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DOI: 10.1177/0146167200261011
2000 26: 118 Pers Soc Psychol Bull
James A. Forrest and Robert S. Feldman
Detecting Deception and Judge's Involvement: Lower Task Involvement Leads to Better Lie Detection

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PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Forrest, Feldman / DETECTING DECEPTION
Detecting Deception and Judges
Involvement: Lower Task
Involvement Leads to Better Lie Detection
James A. Forrest
Robert S. Feldman
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Videotaped samples of target individuals making honest or dis-
honest statements were shown to 66 male and female partici-
pants who judged each sample in terms of honesty. The partici-
pants were either highly involved inthe judging task or relatively
uninvolved. It was assumed that highly involved participants
would engage in central route processing and therefore attend
more to the verbal message, whereas less-involved participants
would engage in peripheral route processing and therefore
attend more to the nonverbal behavior of the targets. Because
nonverbal cues are most indicative of deception, it was hypothe-
sizedand foundthat low-involvement participants would
be more accurate at detecting deception than would high-
involvement participants. Furthermore, gender differences and
support for a motivational impairment effect were found, in
which lies told by people who were highly motivated to lie success-
fully were more easily detected.
A significant body of research has examined the
degree to which people are able to identify deceptive
messages emanating from a target person (DePaulo,
1994; Feldman & Rim, 1991). For instance, Kraut
(1980) found that people are able to differentiate cor-
rectly between honest and dishonest statements about
60% of the time, not terribly impressive in light of
chance being 50%. Other research finds that although
members of particular groups, suchas U.S. Secret Service
agents, show relatively greater success at detecting
deception (Ekman & OSullivan, 1991), the accuracy of
most groups at distinguishing betweenpeople being hon-
est and dishonest is not much better than chance levels.
Much of the research examining the ability to detect
deception has focused on demographic and personality
factors, with limited success. For example, Keating and
Heltman (1994) hypothesized that being a good deceiver
might be one way in which highly dominant people
achieve social power, but they found no relationship
between dominance and the ability to detect deception.
DePaulo and Tang (1994) found that socially anxious
people are worse at detecting deception than are
nonsocially anxious individuals. Gender differences
also have been investigated, and women have been
found to be better than men at detecting peoples actual
affective state (Ekman, 1985) and better at decoding
nonverbal behaviors (Zuckerman, Lipets, Koivumaki, &
Rosenthal, 1975). Although a greater ability to decode
nonverbal behaviors could translate into greater ability
to detect deception, a meta-analysis of the literature
found no significant differences between men and
women in detecting deception (DePaulo, Epstein, &
Wyer, 1993).
Other studies suggest that the most accurate judges in
detecting deception are those who pay attention to the
nonverbal behaviors of communicators because nonver-
bal behaviors are more predictive of deception than are
other types of behavior (DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter,
1985a; Ekman&OSullivan, 1991; Zuckerman, DePaulo, &
Rosenthal, 1981; Zuckerman & Driver, 1985). Specifi-
cally, DePaulo et al. (1985a) showed, through meta-
analyses of deceptionstudies, that various cues are relia-
bly associated with deception. For example, speech
Authors Note: This material is based on work supported under a Na-
tional Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship and the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Office of Minority Graduate Student
Recruitment to the first author. Correspondence concerning this arti-
cle shouldbe addressedtoJames A. Forrest or Robert S. Feldmanat the
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
01003; e-mail: jforrest@medusa.sbs.umass.edu or feldman@psych.
umass.edu.
PSPB, Vol. 26 No. 1, January 2000 118-125
2000 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
118
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hesitation, pitch, and speech errors are cues that predict
deception.
Despite the existence of a large body of research on
nonverbal cues and deception, relatively little research
has focused on theoretical explanations for the
processes that underlie the ability to successfully detect
deception. Consequently, it is useful to turn to broader
domains of interpersonal communication to develop a
better theoretical understanding of deception. Specifi-
cally, the literature on persuasion, which involves con-
vincing a target to accept a message, seems relevant to
situations in which communicators are attempting to
convince a target that their message is true.
