Individual differences in judging deception: accuracy and bias.

Full Abstract

The authors report a meta-analysis of individual differences in detecting deception, confining attention to occasions when people judge strangers' veracity in real-time with no special aids. The authors have developed a statistical technique to correct nominal individual differences for differences introduced by random measurement error. Although researchers have suggested that people differ in the ability to detect lies, psychometric analyses of 247 samples reveal that these ability differences are minute. In terms of the percentage of lies detected, measurement-corrected standard deviations in judge ability are less than 1%. In accuracy, judges range no more widely than would be expected by chance, and the best judges are no more accurate than a stochastic mechanism would produce. When judging deception, people differ less in ability than in the inclination to regard others' statements as truthful. People also differ from one another as lie- and truth-tellers. They vary in the detectability of their lies. Moreover, some people are more credible than others whether lying or truth-telling. Results reveal that the outcome of a deception judgment depends more on the liar's credibility than any other individual difference.PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA

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Author information

Author/s: Bond, Charles F (CF); Depaulo, Bella M (BM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University, TX, USA. cbond53(-atsign-)yahoo.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Meta-Analysis

Journal: Psychological bulletin (Psychol Bull), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jul; vol 134 (issue 4) : pp 477-92

Dates: Created 2008/07/08; Completed 2008/08/28;

PMID: 18605814, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: Psychol Bull. 2008 Jul;134(4):493-7; discussion 501-3. (PMID: 18605815)

CommentIn: Psychol Bull. 2008 Jul;134(4):498-500; discussion 501-3. (PMID: 18605816)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Deception
Humans
Individuality
Judgment - physiology
Observer Variation

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