages). Embedded deceiving and truth‐telling rates were only statistically different among those who were instructed to tell the truth. Therefore, the distribution of embedded deceptions and truths were similar for false statements, but dissimilar for truthful statements. Embedded truths were also more likely to be written by women (vs men), liberals (vs conservatives), and communicated in a formal versus narrative style. Theoretical implications are discussed.

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Pants on fire: Risks for and outcomes of atypical lying

Decrop,

Docherty

2024

Journal of Adolescence

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IntroductionMost people are generally honest, but around 5% of individuals are prolific liars, some of whom lie for fun or no reason. However, developmental research on atypical lying features (e.g., motives, attitudes, inclinations for dishonesty) and the associated traits and negative outcomes is lacking. We examined how psychopathic traits are related to the development of lying trajectories and whether exhibiting atypical lying features during a developmental period when lies tend to decrease in frequency (i.e., adolescence to adulthood) increases the risk for adulthood antisocial behaviors.MethodsData come from the multisite Pathways to Desistance project, a longitudinal study of serious juvenile offenders in the United States who were interviewed across 11 time points over 7 years from 2000 to 2010. Age‐based trajectory analyses modeled self‐reported atypical lying features from ages 14 to 26 for male participants (N = 1170; 42.1% Black, 34.0% Hispanic, 19.2% White, 4.6% Other), and examined how subscales from the Youth Psychopathy Inventory predicted lying trajectory classes and whether those classes differed in adulthood offending and substance use.ResultsAround 5% of the sample maintained elevated atypical lying features in adolescence and into adulthood. These individuals were more manipulative, remorseless, impulsive, and irresponsible in adolescence, and were more likely to offend and use substances in adulthood.ConclusionsFindings highlight how atypical lying features during the normative developmental desistance period of lying may be elevated for prolific liars and how traits can be used to identify at‐risk individuals. This information will help to inform intervention and prevention programs targeting externalizing behaviors.

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Unpacking variation in lie prevalence: Prolific liars, bad lie days, or both?

Cited by 42 publications

References 22 publications

Toward a Deeper Understanding of Prolific Lying: Building a Profile of Situation-Level and Individual-Level Characteristics

Toward a Deeper Understanding of Prolific Lying: Building a Profile of Situation-Level and Individual-Level Characteristics

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

Pants on fire: Risks for and outcomes of atypical lying

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