One theoretical approach from the persuasion litera-
ture that is particularly relevant to the deception litera-
ture is the ElaborationLikelihoodModel (ELM) of Petty
and Cacioppo (1981, 1986). This model suggests that
people who are highly involved in a judgment task will
use what Petty and Cacioppo refer to as central informa-
tion processing. While using central processing, people
rely ona rational process inwhichthey attendto the con-
tent of what is being said, seek to understand it, and
make an evaluation of the message. Petty and Cacioppo
(1986) also suggest that there is a second processing
route that people might use when encountering a per-
suasive message: peripheral information processing. In
peripheral processing, people pay attention to periph-
eral cues, which are factorssuch as a speakers nonver-
bal behavior or demeanorthat are not related to the
central arguments of the message.
In a study that provides some evidence for associating
peripheral processing with nonverbal cues and central
processing with verbal cues, Stiff et al. (1989) found that
people engaging in systematic processing only pay atten-
tion to verbal cues when judging deception, whereas
people using peripheral processing pay attention to
both visual and (to some extent) verbal cues. Given that
the cues that are most predictive of deception are non-
verbal cues, whichmay be unrelatedtothe central merits
of a persuasive appeal, the ELM leads to an interesting
possibility: Increases in personal involvement, which
lead to central route processing, might lead to worse
identification of deception. In contrast, lower degrees of
involvement, in which processing follows the peripheral
route, might lead to better identification of deception.
In sum, by combining the ELM framework and the
researchoncues to deception, several hypotheses canbe
suggested concerning motivation to scrutinize and its
effect on the accuracy of detecting deception: (a) when
using the central route, people attend to what a target
person is saying and then make an assessment about the
veracity of that message and (b) when using the periph-
eral route, people attendmore to peripheral cues, which
include the nonverbal cues associated with deception.
Consequently, when judging a message for sincerity, it is
reasonable to assume that people who use different
routes for message processing will attribute deception in
different ways. Specifically, people using the central
route will presumably attend more to the verbal compo-
nents of a message, which are relatively poor indicators
of deception (DePaulo et al., 1985a). In contrast, people
engaged in peripheral route processing might attend
less to the relatively uninformative verbal aspects of a
message and more to its nonverbal aspects and conse-
quently be better detectors of deception. In short, high
motivation to scrutinize a message may actually lead to
less success at detection than low motivation to scruti-
nize a message.
Inthis study, we manipulatedthe motivationof decep-
tion detectors to vary central and peripheral processing.
It was expected that judges who were highly motivated to
scrutinize a message would engage in central processing
and consequently would be less likely to use the more
informative nonverbal cues to deception, focusing
instead on the verbal message. In contrast, less-
motivated judges were expected to engage in peripheral
processing andconsequently wouldbe more likely touse
nonverbal cues. In short, it was predicted that the less
motivated lie detectors were, the more accurate they
would be in distinguishing honest from dishonest
statements.
Several other aspects of lie detection also were investi-
gated in this study. Previous research suggests that peo-
ple who are highly motivated to deceive (because decep-
tive ability is viewed as either a mark of competence or
seems highly relevant for some other reason) are less suc-
cessful at deceiving than are people who are less moti-
vated (DePaulo &Kirkendol, 1988; DePaulo, Kirkendol,
Tang, & OBrien, 1988). Furthermore, although meta-
analyses showno difference betweenmenand womenin
their ability to detect deception (DePaulo et al., 1993),
DePaulo, Stone, and Lassiter (1985b) suggest that in
some situations, female targets might be more motivated
to appear sincere than males and thus tell lies that are
more discernible.
To summarize, this study manipulates judges involve-
ment in the task to investigate the underlying processes
relatedtodetecting deception. Target motivation, target
sex, and judge sex also were investigated as possible fac-
tors in determining accuracy at detecting deception.
Assuming that highly involved people primarily attend
to the verbal aspects of a deceptive message and that
less-involved people primarily attend to the nonverbal
aspects of a deceptive message, we hypothesized that
judges in the high-involvement condition would be less
successful at differentiating between honest and dishon-
est statements than would judges in the low-involvement
condition.
