Liar, Liar

[differenceblog]

Byrne and Corp (2004) found that neocortex size predicted deception rates among primates; that is - the bigger the neocortex, the more capable the monkeys were of deceiving other monkeys. Pakkenberg and Gundersen (1997) found that (on average), men in their Danish sample had 16% more neocortical neurons than women. Abe et al (2007) found in a PET

Comments

[plumtreeblossom]

I hate it when supposed child-behavior "experts" claim that children aren't capable of lying. As a young child, I fabricated perpetually because it was strangely powerful to make something up out of thin air and have people (sometimes) believe it. There was no malice in it, just a desire to seem more interesting than I really was. I told my whole class that I was going to Holland when in fact I was going to Harrisburg PA to visit my father. I said I knew karate but wasn't allowed to use it. Stuff like that. My brother fabricated just as much as I did, but I think he actually believed most of his lies, at the time

[njyoder]

I find the general public's reaction more amusing. I remember seeing shows where these kids drew angels (or something else fantastical) and their parents insisted that the kids were too young (at least 6) to come up with a lie that "elaborte." I just lol'ed. I also remember that movie about those two girls who claimed to have found faires in the early 20th century (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about them in his magazine)...in real life (the movie was bogus) one of them confessed when they were old and the other, in old age, insisted that ONE of the picture of fairies was real (Who would lie in their old age about that?).

[differenceblog]

if you're interested, I'd be happy to send you a copy of the full article. :)

[differenceblog]

from DePaulo 1996, p 981:

To explain what participants should count as a lie, it was noted that "a lie occurs any time you intentionally try to mislead someone. Both the intent to deceive and the actual deception must occur." Many examples were given. Participants were urged to record all lies, no matter how big or how small. They were instructed that if they were uncertain as to whether a particular communication qualified as a lie, they should record it. (At the end of the study, two of the investigators independently read through all of the lie diaries and agreed on the few that did not meet the definition and excluded them.)

The taxonomy of lies seems to be more what you're asking about, but it is a couple of pages long. Give me an email address if you want the whole pdf.

[njyoder]

Oooh, I didn't see this before I posted, thanks.

[unsomnambulist]

Sometimes I've wondered about breaking the "lying habit" and if that implies that you have to "come out" with everything you've lied about first?

[plumtreeblossom]

I suspect treatments would vary on that. There are people who build an entire web of huge lies around themselves and the people they know, making up false histories, false accomplishments, false everything in order to appear as they wish to appear. I would imagine that in those cases, a full disclosure or "coming out" to the important people in their lives would be essential in order to start rebuilding those relationships based on truth

[njyoder]

I don't have access to those studies (beyond abstracts), so could someone answer the following:
1. How did they measure deception in Byrne?
2. How are they measuring lies in DePaulo? By asking them to count their own?

---

As for #2, I question the usefulness of asking people, on a study about deception, how much they lie. I agree that lie vs. deception is an important issue, and not just because people have differing ideas of what's a lie compared to what's just deception.

I'm curious as to why you cited Dr. Joyce Brothers on a column she wrote. Has she done any studies on this type of thing? She appears to have a Ph.D. in Psychology, but I don't know her specialization.

[njyoder]

I should add: while this would be difficult to measure, it would be nice to be able to quantify the severity of lies. I think when someone calls someone a "bigger liar" it takes into account the severity, too.

[differenceblog]

I cited Joyce Brothers (and specified her as a columnist) because I figured her fame level was high enough that it was be approximately equivalent to saying "Dr. Phil says" or "Oprah says" -- I quote bloggers and opinion in the top half of posts when I think it's relevant, but I try to specify in the text that it isn't a study.

For what it's worth, I checked Google Scholar, and see no evidence of Joyce Brothers ever doing research -- but she's written a lot of books. She's pop culture psychology, which is relevant to psychological stereotypes.

[differenceblog]

From Byrne:

"we defined tactical deception as ‘acts from the normal repertoire of the agent, deployed such that another individual is likely to misinterpret what the acts signify, to the advantage of the agent " (p 1695)

Also:

"differential opportunity for effective use of deception is the principal non-adaptive alternative for explaining variations in reporting rates across species. In those
species living in large groups, the tendency to use social manipulation may be greater, independently of any variation in brain capacity for doing so, because there are more chances to benefit from doing so.... However, because typical group size is known to correlate with neocortical enlargement (Dunbar 1992, 1995), this might produce an indirect and perhaps spurious correlation between neocortex size and social skill. To evaluate this possibility, we included the species-typical group size as a potential predictor of deception"

next page:
"Group size did not emerge as a significant predictor."