Verbal and nonverbal cues in the perception of lying.

Abstract

Two experiments examined strategies observers use to see through self-presentations. In the first, five male actor subjects lied or told the truth in simulated job interviews. Forty-one observers were moderately accurate in judging the actors' truthfulness. Actors were consistently good or poor liars, but judges were not consistently good or poor. When actors lied, they gave less plausible, shorter answers with longer latencies. Observers seemed to use the plausibility and latency, as well as an answer's vagueness and consistency and an actor's smiling, postural shifting, and grooming, to determine whether he was lying. The second study experimentally manipulated the content of an answer and a nonverbal cue. Observers were more likely to judge a female job applicant as lying when her answers were self-serving. A long hesitation before an answer made observers more suspicious of an already self-serving answer and more certain of the truth of an already forthright one.