Few topics capture people’s curiosity and interest as much as deception. Deception is the stuff of soap operas, spy thrillers, multimillion-dollar frauds, and poker championships. There are the deadly serious deceptions during wartime, as well as harmless pranks such as the jackalope and April Fool’s Day. (If you have not seen a jackalope, it is a jackrabbit with antelope horns.) The famous deceptions throughout history are too numerous to mention. Examples include the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden and the scientific hoax of Piltdown Man.
Deception is not an exclusively human activity; examples of deception are also common in biology. Primates are capable of quite sophisticated deception. However, humans do not develop the cognitive capacity to fully engage in true deception until somewhere between the ages of 3 and 5.
Deception is most often defined as intentionally or knowingly misleading another individual or group, although sometimes self-deception is included as well. Deception comes in many shades and flavors such as outright lies, white lies, omission, evasion, equivocation, puffery, half truths, and so forth. People lie for all kinds of reasons. All of these variations are covered in the two volumes of this encyclopedia, which survey the wide variety of lies and deceptions in their many manifestations. Deception is examined from the vantage points of social science, history, philosophy, and pop culture, to name a few. The Encyclopedia of Deception is the authoritative source on the topic.
Perhaps the best recent example of how deception captures public interest was the initial popularity of the crime drama television series Lie to Me on Fox Network. The main character, Dr. Cal Lightman (played by Tim Roth), is a psychologist with expertise in reading body language and facial expressions, especially brief expressions called microexpressions. Lightman and his team solve crimes through detecting lies and reading human behavior. With approximately 11 million viewers in the first season, the show initially had strong ratings and was renewed for three seasons. Besides the United States, the show was aired in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Latin America, and several countries in Europe.
The premise of Lie to Me is based on the ideas of real-life psychologist Paul Ekman. However, Ekman’s ideas are controversial, and the show may not depict science as much as suggested by its marketing. As a skeptic, I did a little experiment that was published in the academic, peer-reviewed journal Communication Research. We showed research participants either an episode of Lie to Me or a different crime drama, Numb3rs. A third group viewed no show at all. Then, we had our participants try a deception detection task. Watching Lie to Me did not make people any better at distinguishing truths and lies, but it did make subjects more cynical than either of the two control conditions. Lie to Me was more about entertaining fiction than solid science, but it exemplifies the draw of the topic.
Deception detection is also big business. Web sites such as www.liespotting.com promise “proven techniques to detect deception.” Paul Ekman’s EkmanInternational.com offers “cutting edge behavioral science for real-world applications.” There are also EyesforLies.com and Humintell .com. John E. Reid and Associates train thousands of people, especially law enforcement professionals, each year in the Reid Technique. The Encyclopedia of Deception covers the gamut of deception detection methods, from the scientifically discredited to the most promising.
In the realm of deception, things are often not what is expected or what they seem. It is a very common belief, for example, that liars will not look one in the eye while lying. However, one might be surprised just how widespread that belief is. Research by psychologist Charley Bond has found that the gaze aversion belief is widespread around in the world. He and his team surveyed people in more than 70 different countries and found that the liars-won’t-look-you-in-the-eye belief was nearly universal. But much experiential works reveal that belief to be objectively false. Gaze is unrelated to actual honesty. It has zero validity as a lie-detection clue.
There has been much research on nonverbal cues to deception dating back to the original work of Ekman and his idea of leakage. It is well documented that people use others’ nonverbal behaviors as a way to detect lies. My research and that of many others has strongly supported people’s reliance on observations of others’ nonverbal behaviors when assessing honesty. Many psychological theories also specify a link between lying and nonverbal behaviors, as portrayed on Lie to Me. However, social scientific research on the link between various nonverbal behaviors and the act of lying suggests that the link is typically not very strong or consistent. In my research, I have observed that the nonverbal signals that seem to give one liar away are different than those given by a second liar. Further, people do not give away their lies the same way every time, and there are often honest people enacting those supposed lie-revealing behaviors. What’s more, the scientific evidence linking nonverbal behaviors and deception has grown weaker over time. People infer honesty based on how others nonverbally present themselves, but that has very limited utility and validity.