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METHOD
Overview
In the first part of the study, the procedure used by
DePaulo et al. (1988) was replicated to create videotapes
of people being deceptive or honest. Undergraduate
participants (targets) were asked to present certain atti-
tudes to their partners, who supposedly were behind a
one-way mirror. The target persons motivation was
manipulated by instructions that described the ability to
make favorable impressions as related(highmotivation)
or not related (low motivation) to achievement in social
life, professions, and school. The targets were given four
issues to talk about and were instructed to give proattitu-
dinal arguments for two of those issues (honest condi-
tion) and counterattitudinal arguments for the other
two issues (dishonest condition).
In the second part of the study, judges watched video-
tape samples of the messages provided by the targets and
judged each message in terms of the targets perceived
sincerity. Judge involvement was manipulated by a
method similar to that used by Chaiken(1980), who told
judges that after the tape was viewed, questions would be
asked about the messages on the tape (high involve-
ment) or about different messages that were not on the
tape (low involvement). Judges rated each message in
terms of the perceived sincerity of the target person.
Targets
Twenty-four University of Massachusetts at Amherst
introductory psychology students (12 men, 12 women)
received experimental credits for their participation.
Two individuals who did not consent to the use of their
taped interviews were excluded, as were six individuals
who did not follow instructions. Furthermore, because
Zebrowitz, Voinescu, and Collins (1996) found a rela-
tionship between attractiveness and perceived honesty,
the 16 remaining targets (8 mean, 8 women) were rated
for attractiveness. Twenty graduate and undergraduate
students rated each target person on a 7-point scale
anchored at very attractive and very unattractive to screen
out individuals who differed significantly from the
norm. No target person was rated above or below 2 stan-
dard deviations from the mean, so all of them were
employed.
Encoding Procedure
Targets were run one at a time and were told, The
study consisted of peoples ability to make impressions
onothers indifferent situations. First, the target person
was told that the other participant had not arrived yet
but in the meantime he or she could fill out a question-
naire. While waiting for the other participant (who was
fictitious), the target person was asked if he or she
agreed or disagreed with each of the four attitude state-
ments. The statements were as follows: (a) The death
penalty should be instituted in all states; (b) There is too
much violence on television; (c) Nuclear power plants
are not very safe; and (d) The government should put
further restrictions on immigration. These four attitude
statements were selected from a larger pool of state-
ments onthe basis of the following criteria: (a) the mean
attitude rating for each item was close to the midpoint,
(b) the items were not intercorrelated, and(c) most peo-
ple did not regard the issue described in the items as
very important or very unimportant.
After 2 minutes, the experimenter collected the ques-
tionnaire and handed out a set of instructions. The tar-
get person read the instructions, which explained that
the aim of the study was to examine the ability to make
impressions on others in difficult circumstances. The
target persons motivation to make a good impression
was manipulated by varying the characterization of the
ability to make impressions. In a high-motivation condi-
tion, targets were told that the ability represented an
extremely important skill . . . [which] predicts very well
success in professions such as business, counseling, and
health. . . the ability to make andmaintainfriends . . . and
intelligen[ce] in a way that is not measured by the con-
ventional IQ tests. In a low-motivation condition, tar-
gets were told that the present study is not concerned
with determining who is and is not skilled at impression-
management but instead focuses on the process by
which impressions are created. The experimenter was
blind to this manipulation.
While the target person read the instructions, the
experimenter prepared four envelopes, labeled 1
through 4, each of which contained instructions for one
of the issues. Each instruction form indicated the tar-
gets own position, the partners alleged position, and
the position that the target should convey on the video-
tape. The partners position was manipulated to be the
same as the targets position on half of the statements
andopposite tothe targets positiononthe other half. In
addition, each target was asked to convey his or her true
position on two of the issues and a false position on the
other two issues. Consequently, each target conveyed
two honest messages and two dishonest messages. The
order of the issues, and the order of the type of message
(honest/dishonest), was randomly assigned to each tar-
get person.
Whenthe experimenter returned, eachtarget person
was told that during the session, he or she would have to
open one envelope, read the instructions, think about
what tosay, andpresent a positiononeachof the attitude
statements. This procedure was followed until all the
envelopes were opened and all four attitude statements
were addressed. After each target person was finished
120 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
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with all four attitude messages, he or she was debriefed
and consent was obtained to use the videotapes for
future research.
