Detecting Deception in Computer Mediated Communication: Understanding the Role of Popularity Information and Media

With wide-spread adoption of technology in our private and business communications, people seldom make decisions in isolation. How does exposure to observation of others’ decisions affect our own judgement, especially in the context of deception detection in computer-mediated communication? We investigate this question through the theoretical prism of herd behavior. We review the literature on herd behavior and deception detection in computer-mediated communication and investigate how popularity information influences deception detection accuracy and how media differences moderate this relationship (Figure 1). We propose an experimental research design where we manipulate popularity information and measure participants’ responses to full audio-visual and text only stimuli. The findings from our study can have important implications for both research and practice