Chapter 2

Review of Literature
After the conceptual framework of the study has been presented, the description and
discussion of related review is being presented here. These researches and the gaps generated
by them have led to the present design of this study to quite an extent. Some researches have
helped to identify the variables to study, others have helped to choose a method for the
research.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the subject, extensive review of literature was done by
the researcher. Various magazines, journals, internet, educational surveys, and published
thesis were examined profoundly. Past research work relating to deception in communication
was analyzed profoundly to frame the objectives of the study. Since the studies related to
deception have largely been conducted outside India, international studies had to be referred
to. Various aspects of deception were found in different studies and all these studies are
consolidated here in this chapter.

For this study some literature has also been reviewed relating to variance in communication
styles between males and females; between extroverts and introverts; and between people
living in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas to get a comparative view regarding the
impact of gender, personality and locale on communication.

Hence this chapter deals with comprehensive review of literature relating to deception in
communication and the impact of gender, personality and locale on communication.

Contents:

 Lies in Communication

(definition, context, prevalence, reasons, type of lies, consequences)

 Detection of Lies

 Nonverbal Communication & Lies

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 o Body Language & Lies

o Eye Movement in Communication

o Handwriting & Lies

o Voice & Lies

 Variation in Lies

o Personality &Lies

o Gender &Lies

o Locale &Lies

Lies in Communication
According to Coleman & Kay (1981), “A semantic analysis of the word "lie" defines this
term as a precise mode of deceit, perpetrated when "communicating to someone something
believed to be false." In fact, the basic components of a lie are: (a) the falsehood of the
utterance's contents; (b) the awareness of such falsehood; and (c) the intention to deceive the
receiver. However, as pointed out by Sweetser (1987), the main element constituting a lie is
"the intention to lie," whereas the "falsification of facts" merely constitutes the condition
necessary for its fulfillment”

Peterson, Peterson &Seeto (1983) “State that deceptionis an act of purposefully conveying to
others information the deceiver believes to be false. According to this definition deceivers
are, deliberately misleading others; they are not doing so mindlessly or mistakenly. We
gather from the developmental literature that this understanding of deception is an
accomplishment that is attained only after a series of false starts and incomplete notions”

Charles Bond and Michael Robinson following Mitchell (1986), “define deception as "a false
communication that tends to benefit the communicator."

C.R. Snyder and Raymond Higgins (1988) “take on still another component of the core
definition of deceptionnamely, that deceptions are directed solely toward others. In
constructing and proffering excuses, they argue, people are hoping that these excuses will be

2
acceptable and believable not just to others, but also to themselves (see also
Schlenker&Weigold, 1988).The successful excuse-maker, then, has skillfully melded other-
deception with self-deception”

Although psychologists of many orientations have had muchto say about lying (DePaulo,
Stone, & Lassiter, 1985; Ford, King, &Hollender, 1988; Lewis &Saarni, 1993), “the topic is
hardly their exclusive domain. Interest in lying transcends most disciplinary, cultural, and
historical boundaries. Analyses of lying appear in religious treatises, staid textbooks, and
irreverent tabloids. Perspectives on lying are as diverse as their sources. Lying has been
described as a threat to the moral fabric of society” (Bok, 1978), “a predictor of dire life
outcomes” (Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986), a social skill (DePaulo & Jordan, 1982; Nyberg,
1993), and an important developmental milestone (deVilliers&deVilliers, 1978).

According to DePaulo & Rosenthal (1979),”pronouncements about deceit are staggeringly

varied notonly because of the nature of the beast, but also because the debate on deceit has in
some important ways proceeded virtually unconstrained by data. Many perspectives on deceit
rest on assumptions about patterns of lying in everyday life. However, some of the most
fundamental questions about everyday lieshave yet to be answered with compelling data.
These questions include the following: How often do people lie? What do they lie about?
Whom do they lie about? To whom do they tell their lies and in what contexts? What reasons
do they offer for telling their lies?”

Ekman & O’Sullivan (2006) “state that lies occur in many arenas of life, including the home,
school, and workplace, as well as such special contexts as in police interrogations and
courtroom testimony. In low-stake lies, the liar suffers no more than embarrassment if caught,
but in a high-stake lie, the consequences for success or failure may be enormous for both the
liar and the liar's target. Examples of such high-stake lies include those between heads of
state during crises, spousal lies about infidelity, the betrayal of secrets through espionage, and
the range of lies involved in perpetrating various crimes. Lies fail for many reasons. The lie
may be exposedby facts that contradict the lie or by a third party who betrays the liar's
confidence. Sometimes, such outside information is not available or is ambiguous. Then the
lie succeeds or fails solely, or primarily, on the basis of the liar's behavior, which the legal
profession terms demeanor”

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Many researchers have tried to figure out the prevalence of lies in daily communication.
According to some of the prominent researches including the ones by “DePaulo &Kashy
(1998); DePaulo, Kashy, et al. (1996); Kashy& DePaulo (1996); Camden et al. (1984);
Feldman, Forrest, &Happ (2002); Hample (1980); Lippard (1988); Metts (1989); Turner et al.
(1975) lying is a fact of everyday life. Studies in which people kept daily diaries of all of
their lies suggest that people tell an average of one or two lies a day. People lie most
frequently about their feelings, their preferences, and their attitudes and opinions. Less often,
they lie about their actions, plans, and whereabouts. Lies about achievements and failures are
also commonplace”

According to DePaulo et al. (2003) occasionally, “people tell lies in pursuit of material gain,
personal convenience, or escape from punishment. Much more commonly, however, the
rewards that liars seek are psychological ones. They lie to make themselves appear more
sophisticated or more virtuous than they think their true characteristics warrant. They lie to
protect themselves, and sometimes others, from disapproval and disagreements and from
getting their feelings hurt. The realm of lying, then, is one in which identities are claimed and
impressions are managed. It is not a world apart from nondeceptive discourse. Truth tellers
edit their self-presentations, too, often in pursuit of the same kinds of goals, but in ways that
stay within boundaries of honesty. The presentations of liars are designed to mislead”

There are only a few studies in which people have been asked how they feel about the lies
they tell in their everyday lives (DePaulo &Kashy, 1998; DePaulo, Kashy, et al., 1996;
Kashy& DePaulo, 1996). “The results suggest that people regard their everyday lies as little
lies of little consequence or regret. They do not spend much time planning them or worrying
about the possibility of getting caught. Still, everyday lies do leave a smudge. Although
people reported feeling only low levels of distress about their lies, they did feel a bit more
uncomfortable while telling their lies, and directly afterwards, than they had felt just before
lying. Also, people described the social interactions in which lies were told as more
superficial and less pleasant than the interactions in which no lies were told”

Amongst these unremarkable lies, “there are found though in much smaller numbers, lies that
people regard as serious. Most of these lies are told to hide transgressions, which can range
from misdeeds such as cheating on tests to deep betrayals of intimacy and trustsuch as affairs
(DePaulo et al. 2002; see also Jones & Burdette, 1993; McCornack& Levine, 1990; Metts,

4
1994). These kind of lies, if discovered, can have serious implications for the liars’ identities
and reputations”

The researchers DePaulo and Rosenthal further mention that “our theoretical orientation to
the study of lying in everydaylife was drawn from perspectives on identity, self-presentation,
and impression management from sociology (Goffman, 1959), linguistics (Brown &
Levinson, 1987), and social psychology (Schlenker&Weigold, 1989). From these
perspectives, the "self" that is presented to others in everyday social life is characteristically
an edited and packaged one. In nondeceptive presentations, the editing serves to specify and
highlight the aspects of the self that are most relevant to the interaction at hand, without being
designed to mislead. By comparison, the defining characteristic of the deceptive presentation
is that it is purposefully designed to foster a false impression”

Continuing on the reasons behind deceptive communications, De Paulo and Rosenthal assert
that “many of the same goals that motivate nondeceptive presentations also motivate
deceptive ones. These include the claiming of desired identities, the support of other people's
claims to desired identities, and the exchange of enhancing and supportive emotions,
preferences, and opinions. When reality is kind (e.g., when people want to present themselves
as generous and caring when they really do have a long history of charitable contributions
and benevolent acts), these goals can be accomplished nondeceptively; however, under less
propitious circumstances, it becomes more tempting to lie. Because these kinds of goals are
so fundamental to ordinary social discourse, and because reality is often unkind, we expected
to find that lying is a fact of social life. We anticipated that our participants would describe
lying as an everyday occurrence rather than as an extraordinary or unusual event”.