Preparation of Stimulus Materials
The videotapes from the first part of the study, con-
taining the honest and deceptive messages, were edited
onto a master tape. That tape was approximately 26 min-
utes long and consisted of 64 clips, each lasting approxi-
mately 15 seconds with a 10-second delay between each
clip. Each of the eight male and eight female targets
appeared four times on the tape, being honest half the
time and dishonest the rest of the time. Also, half of the
targets on the tape were in the high-motivation condi-
tion and the other half were in the low-motivation condi-
tion. The clips were arranged in a random order.
Participants
The participants, who acted as judges, were 66 stu-
dents enrolled in introductory psychology classes. In
those classes, persuasion and deception were discussed
superficially, if at all. Participants were recruited to
watch the videotape and rate how honest each of the tar-
gets seemed. For their participation, the judges received
class extra credit. Four of the judges did not complete
the study or did not follow instructions, and 2 judges
were excluded from the final sample because their first
language was not English.
Judging Procedure
Each judge was given written instructions that
included the four issues that the targets would address
and the involvement manipulation. The instructions
stated that the targets might sometimes try to give a false
impression, sometimes being dishonest and sometimes
being honest. Judges were told that they should evaluate
how sincere each target seemed after each statement.
Furthermore, the instructions also introduced the
involvement manipulation. In the high-involvement
condition, the judges were toldthat after completing the
first task (i.e., the evaluation of target sincerity), they
would be asked some questions concerning the argu-
ments presented in the video and that the successful
completion of the task was associated with intelligence
and good social skills. Judges in the low-involvement
condition were told that after viewing the tape, they
would be asked questions regarding their thoughts
about several issues different fromthose discussed inthe
tapes and that the task was not aimed at assessing intelli-
gence or abilities but at evaluating what people thought
about the issues.
After the judges read the instructions, the videotaped
clips were presented. The judges rated each of the 64
clips on a 7-point scale anchored at very insincere (1) and
very sincere (7). To simplify the task, focus the judges
attention, andreduce tedium(sothat judges inall condi-
tions would attend fully to the rating task), the judges
were asked to make only one rating per clip. After the
final clip was shown, a manipulation check was adminis-
tered where the judges were asked how important the
issues presented were to them on the videotape on a
7-point scale ranging from not very important (1) to very
important (7), along with some filler questions. Subse-
quently, judges were debriefed.
Manipulation Check
Ratings of issue importance by judges inthe high- and
low-involvement conditions were significantly different,
t(38) = 2.08, p < .05. As expected, judges assigned to the
high-involvement condition regarded the issues on the
tapes as more important (M = 3.81) than did those
judges assigned to the low-involvement condition (M =
3.05). These ratings were below the midpoint of the
scale, suggesting that people in general did not consider
these issues as not very important tothem. Furthermore,
menandwomendidnot differ intheir judgments of task
importance and there was no interaction between sex
and involvement condition on the manipulation check
measure.
RESULTS
Differentiating Honest
and Dishonest Statements
The data were analyzed using a 2 (judges involve-
ment: low/high) 2 (judges sex) 2 (targets motiva-
tion: low/high) 2 (targets sex) 2 (type of message:
honest/dishonest) mixed-design analysis of variance.
Judge involvement and judge sex were between-
participants factors, and target motivation, target sex,
and message type were within-participants factors. The
dependent measure was judges sincerity ratings, where
a higher score indicated that the message seemed more
sincere, and the judges were the unit of analysis.
Previous researchhas shownthat people candifferen-
tiate honest from dishonest statements at a level better
than chance (e.g., DePaulo & Rosenthal, 1979), and a
significant maineffect for type of message replicatedthis
finding. Overall, honest statements were rated as signifi-
cantly more sincere (M= 4.52) thanwere dishonest state-
ments (M = 4.14), F(1, 56) = 57.27, p < .0001. There was
also a slight positivity bias in the ratings of sincerity,
where both honest and dishonest statements were rated
higher than the midpoint of the scale.