Research on lie detection suggests that without the aid of technology such as the polygraph, people are often poor lie detectors. In most deception detection experiments, people typically do statistically better than chance, but usually not by much. However, very recent research suggests promising new approaches, such as the strategic use of evidence and content in context. Strategic use of evidence involves withholding what one knows to see if the person contradicts that knowledge. Even with the aid of technology such as the polygraph, lie detection is not perfect. Research is progressing on other technologies such as fRMI and thermal imaging, but the polygraph in conjunction with a skilled examiner may be the best approach for now. All of these methods and many more are covered in the Encyclopedia of Deception.
Deception is not limited to humans; in fact, deception is nature is commonplace and varied. Perhaps you and your dog have engaged in “fake out” while playing fetch. Examples of deception in nature include camouflage and mimicry. Primatologists have also observed gorillas engaged in deception. For example, a band of gorillas is seen walking along a jungle path in single file. One gorilla, which spies a desired food in a nearby tree, stops by the side of the trail and grooms until the others are out of sight. Then, the gorilla grabs the food, quickly eats it, and hurries to join the band.
There are many famous lies and deceptions throughout history. There was P. T. Barnum, Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Operation Mincemeat, and the Trojan horse. As long as people have communicated, there have been honesty and deception. As long has history has been recorded, there has been a record of deception in human affairs.
Biblical examples of deception are numerous. Besides the serpent lying to Eve about the forbidden fruit, Abraham’s wife told the Egyptians that she was Abraham’s sister. Jacob was deceived by his sons about the death of his favorite son, Joseph. The entry on deception in ancient civilizations describes at least eight stories of lies that are told in the book of Genesis alone.
World War II is another source of well-known deceit. Nazi propaganda was rife with deceit targeted toward internal and external audiences. However, deception was not exclusively practiced by Germany during the war. For example, the Allies caught Germany largely by surprise with the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The successful Allied plan was to fool Germany into believing that the real invasion at Normandy was merely a diversion, and that the actual invasion would happen elsewhere. False orders and fake troop movements were created to mask actual troop buildups.
Lies happen around the world. The concepts of lies and deception are pancultural. Although every major world religion frowns on deception, people everywhere engage in it. However, culture also shapes how deception in enacted and understood. These volumes cover deception around the world, such as how the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro deceived the Inca Empire, and how deception is approached in the Arab culture in the Middle East.
No encyclopedia of lies and deception could be complete without covering lies and deception in politics. When this introduction was written, it seemed that the last major national U.S. election (Obama versus Romney) was marked by an especially high prevalence of deception. However, there is never a shortage of spin on the national news networks of FOX, MSNBC, or CNN. In the past, there was Nixon’s Watergate and Bill Clinton’s denial of sex with “that woman.” The Encyclopedia of Deception covers government propaganda as well as the decline in public trust in government—a trust that is essential for a functioning democracy—and the scandals, corruption, influence peddling, and lies by public officials that undercut this trust.
Lies abound in business and commerce. There is puffery in advertising and false claims on resumes. There are Ponzi schemes and defective product coverups.
Finally, there are lies in our personal lives. For example, Notre Dame’s linebacker Manti Te’o fictitious girlfriend was a recent example that captured wide media attention. One study found that as much as 61.5 percent of statements in important relationships were less than fully honest. Another study found that only about one-quarter of people thought that complete honesty was important in maintaining a romantic relationship, and that most people think that being honest depends on the situation. However, discovered lies can also harm relationships, especially when the lies are about important issues.
While one might think that one is better able to detect lies from people close to one as opposed to strangers, the opposite seems to be the case. Steven McCornack’s well-known research finding was that as one develops close relationships, trust and truth bias increases, and truth bias blinds one to a partner’s lies.
This two-volume Encyclopedia of Deception provides nearly 350 entries examining all facets of lying and deception. Philosophical and historical perspectives are offered. Examples of deception from around the world and throughout history are recounted. The new social science of deception receives compressive examination, and deception in relationships and popular culture are also covered. On behalf of the excellent contributors, we hope you find this both a valuable reference set and an entertaining and engaging reading experience.