So based on the motivations that lie behind lying, DePaulo and Rosenthal (1979) state that
“lyingoften is described as a selfish act. People lie, it is assumed, to get jobs, promotions,
raises, good grades, and better commissions. We, too, believe that lies are more often told to
serve the self than to benefit others. However, we think that lies are less often told in the
pursuit of goals such as financial gain and material advantage and instead are much more
often told in the pursuit of psychic rewards such as esteem, affection, and respect. We also
think that the portrayal of everyday lies as disruptiveof social life and hurtful to the targets of
the lies is in need of modification. In keeping with the perspective described by Goffman
(1959) and other social interaction theorists, we think that many of the lies of everyday life

5
are told to avoid tension and conflict and to minimize hurt feelings and ill-will” (Lippard,
1988, Metts, 1989).

The researchers add, “We think that people lie frequently about their feelings, preferences,
and opinions and that when they do so, they are far more likely to feign a positive appraisal
than a negative one.If we are correct in assuming that lies are a fact of social life,then we
should find that they are of only minor cognitive or emotional significance to the people who
tell them. As with other well-practiced behaviors, everyday lies should require little planning.
We expect people to describe their lies as not serious, to report low levels of distress before
and after telling their lies, and to report little desire to undo their lies if they could. We also
think that they will feel little concern about the possibility of getting caught and instead will
expect to be believed”.

The researchers continue that although lying is a commonplace strategy for managing
impressions and social interactions, it is less common than nondeceptive techniques. It is a
more extreme form of impression management that involves the deliberate fostering of a false
impression rather than the judicious editing of a true one. It is likely to occur in situations that
are a bit more taxing than ones in which social interaction goals can readily be accomplished
in nondeceptive ways.

Furthermore, in this culture, “lying is generally condemned. Several consequences might

follow from these circumstances. First, social interactions in which lies are told will differ in
undesirable ways from those in which no lies are told; specifically, they will seem less
pleasant and less intimate. Second, people will show some avoidance of the most direct
modes of social interaction when telling lies; for example, they might prefer telling their lies
in a letter or by telephone instead of in face-to-face interactions. Finally, people might feel a
twinge of distress while they are telling their lies that they did not feel just before or
immediately afterward” (DePaulo and Rosenthal, 1979).

According to DePaulo et al. (1996); Ekman, (1991) “lying is a particular form of dishonesty
where people “intentionallytry to mislead someone”. The act of lying typically serves as an
instrument to achieve a goal that seems difficult to achieve otherwise (Miller & Stiff, 1993).
Although lying is common (DePaulo et al., 1996), people normatively disapprove of it
(Erat&Gneezy, 2011; Lundquist, Ellingsen, Gribbe, &Johannesson, 2009) and tend to avoid
situations that enable dishonesty (Shalvi, Handgraaf, & De Dreu, 2011). The result of this

6
social and internalized disapproval of lying is that doing so is psychologically costly to
people. For example, a discovered lie is a serious interpersonal trust violation that is
notoriously difficult to restore (Schweitzer, Hershey, & Bradlow, 2006), and liars risk failure
to live up to their ideal selves (e.g., perceiving oneself as a decent person; Mazar &Ariely,
2006). Nonetheless, people are tempted to lie when doing so offers benefits that could not be
achieved by truthful means. Essentially, people weight the costs and benefits of lying to
decide whether or not to do so” (Mazar, Amir, &Ariely, 2008).

Cantarero et al. (2018) “assert that there are different ways to conceptualize types of lies, and
perhaps the most useful criterion is to use the beneficiary of the lie as a distinguishing
characteristic. De Paulo etal. (1996) distinguish self-oriented from other-oriented lies, where
the interests of either the liar or others are taken into consideration. To be more precise: self-
oriented lies are “told to protect the liars interests”. Other-oriented lies serve instead to
benefit not the liar but another person”.

Erat and Gneezy (2011) “describe a third type of lie termed Pareto lies. These lies are aimed
at helping both the liar and others. These lies are found to be used more often than altruistic
lies, at least among children”.

The majority of lies benefit the self (Camden et al., 1984). “Self-centered lies less often
involve faking positive feelings than other-oriented lies (DePaulo et al., 1996). These other-
centered lies have an intriguing biological foundation: an increase in oxytocin – a hormone
implicated in social bending (Panksepp, 1992) – is related to more dishonesty for the benefit
of a group” (Shalvi& De Dreu, 2014).

“People are willing to engage in telling a Pareto lie to a lesser extent than telling a lie that
benefits another person while a lie that benefits another person while being unfavorable for
the liar”(Erat&Gneezy, 2011). Interestingly, research by Lindskold and Walters (1983) “also
falls in line with this distinction.They showed that people find lies which are aimed at
protecting other people as the most acceptable, while lies that brings benefits to the liar while
hurting other people as the least acceptable”.

Similarly, research by Wiltermuth (2011) “showed that because other-oriented dishonesty is

seen as far more acceptable, cheating increases when people have a chance to indicate
bringing benefits to others as a factor that influences their dishonesty.

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Furthermore Weisel and Shalvi (2015) showed that collaboration, especially when the profits
are similar to both parties, leads to higher levels of dishonesty”.

Cantarero et al. (2018) “asserts that overall, these findings suggest that the decision of
whether to be honest or not is influenced by the person (or people) to whom the lie is
supposed to bring benefits, among others.Beneficial lies are aimed at providing gains at least
in a short term that is, telling such lies is plausible when a liar perceives them as an
opportunity to acquire additional profits material or psychological. Should a person refrain
from such a lie, they may view their situation as not having improved. Thus, a desire to
improve the current situation serves as cause for beneficial lies, while refraining from lying
means missing a chance to gain”.

Cantarero et al. (2018) “says that long-term consequences of lies of the two types of
motivations should depend highly on whether a lie is discovered or not. It is probable that the
consequences for both protective and beneficial lies are similar to short-term consequences
when the lie goes undiscovered. Should the truth be revealed, however, it ought to result in
different consequences for the liar. Research shows that people show more understanding for
lies that are aimed at protection than at bringing benefits (Lindskold& Walters, 1983). A
beneficial lie should then entail much more severe consequences and result in worsening the
liar's situation. A protective lie, on the other hand, should be perceived as more
understandable and not so severely punished. As a consequence, the benefits from an
uncovered lie should be greater in case of beneficial lies, while the loss when a lie is exposed
should be greater in the case of beneficial lies. Adding this motivational dimension is
important for understandingthe phenomenon of lying. It shows that lies aimed at one type of
beneficiary can vary significantly and that this difference has further implications. Protective
and beneficial lies are not driven by the same type of motivation, and as a consequence
individual differences can explain the differences in the use of these lies in everyday life”.

Consistently, studies by Effron, Bryan, and Murnighan (2015) “show that anticipated regret is
related to dishonesty (the cheat-at-the-end effect). Protective lies differ from beneficial ones.
People are more likely to use a protective lie when they perceive a situation as threatening to
their present state. The threat does not have to be understood only as a physical one, but can
be of a different, including psychological, nature. Not lying in such instances involves the
risk of worsening the situation. Therefore, using a protective lie can be seen as reaching for a
last resort, whereas using a beneficial lie is more proactive and aimed at providing additional

8
gains. Lies are told to bring positive outcomes (which include both gainsand loss aversion)
that cannot be reached by truthful means” (Miller & Stiff, 1993).

Zuckerman, Driver, Siegman& Feldstein (1985) “mention that recent reviews of literature on
interpersonal deception have attempted to assess which behaviors most powerfully
discriminate when someone is lying or truthful. Ekman at all. (1991) states that although
these reviews suggested which behaviors yielded consistent results across different studies, as
well as statistical estimates of the size of the effects obtained, they did not determine how
well any single measure or combination of measures correctly identified when a subject is
lying”.

The above researches point to the rampant prevalence of lies in the contemporary society.
They clearly show that many times people lie even when there is no urgency to do so. Many
of the lies spoken by people carry serious implications. This has motivated to select the topic
of lies in communication for the present study.

