Deception Detection, Transmission, & Modality In Age, Sex, Social Class, & Personality

Sweeney, Charlotte

Deception Detection, Transmission, & Modality In Age, Sex, Social Class, & Personality

Abstract

The present research examined age, gender, social class, and personality in lie detection and transmission. This is the first study, to the best of our knowledge, where older adults and college students lied pro-socially. The pilot study examined prosocial lying and found that neither age nor socioeconomic status predicted lying behavior. However, individuals who were more trusting were more likely to lie prosocially. In the main study, both older adults and college students were best in the audiovisual modality and worst in the visual modality. Overall, college students were better detectors than older adults. There was an age-matching effect for college students but not for older adults. Older adult males were the hardest to detect. The older the adult was the worse the ability to detect deception. There was no interaction between senders' and raters' socioeconomic statuses. Since audio is vital for accurate deception detection the researchers recommend that older adults keep up-to-date hearing aid devices to insure accurate stimulus detection and decrease victimization due to deception.

Date Issued

2013-05-26

Keywords

deception detection; older adults; college students; audio; visual; audiovisual

Committee Chair

Ceci, Stephen John

Committee Member

Wang, Qi
Pillemer, Karl Andrew

Degree Discipline

Developmental Psychology

Degree Name

Ph. D., Developmental Psychology

Degree Level

Doctor of Philosophy

Types

dissertation or thesis