Effects of Judges Involvement
We predicted that judges involvement would be
related to their accuracy at differentiating between hon-
Forrest, Feldman / DETECTING DECEPTION 121
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est and dishonest statements. This hypothesis was sup-
ported. The Judge Involvement Type of Message inter-
action, which tests the hypothesis, was significant, F(1,
56) = 4.14, p < .05.
As Figure 1 shows, the difference between the ratings
for honest and dishonest statements made by the judges
in the low-involvement condition was significantly
greater than the difference between the ratings of hon-
est and dishonest statements by judges in the high-
involvement condition. Judges in the low-involvement
conditionwere very successful at distinguishing between
honest anddishonest statements, rating the honest state-
ments as more sincere (M = 4.60) than the dishonest
statements (M = 4.11). Although judges in the high-
involvement condition also rated honest statements as
more sincere (M= 4.45) than dishonest statements (M=
4.17), they did so to a smaller degree than judges in the
low-involvement condition. A post hoc WSD Tukey test
revealedthat the difference betweenthe meanratings of
honest and dishonest statements by high-involvement
judges was not significant WSD(29) = 2.76, p = ns, MSE =
.31. This test also revealed that participants in the low-
involvement condition rated the honest statements as
significantly more sincere than the dishonest state-
ments, WSD = 4.82, p < .01, MSE = .31 (see Figure 1).
Differential Detection of Deception:
Target Motivation Effects and Sex
The interaction between Target Motivation Type of
Message was marginally significant. Judges differenti-
ated between the honest and the dishonest statements
more when targets were in the high-motivation condi-
tion (honest = 4.46, dishonest = 3.99) rather than the
low-motivation condition (honest = 4.58, dishonest =
4.28), F(1, 56) = 3.77, p < .06. The Target Sex Type of
Message interaction was significant, F(1, 56) = 79.96, p <
.0001. Judges distinguished between females honest
and dishonest statements (M = 4.8 honest, 3.9 dishon-
est), whereas honest and dishonest statements by males
were not distinguished from each other (M = 4.25 hon-
est, 4.34 dishonest). The Judge Sex Type of Message
interaction also was significant; women were better at
distinguishing betweenhonest anddishonest statements
(M = 4.57, honest; M = 4.07 dishonest) than were men
(M= 4.48, honest; M= 4.20, dishonest), F(1, 56) = 4.39, p <
.05. Althoughit was not predicted, there was a significant
main effect for target motivation. Targets in the low-
motivation condition were rated as significantly more
sincere (M = 4.43) than targets in the high-motivation
condition(M= 4.23), F(1, 56) = 12.02, p < .05. This differ-
ence could be due to highly motivated targets being
more anxious during the task and therefore seeming
more deceptive.
Sex Differences in
Perceptions of Sincerity
In addition, there was a significant Target Sex Tar-
get Motivation interaction, F(1, 56) = 73.12, p < .001,
where target women in the low-motivation condition
were ratedas more sincere (M= 4.76) thantarget women
in the high-motivation condition (M = 3.98) regardless
of the type of message (honest/dishonest). Men, in con-
trast, showed the reverse pattern. Target men in the
high-motivation condition were rated as more sincere
(M = 4.48) than target men in the low-motivation condi-
tion (M = 4.11). Finally, a three-way interaction between
judge Sex, judge involvement, and target sex was found,
F(1, 56) = 4.62, p < .05. Female judges in both the high-
and low-involvement conditions rated female targets as
more sincere than male targets. Male judges in the high-
involvement condition rated male targets as more sin-
cere than female targets, but male judges in the low-
involvement condition rated female targets as more sin-
cere than male targets (see Table 1 for a review of the
means for all findings).
DISCUSSION
The results of this study provide initial evidence that
the degree of involvement inthe task of deceptiondetec-
tion, and consequently the level of cognitive processing
used, plays an important part in the ability to detect
deception. Specifically, judges who were highly involved,
and who therefore presumably employed central route
processing and attended primarily to the verbal mes-
sage, were less effective at differentiating between hon-
est and dishonest statements. In contrast, less-involved
122 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Figure 1 Judges ratings of perceived sincerity as a function of in-
volvement and the type of message presented.