Detection of Lies
DePaulo & Rosenthal (1979) and Ekman & Friesen (1974) “assert that detectability of
deception is one of the central questions about the communication i.e., whether humans are
able to detect each other's deception”.

DePaulo (1988)” Once it became apparent that people do have some ability to do so (though
certainlynot an impressive level), the question of the specific cues that people are using, or
should be using, in their attempts to detect deception became even more
interesting.Psychologists, educators, and parents have long been intrigued by thestudy of the
development of the abilities to deceive and to detect deceit. Much knowledge, and many
different skills and strategies are necessary to achieve any semblance of mastery at these
tasks”.

Vrij (2018)”says that truth tellers and liars employ different strategies. Truth tellers are
generally forthcoming, whereas liars try to prevent revealing incriminating information
through avoidance (e.g., avoiding mentioning in a free recall where they were at a specific
time) or denials (e.g., denying having been at a certain place at a specific time when asked
directly” Granhag& Hartwig, 2015).

9
Hartwig et al., (2014) “mentions that truth tellers' accounts are typically more consistent with
the available evidence than are liars' accounts. The study reveals that sometimes in an
interview, liars start to realize that the interviewer may hold some incriminating evidence
against them. They then respond by changing their statement and trying to provide an
innocent explanation for this evidence. This results in liars showing more within‐statements
inconsistencies than would truth tellers”.

“Generally truth tellers typically provide more details than do liars, becauseliars lack the
imagination to manufacture details that sound plausible, a conclusion derived from the CBCA
literature(Köhnken, 2004; Leal et al., 2015), or because they are not willing to provide many
details out of fear that they will give leads to investigators that uncover their lies (Nahari,
Vrij, & Fisher, 2014). However, total details do not fully take into account the differential
verbal strategies that truth tellers and liars use, because both truth tellers and liars will
provide details to sound convincing. Better discrimination will occur if the different types of
details that truth tellers and liars report are examined”(Vrij, 2018).

In four experiments, Vrij along with his associates “examined complications, common
knowledge details, and self handicapping strategies (Vrij, Leal, et al., 2017; Vrij, Leal,
Fisher, et al., 2018; Vrij, Leal, Jupe, & Harvey, 2018; Vrij, Leal, Mann, et al., 2018).
Complication meant an occurrence that makes a situation more difficult than necessary like
the air conditioning was not working properly in the hotel. They found that truth tellers may
report more complications than would liars”.

Common knowledge details referred to strongly invoked stereotypical information about

events like “We visited the Louvre museum where we saw the Mona Lisa”. They found that
liars may report more common knowledge details than would truth tellers (Sporer, 2016;
Volbert& Steller, 2014; Vrij, Leal, et al., 2017), because liars lack the personal experiences to
include in their stories (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996).

Self handicapping strategies referred to justifications as to why someone is not able to

provide information like, “I can't remember; it was a while ago when this happened”. They
found that liars are more likely to include self handicapping strategies in their statements than
are truth tellers. For liars, not having to provide information is an attractive strategy, because
it keeps their stories simple. However, they appear suspicious when they do not provide
enough information. A potential solution is to provide a justification for the inability to

10
provide information. On the basis of the three cues, the proportion of complications
(complications/[complications + common knowledge details + self‐handicapping strategies])
can be calculated, which represents the proportion of cues to truthfulness. It should be higher
for truth tellers than for liars.

DePaulo et al. (2003) states that to the “extent that liars experience guilt about lying or fear
ofgetting caught lying, behaviors indicative of guilt and fear are shown more often by liars
than truth tellers”.

Zuckerman et al. (1981)”suggested that liars might fidget more than truth tellers, and they
may also sound more unpleasant. They also suggested that guilt and anxiety could become
apparent in liars’ distancing of themselves from their deceptive communications. Drawing
from Wiener and Mehrabian’s (1968; see also Mehrabian, 1972) account of the verbal and
nonverbal cues indicative of distancing (which they called nonimmediacy), Zuckerman et al.
(1981) predicted that liars would communicate in more evasive and indirect ways than truth
tellers and that they would maintain less eye contact with their interaction partners”.

Coming to the cognitive aspects of deception, Zuckerman et al. (1981) “conceptualized lying
as a more cognitively complex task than telling the truth. Liars, they claimed, need to
formulate communications that are internally consistent and consistent with what others
already know. The greater cognitive challenges involved in lying (relative to truth telling)
were predicted to result in longer response latencies, more speech hesitations, greater pupil
dilation, and fewer illustrators” (hand movements that accompany and illustrate speech).

Darwin wrote: “Some actions ordinarily associated through habit with certain states of mind
may be partially repressed through the will, and in such cases the muscles which are least
under the separate control of the will are the most liable still to act, causing movements
which we recognize as expressive. In certain other cases the checking of one habitual
movement requires other slight movements; and these are likewise expressive. Darwin did
not, however, clearly specify which movements are susceptible to control of the “will,” and
which escape such control or are themselves a product of the control”.

Freud was persuaded of the “importance of nonverbal behavior when he wrote: He that has
eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips
are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. But Freud

11
was less concerned with nonverbal behavior than with the intricacies of verbal behavior, and
such forms of verbal leakage as slips of the tongue and dreams”.

Goffman “is the contemporary writer whose general framework is quite suitable to non-
verbal behaviour and deception. Social interactions are all in a sense deceptive; the
participants are engaged in a dramatic performance to manage impressions that are given
off”.

Ekman & Friesen (1969) “state that the legitimate performances of everyday life are not
“acted” or “put on” in the sense that the performer knows in advance just what he is going to
do, and does this is solely because of the effect it is likely to have. The expressions it is felt
that he is giving off will be especially “inaccessible” to him. But as in the case of less
legitimate performers, the incapacity of the ordinary individual to formulate in advance the
movements of his eyes and body does not mean that he will not express himself through these
devices in a way that is dramatized and pre-formed in his repertoire of acts. In short, we all
act better than we know how”.

Vrij (2000) “examined the percentages of correctlie detection of 37 studies. Included were
studies in which judges were invited to try and detect lies and truths told by people they did
not know. The total accuracy rate was 56.6%, only just better than chance. If accuracy at
detecting lies was computed separately from accuracy at detecting truth, the results indicated
that the observers were reasonably good at assessing whether someone was telling the truth
(67% accuracy) but very poor at detecting lies (44% accuracy rate) i.e. worse than 50%
chance. To put in other words, people would be more correct at detecting lies if they were
simply guessing!”

Vrij (2002) did a “review of studies in which professional lie catchers (usually police
officers) were used as observers and it led to the following four conclusions:

First, most total accuracy rates were similar to the accuracy rates found in studies with
college students as observers, suggesting that professional lie catchers are not better than the
lay person in detecting deceit. DePaulo and Pfeifer (1986), Ekman and O’Sullivan (1991),
and Vrij and Graham (1997) directly tested this idea by including both lay persons and
professional lie catchers as observers in their experiments. DePaulo and Pfeifer (1986) and
Vrij and Graham (1997) found that police officers were as (un)successful as university
students in detecting deception. Ekman and O’Sullivan (1991) found that police officers and

12
polygraph examiners obtained similar accuracy rates to university students, whereas members
of the Secret Service were better at detecting lies than university students”.

Second, some groups seem to be better than others: Ekman’s research (Ekman and
O’Sullivan, 1991; Ekman, O?Sullivan, and Frank, 1999) has shown that members of the
Secret Service, CIA and sheriffs were better lie detectors than others.

Third, the truth-bias (people are better at detecting truths than lies), consistently found in
studies with students as observers, is much reduced or even non-existent in studies with
professional lie catchers.

Fourth, DePaulo and Pfeifer (1986) “investigated how confident observers were in the
decisions they made. They discovered that police officers were more confident than
university students. This indicates that being a professional lie catcher may increase self-
confidence in one’s ability to detect deceit, but does not increase accuracy. The tendency to
be overconfident is not unique to police officers, it is common to many professionals
(Allwood and Granhag, 1997). One aspect that hampers lie detection is that observers
frequently harbour incorrect beliefs about how liars behave and what they say (Akehurst,
Köhnken, Vrij, and Bull, 1996; Vrij and Semin, 1996). There is evidence that observers who
look at more valid cues are better lie detectors” (Frank and Ekman, 1997; Vrij and Mann,
2001).

