Do Beliefs about Deception Influence Accuracy? A Study of Lie Detection

Lie detection is an important topic to study because it gives researchers, police officers, and people in general tools to have when faced with a situation where you have to distinguish truth from lies. Forrest, Feldman, and Tyler (2006) found that people with accurate beliefs about the type of cues that predict when someone is lying were more accurate at actually detecting deception, compared to people with inaccurate beliefs about lies. The current study measures participants\u27 beliefs about cues to deception, and also examines their accuracy at detecting lies, to determine whether participants\u27 beliefs influence their accuracy. Our participants for this study are students who attend Minnesota State University Mankato, who are enrolled in psychology classes. Each participant sits at a computer and watches a series of videos with students telling stories, some of which are true and some are lies. After each video, they rate the person in the video, and also note whether they think they person was lying or telling the truth. Finally, they complete a scale measuring their beliefs about cues to deception. We expect that participants with more accurate beliefs about deception will be more accurate at distinguishing the true stories from the lie stories, and will rate the truth-telling people in the videos more positively than the liars. Having a greater knowledge on how lie detection works, and how beliefs influence deception detection, can better our understanding of how accurate people\u27s instincts might be when trying to detect a lie