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judges, who were presumably using peripheral process-
ing and attending more to nonverbal cues, were more
effective at differentiating between honest and dishon-
est statements.
Other results of this study replicated DePaulo and
Kirkendols (1988) finding of a motivational impair-
ment effect. Judges were better able to detect deception
when the deceptive messages came from people who
were highly motivated not to be caught (high motiva-
tion). We alsofoundthat womenwere better at detecting
deception than men, perhaps due to womens ability to
decode emotions using nonverbal cues more accurately
than men (Ekman, 1985). However, men were better at
deceiving than were women. Finally, targets with high
motivation, regardless if they were being honest or dis-
honest, were, in general, rated as less sincere than those
with lower motivation, possibly because the former tar-
gets were more anxious during the encoding procedure
than were the latter targets.
These results may be interpreted taking into account
Ekmans (1985) suggestion that the detection of decep-
tion is a two-step process. First, a lie detector must iden-
tify the cues that predict deception, and second, he or
she must interpret those cues correctly. The results of
this study suggest that a persons involvement in the lie
detection task may play a crucial role in the first step,
when the cues that will ultimately be used to judge the
honesty of a message are identified. Specifically, people
who attend to the central cues in a message (i.e., the ver-
bal content) are less effective at distinguishing between
honest anddishonest statements thanare people whodo
not pay attention to the central cues. As our study shows,
highly involved people, who presumably were using cen-
tral route processing, were unable to differentiate sig-
nificantly between honest and dishonest statements.
This inadequacy suggests that highly involvedpeople did
not identify the most revealing cues to deception (i.e.,
nonverbal cues) because they were paying more atten-
tion to the central arguments, thereby hindering the
process of lie detection.
Although it could be argued that our high-
involvement manipulation may have shifted the judges
focus of attention toward the verbal portion of the mes-
sage rather than to the use of central route processing,
this appears unlikely. Prior research (DePaulo, Lassiter, &
Stone, 1982) showed no difference in accuracy between
judges who were told to focus on the words rather than
the visual cues. Because simply focusing attention on the
words in a deceptive message is insufficient to increase
judges accuracy at detection deception, it appears more
likely that high-involvement judges were engagedincen-
tral route processing.
It is not clear from the results of this study, however,
what the people in the low-involvement condition were
monitoring. We assume from our theoretical analysis
that people in the low-involvement condition were
attending more to nonverbal behaviors, which are most
closely associated with deception. As a result, these
judges were better able to identify the cues associated
with deception and thus had a greater probability of
interpreting at least some cues correctly.
The results of our study permit reinterpretationof the
results of earlier research in which the suspiciousness of
judges was manipulated. For instance, Toris and
DePaulo (1985) hypothesized that people who are suspi-
cious of others will attend to cues they believe are related
to deception because those cues are harder to control.
But contrary to their hypothesis, the researchers found
that people who suspected deception in others were not
better at detecting deception than those who were not
suspicious. Toris and DePaulo (1985) concluded that
suspiciousness destroyed the judges confidence in their
interpersonal skills and decreased judges confidence in
the target person.
In another study (Zuckerman, Spiegel, DePaulo, &
Rosenthal, 1982), judges were shown videotapes of face
or body cues paired with audio cues. The cues on the
tapes were dramatizations of four affective conditions
that varied along two dimensions: positive-negative and
dominant-submissive. There were also four suspicious-
ness conditions, inwhichjudges were either toldthat the
persononthe tape never lied, sometimes lied, very often
lied, or were told nothing about lying. Zuckerman et al.
(1982) found that as peoples suspiciousness increased,
they became less accurate at decoding the true affective
state of the target, especially whenit involvedfacial cues.