Ekman & Friesen (1974) and some other researchers found that “skill at detecting lies from
verbal and/or nonverbal cues usually focus on observers' ability to distinguish truthful
responses from deceptive ones”.

DePaulo & Rosenthal (1979) “state that discerning the degree of deceptiveness of a given
response, however, is only one of several senses in which one might be said to be skilled at
detecting a lie. In the case of a lie that involves the cloaking of a felt emotion with a feigned
one, for example, skill at detecting the lie might be conceptualized as the ability to see
through to the underlying affect that the deceiver is trying to hide. Using Ekman and Friesen's
(1969) terms, this latter skill (identifying the concealed information) will be called leakage
accuracy, whereas the former (recognizing that deception is or is not occurring) will be
labeled deception accuracy. Although it might seem quite plausible that people who are
especially good at detecting deceptiveness will also be particularly skilled at reading leakage,
this empirical question has not yet been addressed”.

13
It is a common belief of lay people that liars behave differently to truth tellers (Global
Deception Team, 2006). Conflicting results have been reported in the literature regarding the
relationship between body movements and deception (Granhag&Strömwall, 2002; Porter et
al, 2008). For example, Porter et al (2008) showed an increase in illustrators and self-
manipulations when individuals lied compared to when they told the truth, but found no
difference in head movements between the conditions, whereas Kalma, Witte and Zaalberg
(1996) supported an increase in head movements when individuals lied, but did not support
differences in other body movements. Furthermore, other studies have failed to support any
differences in body movement at all (Vrij& Mann, 2001).

The reason behind the differences in findings across studies may be due to the different
measurement procedures that are used by different researchers. For example, experimental
work has often coded gestures as one type of body movement, whereas Caso et al (2006)
differentiated between several types of gestures (self-adaptor, deictic, iconic, metamorphic)
and also demonstrated that the occurrence of these different gestures was associated with
lying and telling the truth in different ways.

Research that has been done in applied environments has also demonstrated a lack of
reliability in body movement cues, which suggests that previous findings are not merely due
to controlled experimental situations being used. For example, Mann et al (2002) examined
recordings of police suspect interviews and found that approximately 50% showed an
increase in head movements and 50% showed a decrease in head movements when they lied.
They also could not support the differences between true and false statements for hand/finger
movements, illustrators or self-manipulations.

Hair et al. (2009) “state that numerous specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors have been
identified as sources of deception leakage or cues. Several of the behaviors associated with
the act of deception include shorter message duration (Knapp, Hart, & Dennis, 1974; Kraut,
1978; O'Hair, Cody, & McLaughlin, 1981), shorter response latency (Cody, Marston, &
Foster, 1984; Cody & O'Hair, 1983; Greene, O'Hair, Cody, & Yen, 1985; O'Hair et al., 1981),
increased smiling (Mehrabian, 1971 ), reduced smiling (Feldman, Devin-Sheehan, & Allen,
1978; O'Hair et al., 1981), reduced eye contact (Exline, Thibaut, Hickey, &Gumpert, 1970;
Knapp et al., 1974), more leg/foot movement (Ekman & Friesen, 1969), less leg/foot
movement (Cody & O'Hair, 1983; Hocking & Leathers, 1980), increased body adapters
(Ekman, Friesen, & Scherer, 1976; O'Hair et al., 1981), more speech errors (Cody et al.,

14
1984), and longer pauses (Cody et al., 1984). Some of these results apply only for some types
of lies (e.g., shorter response latency only follows prepared lies), while other behaviors are
more generally indicative of deception” (shorter messages).

Many researches have been done on specific indicators of deception.

Blink rate: Although not extensively examined, but because of the enhancement in
technologies that can measure blink rate has resulted in a growth in research examining this
behaviour. Blink rate has been linked with cognitive processing (Stern, Walrath & Goldstein,
1984) and increased cognitive load, with Vrij et al (2008) demonstrating an increase in blink
rate when liars were asked to recall their story in reverse order.

Research conducted by Leal and Vrij (2008) and Fukuda (2001) has shown that when lying,
an initial decrease followed by an increase in blink rate occurs, which highlights the
importance of precise temporal measurements when examining the use of blink rate as a cue
to deception.

Although Mann et al (2002) supported a decrease in blinking in 81% of individuals lying

during police interviews, Klaver et al (2007) failed to support the presence of blink rate as a
cue to deception. Differences in the conceptualisation of the behaviour (i.e., whether
paradigms target blinking as an arousal-related or a cognitive-related indicator) and the
measurement procedures used, are likely to be the reason behind the conflicting findings.

Para-verbal indicators: It is increasingly coming to light that nonverbal behaviours, such as

gaze aversion, are not quite reliable indicators of deceit, with Vrij (2008) claiming that
speech-related cues are more diagnostic of deception than nonverbal behaviours. This idea is
supported by research highlighting that observers are more accurate at detecting deceit when
they are exposed to auditory cues than when they are exposed to visual cues only, which
suggests that more cues to deception may indeed be ‘leaked’ through vocal channels (Mann,
Vrij, Fisher & Robinson, 2007). These vocal cues, such as: response time or voice gap, voice
pitch, pauses, represent potential para-verbal indicators of deception.

Sporer and Schwandt (2006) highlighted conflicting findings in relation to the validity of
para-verbal indicators of deception, demonstrating significant effects for only a small number
of cues, including an increase in pitch, response latency and speech errors, and a decrease in
message duration, when individuals tell a lie. The relationship of these cues to deception

15
varieddue to number of factors, including the the experimental design, content of the lie,how
motivated the participants were to deceive, and the degree of preparation participants’
engaged in.

Gaze aversion: Despite the fact that gaze aversion is the most commonly cited cue to
deception internationally (Global Deception Team, 2006), the scientific evidence base
regarding this is lack considerably. Research regarding gaze fails to support either eye contact
or gaze aversion as a reliable cue to deception ( Mann et al, 2002; Vrijet al, 2008), although a
limited number of studies have demonstrated differences in the degree of eye contact when
individuals tell a lie (Granhag&Strömwall, 2002; Mann et al, 2002; Sitton& Griffin, 1981).
Moreover, research regarding gaze suggests that this behaviour may be attributed more to
factors such as the cultural background of the interviewee, and the interview style used, than
to deception per se (Vrij& Mann, 2001; Vrij et al, 2006; Vrij& Winkel, 1991).

Speech disturbances: Speech disturbances comprise several categories, including repetitions,

errors, hesitations and filled/unfilled pauses. Speech disturbances have been shown to be
significantly affected by the level of difficulty that the liar is experiencing whenformulating
their lie (Vrij et al, 2008). Overall there is a reasonable level of support for an increase in
speech disturbances as a cue to deception (DePaulo et al., 2003, Zuckerman et al., 1981),
although some studies have failed to show any significant differences in relation to speech
disturbance cues (Porter et al, 2008).

Although speech disturbances doesshow a certain degree of reliability as an indicator of

deception, the incidence of such disturbances is affected by moderator variables, such as
interview style. For example, Vrij et al. (2006) highlighted that participant’s show a decrease
in speech disturbances when an interrogation style procedure rather than an information
gathering interview procedure is used. Mann et al (2002) further highlighted inconsistencies
regarding speech disturbances as a cue to deception in their examination of police suspect
interviews, since only half of liars showed an increase in this cue, suggesting that
examination at an individual level is required.

Speech rate: A decrease in speech rate has been associated with deception, with several
studies supporting the idea that liars speak more slowly than truth tellers (DePaulo et al,
2003; Vrij et al, 2001). Normally lying is often more cognitively demanding thantelling the
truth, a slower speech rate is be expected when individuals have difficulty in formulating

16
their response. Several studies have failed to support such promising findings
(Granhag&Strömwall, 2002) and Davis et.al., (2005) highlighted the impact of extraneous
factors, such as the incriminating potential of the question, on speech speed in genuine police
interviews.

Pitch: Previous reviews of literature on voice pitch (DePaulo et al, 2003; Sporer& Schwandt,
2006; Zuckerman et al, 1981) shows that it increases when individuals lie compared to when
they tell the truth, but research examining pitch as a cue to deception is limited. A higher
pitch is normally associated with increased physiological arousal.Thereforehigher voice pitch
would happen when liar would experiencing stress and arousal to a greater degree than truth
tellers, but thismay not happen everytime.

