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

[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?

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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."

[njyoder]

Thanks again!