Forrest, Feldman / DETECTING DECEPTION 123
TABLE 1: Mean Sincerity Ratings Table for All Cells
Female Judges Male Judges
Low High Low High
Involvement Involvement Involvement Involvement
Female targets
Low motivation
Honest 4.56 (.70) 4.37 (.62) 4.60 (.61) 4.34 (.81)
Dishonest 3.25 (.46) 3.45 (.77) 3.65 (.80) 3.57 (1.11)
High motivation
Honest 5.22 (.70) 5.28 (.62) 5.21 (.90) 4.80 (.83)
Dishonest 4.23 (.87) 4.46 (.95) 4.58 (.90) 4.27 (1.02)
Male targets
Low motivation
Honest 4.67 (.74) 4.48 (.70) 4.43 (.76) 4.24 (.60)
Dishonest 4.39 (.70) 4.55 (.78) 4.47 (.71) 4.58 (.54)
Male targets
High motivation
Honest 4.10 (.55) 3.83 (.83) 3.98 (1.08) 4.25 (.65)
Dishonest 4.08 (.72) 4.16 (.74) 4.21 (.76) 4.29 (.66)
NOTE: N = 15 in all cells. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Higher scores indicate that the targets were judgedtobe more sincere.
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However, the results of the Toris and DePaulo (1985)
and Zuckerman et al. (1982) studies can be viewed dif-
ferently in light of our results. When judges are primed
to suspect deception, the task of detecting it becomes
more personally relevant and more motivated. Fein
(1996) argued that suspicion may produce thinking that
is active and sophisticated, and he shows that suspicious
people, when making an inference, are less susceptible
to a correspondence bias than people who are not suspi-
cious. In the case of deception, suspiciousness might, in
some cases, increase peoples active and systematic
thinking. If suspiciousness increases the likelihood of
systematic processing, then attention to the verbal
aspects of a message would increase. Because verbal cues
are less revealing of deception than are nonverbal cues,
we might expect the ability to differentiate betweenhon-
est and dishonest statements to decrease when people
are suspicious, a possibility that would help explain the
results of Toris and DePaulo (1985) and Zuckerman et
al. (1982).
The difference in accuracy between our high- and
low-involvement conditions also attests to the feasibility
of teaching people strategies for becoming better at dis-
tinguishing between honest and dishonest statements.
Past attempts to teach deception detection have been
moderately successful, but the main focus has been to
give feedback about the honesty or dishonesty of a spe-
cific message (Zuckerman, Koestner, & Alton, 1984).
Judges accuracy at detecting deception increased only
when they judged targets for whom feedback was pro-
vided. Increases inaccuracy didnot generalize across dif-
ferent targets. The results of our study suggest an alter-
nate approach. Participants who used peripheral
processing were at an advantage when distinguishing
between honest and dishonest statements. Different
processing styles could be studied empirically to deter-
mine their effect on the accuracy of deception
detection.
Our study replicated the motivational impairment
effect found by DePaulo et al. (1988), in which judges
more easily distinguished honest and dishonest mes-
sages from targets who were highly aroused (high moti-
vation). In addition, targets in our high-motivation con-
dition were rated as lower in sincerity than targets in the
low-motivation condition. This finding suggests that the
judges perceived more anxiety among the targets from
the high-motivation condition, which translated into
judgments of insincerity, regardless of whether the com-
municators were truthful or deceptive.
Because this study represents an initial attempt to
understand the effects of a judges involvement on the
detection of deception, it is important to point out cer-
tain limitations that should be addressed in subsequent
research. Investigating different strategies of expert lie
detectors, suchas police detectives andcustoms officials,
versus non-expert individuals might be useful (Vrij &
Semin, 1996). Second, research should examine what
channels (verbal, visual, audio, or audiovisual) and spe-
cific behaviors (gaze or eye blinking) people in the low-
involvement condition are attending tosomething
that we were not able to assess in this study. Presumably,
people inthe low-involvement conditionattendedto the
visual and audiovisual nonverbal channels to a greater
extent than did more highly involved people; future
research should consider this question.
By investigating different strategies used by people in
detecting deception, a deeper understanding of the
processes governing these judgments is likely to be
gained. From previous research, we know that peoples
involvement promotes different processing styles in that
people pay attention to either the central or peripheral
aspects of a message. This study provides initial evidence
that attention to peripheral cues increases the accuracy
of peoples judgments in distinguishing between honest
and dishonest statements. Clearly, the next step is to
examine the actual strategies used by people who are
seeking to distinguish the truth from lies under condi-
tions of low and high involvement.
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Received August 18, 1997
Revision accepted October 5, 1998
Forrest, Feldman / DETECTING DECEPTION 125
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