Facial cues: The scientific study of emotional facial expressions was first introduced in the
mid-nineteenth century, through the work of both Guillame Duchenne on the physiology of
genuine smiles, and Charles Darwin, with the publication of his book, The Expression of
Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872. In his work, Darwin mentioned about the possibility
that emotional expressions can portray information regarding an individual’s true mental state
more accurately then words alone. “When movements, associated through habit with certain
states of the mind, are partially repressed by the will, the strictly involuntary muscles, as well
as those which are least under the separate control of the will, are liable still to act; and their
action is often highly expressive” (Darwin, 1872). It was suggested particularly that certain
facial muscles are difficult to control voluntarily, and therefore what follows is that some
emotional expressions may therefore be difficult to inhibit when individuals attempt to
conceal their true emotional state.

Ekman & Friesen (1969) put forward the leakage hypothesis which furthers the
considerations of Darwin with respect to deception.They claimed that facial movements
associated with particular emotions may “leak” through attempts to conceal them. In 1978,
Ekmanand Friesen developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which provided a
systematic way for researchers to measure such facial movements. Separate muscles in the
face were distinguished and combinations of movements of these muscles (known as Action
Units) were identified for a variety of different emotional facial expressions, providing a
method to “dissect” a facial expression in relation to a particular emotion. It is these distinct
muscle movements that can be examined for “leakage” when individuals attempt to hide
particular emotional expressions when deceiving others.

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This idea was further explored upon in a study conducted by Ekman, Roper and Hager
(1980), who found that fewer than 25% of their subjects were able to control their facial
expression. The study revealedthat this inability to produce particular movements when
instructed may also suggest an inability to voluntarily suppress such movements when
required. Therefore, when individuals are in grip of emotions such as fear and anger, they
should have difficulty in preventing certain facial movements associated with these emotions
from occurring, which would result in emotional facial “leakage” during deception.

Emotional leakage can be classified into two main types one where full emotion expression is
displayed and the other where fragment of an emotional expression is displayed. The first is
commonly referred to as a micro expression, and is displayed for a very brief period of time
(suggested at around 1/5th to 1/25th second). Such facial movements are then quickly
neutralised or masked once voluntary control is regained. Whereas micro expressions
represent a so-called full facial expression displayed for a brief moment, the other subtle
facial movements have also been suggested to be worthy of examination in relation to
deception detection (Warren, Schertler& Bull, 2008). Rather than representing an entire facial
expression, such movements may provide only fragments of an emotional expression, with
muscles that are unable to be voluntarily suppressed remaining active despite attempts to
conceal.

The possibility that such micro expressions and other subtle facial movements would be able
to give away a person when he or she tries to deceive has been of immense interest in the
recent times. In particular, the US, Israel and the UK have demonstrated interest in using
micro expression identification techniques in airport security settings (Weinberger, 2010).

The above researches reveal that deception happens in communication.Lies can be detected
and training can help people to catch when someone lies to them. The present study aims at
finding out what changes take place in the communication channels when a person lies,
which can be noticed by a layman without the help of any sophisticated technology.

Non-Verbal Communication& Lies

According to Andersen(2007), nonverbal communication (NVC) is the nonlinguistic
transmission of information through visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic (physical)
channels.It includes the use of visual cues such as body language (kinesics), distance

18
(proxemics) and physical environments/appearance, of voice (paralanguage) and of touch
(haptics).

However, according to the explanation of Non-Verbal Communication given on Wikipedia, it

can also include the use of time (chronemics) and eye contact and the actions of looking
while talking and listening, frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and
blink rate (oculesics).

Further, The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science (2004),
mentions that “just as speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including
voice quality, rate, pitch, loudness, and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as
rhythm, intonation, and stress, so written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting
style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much of the
study of nonverbal communication has focused on interaction between individual”.

Lots of researches have been done to find out if liars are more likely to show or avoid certain
mannerisms or behavioral traits. They tried to find out if liars tend to say or avoid certain
things when asked to give their version of events or symptoms.

Ohmoto et al. (2009) state that the “abilities to communicate with people is not only the
abilities to understand symbolic information such as speech and gestures. We usually
speculate other people’s intentions and feelings by their nonverbal expressions in free
communication, which means natural communication whose partners can choose the contents
of conversation spontaneously such as small talk in this study. We also nonverbally express
mental states unconsciously in free communication. Those speculations and expressions are
necessary for smooth communications and interactions”.

DePaulo et al (2000); Vrij (2000) state that more than “30 years of deception research
convincingly demonstrates that there is no such thing as a typical deceptive response. In other
words, there is nothing as simple and obvious as Pinocchio’s growing nose, so lie detection is
difficult and research also demonstrates that people generally are poor lie detectors. In lie
detection studies, observers (usually college students, but sometimes professional lie catchers
such as police detectives) are typically given videotapes and asked to judge whether each of a
number of people is lying or telling the truth. The alternatives to choose from in these studies
are:the person is lying; or the person is telling the truth; resulting in a 50% chance of giving
the correct answer just by guessing”.

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Vrij & Easton (2002) mention that “research has shown that there are some verbal and
nonverbal responses which may assist in distinguishing (to some extent) the liars and truth
tellers; there are some theoretical explanations of why these cues differ between truth tellers
and liars”.

Reid and Arther (1953), “conducted one of the early examinations of deceptive nonverbal
behavior. Reid is one of the developers of the “nine steps interrogation technique,” also called
the Reid technique (Inbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne, 2013), an accusatory style of
interrogation (Meissner et al., 2014). This interrogation technique is still popular among
practitioners, despite research showing that, compared with nonaccusatory information‐
gathering interviewing techniques, it results in less information, fewer cues to deceit, fewer
true confessions, and more false confessions “(Meissner et al., 2014).

According to Vrij (2018), “the Reid and Arther examination of nonverbal cues to deceit was
an observation of real suspects' behaviors in real police interviews. It has an important
limitation, however, typical of deception field research: The ground truth, the actual veracity
status of the suspects, was unclear, which means that the study does not provide actual insight
into the behavior of suspects”.

Another important work on nonverbal cues to deception appeared in 1985: Paul Ekman's
book Telling Lies. The book is well known and often cited, and many people who are not
even familiar with deception research have heard of Ekman's ideas. Ekman claimed that liars
reveal themselves by displaying facial micro-expressions of emotions and other involuntarily
behaviors.Ekman's claims that liars leak nonverbal signals of deceit without being aware of it,
and only the highly skilled observer will be able to spot these leakages.In later years he
conducted many other researches on micro-expressions.

According to Hartwig et al. (2010); Vrij et al. (2010) “the nonverbal strategies that liars and
truth tellers employ whentheir veracity is under scrutiny are similar: Both try to suppress
signs of nervousness and attempt to replace this by signs that they believe appear honest, such
as looking conversation partners in the eye and suppressing nonverbal cues such as scratching
the head and wrists”.

“In contrast, the verbal strategies used by truth tellers and liars differ (Hartwig, Granhag,
&Strömwall, 2007). Truth tellers employ a “tell it all” strategy, whereas liars employ a “keep

20
it simple” strategy. The direct result of this is that truthful stories often include more details
than do deceptive stories” (Amado, Arce, &Fariña, 2015).

According to DePaulo (1988), “spoken lies necessarily have a nonverbal component--the tone
ofvoice in which the lies are conveyed. In face-to-face interactions, there are other nonverbal
cues, too, such as facial expressions and body movements and postures. Typically, people do
not want their lies to be detected, and they therefore try deliberately--though not always
successfully--to control their nonverbal (and verbal) cues to that end (see, for example,
DePaulo &Kirkendol, 1988).

However, in those instances in which people feel compelled to lie against their wishes, they
can also successfully use their nonverbal behaviors to betray their own verbal deceptions
(Zuckerman, DeFrank, Hall, Larrance, & Rosenthal, 1979).

Moreover, says DePaulo (1988), “if caught doing so, they can readily deny it. Because people
do not have perfect control over their own nonverbal behaviors, because they do not see or
hear their own nonverbal behaviors in the same ways that others do, and because nonverbal
behaviors do not have dictionary definitions, people's protestations of nonverbal behavioral
innocence are often plausible (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). DePaulo (1988) continues that
sometimes the silly grin that others implore us to wipe off our faces really was not put there
on purpose. There is, then, a certain subtlety and flexibility in the deployment of nonverbal
behaviors that is not as characteristic of the use of verbal behaviors”.

