Date

11-13-2024

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Chair

Tamra Rasberry

Keywords

deception, high-stakes, nonverbal, baseline, confession

Disciplines

Communication | Psychology

Abstract

Decades of low-stakes deception research, in which participants lied without risk of severe personal, professional, or legal consequences, has produced few reliable deception cues. As a result, deception detection approaches relying on low-stakes findings have limited accuracy. This mixed-methods study addressed the problem by describing cues performed during real-world, high-stakes (RWHS) deception and calculating cue performance differences between conditions. The study’s ABA-type design analyzed videos of subjects during baseline, deception, and confession, which produced the most ecologically valid descriptions of nonverbal (NV) behaviors before, during, and after deception. The qualitative study revealed multiple behavior changes that occurred between conditions: baseline produced the most-active behavior, deception produced the most-changed behavior, and confession produced the most-subdued behavior. The quantitative study revealed significant behavior differences, as well, such that subjects performed more cues per second during baseline, added more exclusive behaviors during deception, and stopped more behaviors during confession. Significant correlations between cues were noted, and significant cue performances during baseline and deception were also found. The results laid a solid foundation for future deception research and represented a large leap forward in the search for reliable deception cues.

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