In concordance with the Social Distance theory, I chose to lie in a CMC environment and tell the truth in a FtF environment. Since I am generally uncomfortable with lying, I chose AIM as my online space for lying. This reallocation of resources gave my friend less cues to focus on and thus enabled her to concentrate solely on the content of my message.
When I told my friend about my true experience riding a camel this past summer in Israel, she believed me without question. This could be attributed to the truth bias—the tendency people have to blindly believe what others say, or attributed to the level of trust that we’ve accumulated over the years. In a face to face environment, she had access to verbal and nonverbal cues to help her assess the truth of my message. She noted that I spoke enthusiastically and gave her details that a liar may not have bothered to mention like the fact that the girl in front of me was wearing shorts and was extremely uncomfortable throughout the ride. I maintained steady eye contact with her the entire time and used natural hand gestures. She had no reason to suspect that I was lying.
Later on, I told a different friend on AIM that when I rode a camel in Israel, the camel bit my friend. I concocted a whole story about how she had to be rushed to the hospital and how her father was planning on suing the Bedouin establishment where the camels lived. She too believed me just as readily as my other friend did in a face to face environment. When I admitted to lying, she was surprised because she said my story had so many details. In a CMC environment, I was able to take my time and edit my messages so that she would believe me. The essentially synchronous and recordless elements of CMC conversation were conducive to deception. Since we were distributed in different locations, she was unable to perceive nonverbal cues. If I told this story in a face to face environment, I would probably not be able to keep a straight face or maintain eye contact the entire time.
It is difficult to say whether deception detection is more difficult in a FtF or CMC environment because it depends on the magnitude of the lie, the personality of the liar, and other external factors such as the degree of trust between the two respondents. I applied social distance theory and the feature based approach when choosing the best environment for lying. Since instant messaging is synchronous, recordless, and distributed, I had a higher chance of fooling my friend; however, I am not sure if I would have been successful lying in a FtF environment because she may have picked up on incriminating non-verbal cues.
3 comments:
This is a well written paper and very entertaining to read. You gave detailed descriptions of why and how your deception worked and to what theories they correspond with. Definitely using a lean medium like AIM will greatly enhance your odds of pulling off a lie, especially if nonverbal cues would give you away. I think it was smart to turn a true story into a fabricated one. This way you already have an idea of what you are going to say but with a little extra here and there. The synchronicity aspect of it made things even easier as you had the time to concoct a believable story with detailed descriptions that would leave no room for the reader to question anything. You also bring up a good point concerning people and their personalities in relation to which medium deception detection is the easiest. Again, great job!
Lindsay,
I really enjoyed reading about your lying experience. I think you applied the theories learned in class clearly. It is interesting that your friend could not detect that you were lying because of your use of extensive detail. If I had tried to concoct details to add to a story, I would have gotten carried away and been called out for lying on the spot. You note that the CMC environment allowed you to take time to craft your responses, but I feel the relative synchronicity of AIM may not have been the appropriate medium to test CMC vs. FtF. Overall, great post!
Hi Lindsay,
Great post. I enjoyed reading your post, I was glad you added some humor to your lie. I wonder what would have happened had you reversed the medium you lied in. If you made details up beforehand I wonder if the truth bias would still come into play and make your friend believe the story face to face as well. If you laughed during it, you would have had the excuse that you were remembering it and found it funny.
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