DePaulo (1988) says that “perhaps the greatest lure of the study of nonverbal aspects of
deception is the notion that nonverbal behaviors may be more revealing than words”. In case
there is a scholar of deception who has not yet read Freud's oft-quoted view on this topic, I
will repeat it here: "He who has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself no mortal
can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of
him at every pore" (Freud, 1905/1959, p. 94). Several decades and dozens of experiments
later, we can now say that Freud did indeed have a point. But, as is so often the case, the data
have forced an important qualification: The liar has to care about keeping the secret. When
liars are not overly concerned about getting caught telling their lies, then they often can
control some of their nonverbal behaviors--particularly their facial expressions--so that their
lies will not be apparent (DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter, 1985). But when they are highly
motivated to succeed in their lies, it becomes more likely that their nonverbal behaviors will

21
betray them (DePaulo &Kirkendol, 1988). This probably occurs not despite their best efforts
to the contrary, but because of them.

“Over the last 15 years, research into nonverbal cues to deception has been in decline, with
the possible exception of research into reaction times”(Verschuere et al., 2018).”Research
into speech differences between truth tellers and liars is now dominant”(Vrij, 2018).
However, the topic of nonverbal cues to deception remains a sensational one and continues to
attract attention in popular writings and the media.

Body Language & Lies

Zuckerman et al. (1981) “theorized that contrary to the stereotype of liars being fidgety and
nervous during an interview, liars may adopt a stiff, wooden posture due to overcontrol.
Several experiments confirmed that deceivers reduced their gestural, foot, and overall kinesic
animation relative to truthtellers (e.g., Buller and Aune, 1987; DePaulo et al., 2003; Caso et
al., 2006; Mullin, 2012), suggestive of participants seeking to limit incriminating behaviors”.

Hurley and Frank (2011) “found that liars could not completely inhibit eyebrow or lip corner
movement despite instructions to do so during a mock crime interrogation”.

Driskell et al., (2012) “emphasize the importance of culture on deciding what emotions are
appropriate and which emotions are inappropriate; how those emotions would appear and the
consequences of their display. This designation of social signals during deception has
received considerable scholarly attention. Buller and Burgoon (1994, 1997) labeled
regulation of deception expressions as strategic communication.More broadly, because facial
expressions are part of asocial signal system, they fulfill a variety of functions beyond simply
revealing one’s internal emotional reactions” (e.g., Buck, 1991; Chovil, 1991; Buck et al.,
1992; Barrett, 2006).

Eye Movement &Lies

Ekman & Friesen (1969) “state that in nonverbal communication, the face is commonly
regarded as the most distinctive and individual part of the body; capable of conveying much
detailed information. It thus commands the most attention in a face-to-face interaction and is
believed to impart personal or idiosyncratic information about the individual. Among facial

22
behaviors. eye contact in particular is personally involving and serves several social
purposes”.

Eisenberg (1971) “suggested that by looking at the eyes, an individual gathers much
nonverbal information about other people, and that the act of looking at another indicates that
the channels of communication are open. In general, a continued exchange of glances would
seem to signal a willingness or desire to become involved with one another, or to maintain an
ongoing interaction”.

This possibility has gained support from Argyle and Dean (1965) “whose research indicated
that when two people like each other, they establish eye contact more often and for longer
durations than when there is tension in the relationship”.

“One area of study related to eye contact has beenthe investigation of the assumption that an
honest person looks one in the eye. Persons in our society interpret the willingness to engage
in direct eye contact as evidence of sincerity. Furthermore, research has seemed to support
the belief” (Barnlund, 1968). “Subjects who behaved unethically were found less likely to
look an experimenter in the eye afterwards than during the pretransgression
interview”(Exline, Thibaut, Hickey,&Gumpert, 1970).

Exline & Greenberg (1971) “state that having manipulated the authenticity of a speaker's
communication, tendencies were found in women (men were not studied) to avoid eye
contact with others when repeating false as opposed to true impressions of them”.

Handwriting & Lies

Benshakhar et al. (1986) “mentioned different features of one’s handwriting are all under
writers’ voluntary control. Handwriting is brain writing that is mostly controlled by our
brains and our deepest inner thoughts and feelings. Handwriting is slightly different from
other thought-to-body activities”(e.g., breathing, standing, walking, and eating).

Tang (2012) “states that telling the truth (in writing) is very easy, simple, and without stress.
We write consistently, quickly, and without much thinking or reservation, on ‘‘autopilot.’’
We maintainthe same slant, write from left to right (for most people), and adopt the same
format for all the alphabets/letters consistently. For most honest people, telling a lie is
stressful which may pose a threat to their moral standards”.

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He explains further that when honest people lie, they must exert an extra effort,hide their
emotions, and make a plan in advance. When making a mental preparation for this event—
telling a lie, their handwriting is slightly different from their normal truthful writing.
Following the psychological literature on self-presentation and deception (DePaulo 1992;
DePaulo et al. 2003; Schlenker and Leary 1982), the focus is not on what they say, but
mainly on how they say it in the handwritten message.

Tang (2012) found that the “starting point of a lie is located at the point wherethe tip of a line
‘‘minutely’’ breaches or intersects the imaginary vertical ‘‘left’’ margin, signifying the
sudden, abrupt, and unexpected change in their emotions. The actual lie starts on that line or
on the following one. In some cases, it starts at the last few words of the previous line. This
single principle detects about 80% of the lies”.

When people change from ‘‘telling the truth’’ to ‘‘telling a lie,’’ the sudden change of
emotions and feelings is very obvious, dramatic, and very easy to detect because telling a lie
is a significant violation of their moral standards. On the other hand, some sophisticated
people with low emotional stability tend to change their standards quickly and frequently and
have multiple left-hand side margins, or multiple standards. Even with multiple margins, we
can detect these changes and identify several possible locations of their lies.

Voice & Lies

Halpert (2000) suggested that “lying occurs in everyday human interaction and that 'learning
to deceive' constitutes an important stage in normal social development. The act of lying
involves several steps including accurate visual recall, withholding of relevant information,
and a conscious effort to alter recalled data” (Vrij, 2001).

O’Hair & Cody (1987) in their research on voice “stress differences during truthful and
deception sequences mention that for liars, we expect that vocal stress levels should be higher
for the prepared lie (relevant) response than for a similar prepared truthful (irrelevant)
response. However, no differential responsivity should occur for the prepared critical
responses for truthers, thus avoiding false positives. Likewise, differences in vocal stress
levels of liars should be demonstrated when comparing other, more spontaneous truthful and
deceptive responses, while no differences should occur for truthers”.

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A pioneer study in this field was done by Ekman et al. (1976). “Utterances were analyzed and
it was found that there was a significant rise and variability of the fundamental frequency of
the voice when a lie was told as opposed to the truth. These are, in fact, vocal characteristics
common to conditions of stress and fear (Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981; Scherer,
Feldstein, Bond, & Rosenthal, 1985; Scherer, Wallbott, Tolkmitt, & Bergman, 1985). The
fact that in the liar's voice the F0 rises has already been confirmed (see Streeter, Krauss,
Geller, & Olson, 1977; Scherer, 1981; Ekman, 1985; Ekman, O'Sullivan, Friesen, & Scherer,
1991), and Ekman has even advanced a hypothesis whereby this variation in the tone of voice
might depend upon the emotion of fear felt by the liar, or upon the state of tension connected
to this experience”.

Along with the above interpretation, Scherer et al. (1985) “believe that the higher frequency
and the increase in variability might also be caused by the heightened cognitive complexity
involved in imparting a false utterance intended to convince the interlocutor”.

Ekman & Friesen (1969) state that ego plans his behavior during alter-deception and is
usually quite aware of what he wishes to conceal from alter. Ego has two choices, if he is to
succeed in his deception: inhibit or simulate. Most often he will do both. Simply inhibiting,
cutting off communication entirely, is the safest way to prevent leakage, but it usually is a
giveaway to alter that something is amiss. Instead ego will attempt to maintain the
communicative flow, pretending that nothing is being concealed while he carefully and
selectively omits certain messages.

They further explain that the term “blocking” would be applied to those self-deceptive
situations in which ego realizes that he has concealed something from himself, or that he
can’t remember something, or that he can’t describe or be sure of how he feels. The terms
“repression” or “dissociation” would refer to a more complete manifestation of self-
deception, where ego is totally unaware that part of his self has engaged in concealing
information from the self-aware part.

They also state that simulation typically accompanies the inhibition of information in self-
deception. In order for ego to maintain the required image of himself and the desired social
face to others, it is usually not sufficient that he conceals certain information; he must adopt
as his own, feelings and attitudes which help dis-confirm the matters being withheld. The
person who dissociates anger not only may need to omit all such feelings, but also may need

25
to appear to himself and others as altruistic and generous. The simulated behavior during self-
deception differs from the simulation during alter-deception; it is less explicitly managed and
the false message is actually felt, but it is not all that is felt. The simulation and its degree of
genuineness is much like the feelings involved in the psychoanalytic defense mechanism of
reaction-formation, and this is far more actually experienced than the simulations of alter-
deception.

Voice fumbles are caused by a number of reasons.Most of the voice fumbles happen when
the speaker either gets emotional or is stressed (Lori Free, 2016).When a speaker does not
know his subject matter well, he loses confidence, gets nervous and this also leads to voice
fumble. Another reason for the occurrence of the voice fumbles is the inability of the mouth
to catch up with the brain. So when one tries to speed up his speech in order to keep pace, he
or she ends up in tripping over his words (Markham Heid, 2016).

In light of the above studies on non-verbal communication which reveal the importance of
body gestures, eye movement, voice fumbles and voice gaps in the process of
communication, the present study attempts to investigate their role in the lying process.The
present research alsoattempts to study their effect on lying behaviour in general and its
variance due to gender, personality and locale.

Variation in Lies

Personality & Lies

Personality plays an important role in lie detection. One of major problems with detection of
lies are the interpersonal differences, and personality recognition is a key to solving this
difficulty. Psychologists assert that there are large individual differences in people’s behavior
when it comes to lying, some people raise their pitch when lying, while some lower it
significantly; some would to laugh when deceiving, while others laugh more while telling the
truth. They also found that judges with different personalities perform differently when they
detect deceit (Enos et al. 2006).

While research has been able to form some bridges between lying and personality, still quite
less is known about the role of basic personality traits in deception. Some studies have
explored the connection of personality and lying, however they usually looked at specific

26
reasoning rather than understanding motives. For example, Weiss and Feldman (2006)
attempted to determine if extraverts lie more frequently (Weiss & Feldman, 2006), while
Gillath and colleagues (cite) examined whether those high in conscientiousness are more
honest (Gillath, Sesko, Shaver, & Chun, 2010).

On the other hand, traitspertain more to how the individual may act. Thus, it is quite possible
than an extrovert and an introvert may have the same goals but use different means to achieve
them. However, different personality traits may be connected to different motives. For
example, high extraversion may be motivated by social contract and high neuroticism by
order and acceptance. This suggests that personality does have an effect on different motives
to achieve certain goals or desires. Thus, motives correlating strongly with certain personality
traits could potentially influence behavior to achieve those motives, such as lying, if these
goals and outcomes were attainable by deceiving others in some way.

Extraversion (e.g., the tendency to be outgoing, assertive, and talkative) is the primary
personality trait that has been examined in regards to lying. Specifically, individuals who are
more extraverted lie more frequently and find themselves in situations in which they have
opportunities to lie more often (Kashy& DePaulo, 1996). High levels of extraversion are
associated with lying more on job applications and during interviews (Weiss & Feldman,
2006).

This may be because of the fact that extroverts interact with more number of people and
therefore usually have more opportunities to lie or may be because they feel more
comfortable in social settings, which could lead to more lie-telling (Elaad&Reizer, 2015).
What remains unclear is whether or not extraversion is related to different motivations to lie.
Given that extraversion is positively related to motivations of acceptance, power, status, and
vengeance (Olsen & Weber, 2004), extraverted individuals may be more likely to lie to win
admiration, exercise power over others, and for social acceptance.

Starr (1969) and Eaves & Eysenck (1975) mention that “in particular, the personality
dimension of introversion-extraversion has received considerable attention because of its
putative biological basis. This theory proposes that individuals differ appreciably in their
relative preferences for attending to either the inner world of subjectivity, with emphasis on
reflective, introspective mental activity (introverts), or to the outer world of objective events,
with emphasis on active involvementin the environment” (extroverts).

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Eysenck (1967) suggested that differences between introverts and extroverts are based neuro-
physiologically in the ascending reticular activating system of the brain, an area
whichmodulates cortical arousal and inhibition. In this view, introverts are characterized by
greater chronic cortical arousal than extroverts.

Thus, the differences between introverted and extroverted personality types may be brought
about by differences in innate levels of cortical arousal coupled with differential
responsivityto a given stimulus situation.

Gender &Lies
Gender differences in deception research have been examined with mixedresults. There are
also gender differences in when and why people tell lies, and there are certain individual
differences that influence the instances of when we choose to tell a lie. While the results have
been mixed (Lewis &Saarni, 1993; Ross & Holmberg 1990; Tooke &Camire, 1991), some
researchers have reported gender differences regarding lying behavior.

Cody and O'Hair (1983)”found males suppressed leg/foot movement and gesturing behavior
and increased facial adaptors during lies which had been prepared in advanced. Females
evidenced less leg/foot movement during spontaneous lies and less gesturing when lying in a
prepared mode. Furthermore, males illustrated less than females in the prepared lie
condition”.

DePaulo, Stone and Lassiter (1985) “concluded that successful detection of deception was
more readily accomplished when opposite sex judgments were made. That is, males were
more apt to detect female deception than deception from other males and vice-versa”.

Noller (1985) “suggested that males and females use different channels during the decoding
process. Females rely on the visual channel more than males. From an encoding perspective,
males who are able to send basic emotions well are perceived as more truthful than females”
(Riggio & Friedman, 1983).

Riggio & Friedman (1986) “show that males who display emotional control and females who
are expressive and extroverted are more positively perceived during initial impressions”.

Eagly (1987) mention that in line with this view, social role theorists argue that males are
more agentic and independent, while females are more unselfish and communal. These

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observations suggest that self-regarding motivations may push males to tell more black lies
than females, even when their intrinsic costs of lying are, on average, the same.

With respect to gender differences in altruistic behavior, Andreoni and Vesterlund (2001)
found that females are more altruistic than males when the altruistic action coincides with the
egalitarian action, but males are more altruistic than females when the altruistic action is
socially efficient. This suggests when it comes to telling altruistic white lies, gender
differences are there based on the consequences of lying. Females may tell more altruistic lies
than males when lying minimizes payoff differences, while males may tell more altruistic
white lies than females when lying is socially efficient. Regarding Pareto white lies, two
different arguments lead to the prediction that it is likely that there are no major gender
differences in lying. On the one hand, Pareto white lies – at least those studied in previous
literature and reported in this paper – are both socially efficient and egalitarian. Thus, the
Andreoni and Vesterlund’s (2001) finding mentioned above suggests that females and males
might be equally motivated to tell Pareto white lies.

Capraro (2018) mentions that an alternative argument descends from considerations about the
morality of lying. According to deontological ethics, an action is morally good if it
instantiates certain rules or ethical norms, regardless of the consequences, and is morally bad
if it violates them. Telling the truth when lying is beneficial to all parties involved is thus a
typically deontological choice, as it corresponds to following the rule “don’t lie”, regardless
of consequences. Therefore, the question whether there are gender differences in telling
Pareto white lies can be seen as a particular specification of the more general question of
whether there are gender differences in deontological moral judgments. Previous research
suggests that females are more deontological than males, but only in moral dilemmas that
involve directly harming others for the greater good (Capraro&Sippel, 2017; Fumagalli et al,
2010; Friesdorf et al, 2015). Since lying in a Pareto white lie condition does not involve
direct harm to others, also this argument suggests that it is likely that there are no major
gender differences in telling Pareto white lies.

A few studies attempted to test whether men lie equally often as women. Most studies found
no gender differences in frequency of lying. Two such researches were done by DePaulo,
Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, Epstein (1996); and by Feldman, Forrest, Happ (2002).

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Tyler & Feldman (2004) also found in their research “that both men and women are equally
prone to try to manage their appearance. However, they also found some gender differences
with respect to lying. The mention that it seems women lied more often than men during non-
anonymous conversations, but only when expecting future interactions”.

Dreber A, Johannesson M (2008) found that “when interactions are fully anonymous and
deceptive messages can secure a monetary benefit, men are significantly more likely to lie
than women”.

Ross & Holmberg (1990) as also Tooke &Camire (1991) found that “men are particularly
likely to lie about their abilities and to exaggerate their personal characteristics and past
experiences”.

DePaulo, Epstein, Wyer (1993) found that “women may lie more to promote intimacy, and
their lies are intended to make other people feel better about themselves”.

DePaulo et al. (1996) mentions that “to learn whether women lie more or less than men, and
whether the kind of lying that occurs when women are with other women differs from that
which occurs when men are involved, it is essential to know whether women have the same
number of opportunities to lie to men and women as do men. Every social interaction is an
opportunity to tell a lie, and it has been amply demonstrated that rates of socializing differ
markedly in different kinds of dyads and groups”.

Dreber and Johannesson (2008) found that males lie more than females, at least in the domain
of black lies, that is, lies that benefit the liar at a cost for another person. This result was
successfully replicated in some studies (Friesen &Gangadharan, 2012; Capraro, Schulz &
Rand, 2018) but not in others (Childs, 2012; Capraro&Peltola, 2018), which found no gender
differences in the context of black lies.

Erat and Gneezy (2012) observed that the sign of gender differences in lying might depend
on the consequences of the lie: they found that males lie more than females in the context of
Pareto white lies (lies that benefit both the liar and another person), but females lie more than
males in the context of altruistic white lies (lies that benefit another person at a cost for the
liar). However, the former result was not replicated by Cappelen et al. (2013), who found no
gender differences in the context of Pareto white lies; and the latter result was not replicated

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by Biziou-van-Pol et al (2015), who, in fact, found the opposite, that males tell more altruistic
white lies than females.

Studies support the popular perception that women are more emotional beings. They self-
disclose more (Dindia& Allen, 1992).”They also are warmer nonverbally; they smile and
gaze more at their listeners, approach others more closely, and touch others more, and their
facial expressions are especially expressive and legible (Hall, 1984; see also DePaulo, 1992,
for a self-presentational interpretation). It has been argued that many sex differences can be
attributed to the differential distribution of men and women into different social roles and that
when men and women occupy the same roles, they will behave similarly” (Eagly, 1987).

In a study in which men and women talked about paintings that they detested with the art
students who had painted them, women were more likely than men to lie about their opinions
of the paintings (DePaulo & Bell, 1993). They were not, however, any more inclined than
men to communicate untruthfully when the paintings were ones that they liked or when the
paintings were ones that were created by other artists. The pattern of deceit in this study
suggested that the women's lying may have been motivated by their concern for the artists;
they seemed to be lying to avoid criticizing the artists and hurting their feelings.

DePaulo, Epstein, and Wyer (1993) suggested the “possibility that one of the ways that
women foster intimacy and supportiveness in their interactions with others is by telling lies.
The specific prediction is that women, relative to men, tell more of the kinds of lies that are
intended to benefit other people, lies that are flattering, comforting, and protective”.

DePaulo and Kashy (1998) found that women told as many other-oriented lies as self-
centered ones in dyads of women but not mixed-sex dyads. There is also evidence that
women lie more when they expect to meet someone again in the future (Tyler & Feldman,
2004). Men are more likely to lie to secure a small financial gain (Dreber&Johannesson,
2008); however this finding is eliminated when the stakes are raised (Childs, 2012).

Overall, while it is helpful to understand individual differences like childhood upbringing and
gender, it may be even more beneficial to look at personality differences in lying motives.
Women are believed to be “socioemotional specialists” (DePaulo et al., 1996). Women
provide more emotional support to others and self-disclose more than men (Dindia& Allen,
1992). They demonstrate warmer nonverbal behaviors by smiling, making good eye contact,

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touching others more often, and using animated and legible facial expressions (DePaulo,
1992).

However, it has been suggested that one of the ways women foster intimacy and
supportiveness in their interactions with others is by telling lies (DePaulo, Epstein, &Wyer,
1993).

DePaulo et al. (1996) “conducted two self-report studies: one on college students and one on
community members. In the college study, women told significantly fewer self-centered lies
than did men and significantly more other oriented/altruistic lies. The sex of the targets of the
lies was especially noteworthy. In both studies, participants told significantly more self-
centered lies and fewer other-oriented lies to men than to women. Although men do not tell
as many other-oriented lies to women as other women do, or as few self-centered ones, they
do tell more other-oriented lies and fewer self-centered lies to women than they do to men. In
both of the studies, participants believed that the women they lied to, more so than the men,
would have felt even worse if the truth had been told”.

Culture & Lies

Paradise (1994) states that “culture plays an important role in nonverbal communication, and
it is one aspect that helps to influence how learning activities are organized. In many
Indigenous American Communities, for example, there is often an emphasis on nonverbal
communication, which acts as a valued means by which children learn. In this sense, learning
is not dependent on verbal communication; rather, it is nonverbal communication which
serves as a primary means of not only organizing interpersonal interactions, but also
conveying cultural values, and children learn how to participate in this system from a young
age”.

Driskell et al. (2012) state that “cultures designate whatemotions are appropriate, sanctioned,
or punished if displayed; how such displays should appear; and the consequences of their
display. This designation of social signals during deception has received considerable
scholarly attention”.

Halevy, Shalvi, &Verschuere (2014); Hall, Park, Song, & Cody (2010) mention that
important individual differences exist in people's inclinations to lie.Individual differences
exist in general lying propensity. Further, Baughman, Jonason, Lyons, & Vernon (2014);

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McLeod &Genereux (2008) show in their researches that the relationships between individual
differences and lying behavior also vary across contexts.

Hall (2005) mentions that cultural norms are “social rules for what certain types of people
should and should not do”. For example, the social rules governing students’ behaviors when
approached by their teacher in the classroom in the United States compared with in China or
in are not alike (Chang, 2015).

Chang (2015) writes that “different cultures might have different norms for nonverbal
behaviors in specific social, relational, and geographical contexts (see, e.g.,
Dibiase&Gunnoe, 2004; McDaniel & Andersen, 1998; Remlanda, Jones, & Brinkman, 1995).
What this implies is that cultural norms are embedded in daily interactions and, through
observing and describing patterns of nonverbal communication in everyday life, we can
expect to identify the underlying cultural norms that govern those behaviors and show ways
they impact our everyday life”.

Chang (2005) “mentions that cultural norms also function as symbolic resources that
members draw upon to regulate others’ behaviors and make judgments. In this way, cultural
norms help create order in a community. Cultural norms are also influenced by nonverbal
communication: they can be perpetuated, modified, or transformed by the latter. Cultural
changes are shown through the changed attitudes or responses members have toward certain
nonverbal behaviors”.

Hall (2005) mentions that not all cultural norms are equally important in a community. The
importance of a norm can be measured by two factors: consensus and intensity. Consensus
shows how many people in a community agree upon the norm, whereas intensity tells how
much the community cares about it or feels strongly enough about it that negative sanctions
are called forth and appropriate for any violations of it. Thus, cultural norms provide
community members guidelines for behaving competently (Wiseman, 2003).

The above researches clearly show the importance of personality, gender and culture in
communication process. The present study aims at finding their impact on lying behaviour
and also how people with different personalities (extroverts and introverts), gender (males
and females), and locale (living in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas) differ while
lying and the interaction of these variables with each other.

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Thus, it can be concluded that the discussion of related literature has developed a deep insight
into the area of research. The above studied literature helped the researcher in deciding the
methodology, sample and tool for the present study. In this way, by discussing related
literature with reference to conceptual and methodological backgrounds the present study has
been designed. Research design along with the methodological details has been presented in
the next chapter.

Our research aims at reviewing the expression of lies through channels of body language, and
voice. The research aims to check their applicability in the Indian context and also aims to
study the difference in expression of lies in relation to personality type (introverts and
extroverts), gender (males and females) and locale (people who belong to metropolitan areas
and non-metropolitan areas).

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