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We all know how easy it can be to create an online persona that’s completely different than who we are in real life. Brad Paisley made the concept mainstream when he sang he was “so much cooler online,” convincing us he was 6’5” and drove a Maserati.
The lying people commit isn’t what surprises researchers from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst because let’s face it, everyone lies. It’s how much more often people lie online than in face-to-face communication that surprised the research team.
In a study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers found “that people are more likely to lie to strangers when they're communicating via email or instant messages rather than when they are talking face-to-face.”
The researchers analyzed 220 undergraduate students and instructed them to converse with strangers of the same gender for 15 minutes. The types of communication were broken down into email, instant message or face-to-face.
In the 15 minutes of communicating, the researchers found that those talking via email lied about five times more than those speaking face-to-face; those speaking via instant message lied about three times more than those talking face-to-face based on total word count.
"The farther away they were from the person they were communicating with, either physically or psychologically, the more apt they were to lie," said study author Mattitiyahu Zimbler, a graduate student and senior researcher at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
People lie the most in email, Zimbler noted because compared to in-person chats, "In email, you don't have to worry about your mannerisms giving anything away, so you could feel more free to lie about feelings.”
This “digital deception” is the subject of multiple papers written by Michael Woodworth, a forensic psychologist at UBC Okanagan studying deception in computer-mediated environments.
Not only are people committing more lies online, Woodworth found that they’re better at doing so.
“When people are interacting face to face, there is something called the ‘motivational impairment effect,’ where your body will give off some cues as you become more nervous and there’s more at stake with your lie,” said Woodworth. “In a computer-mediated environment, the exact opposite occurs.
“On average, people tell one to two lies a day, and these lies range from the trivial to the more serious. Deception lies in communication between friends, family, colleagues and in power and politics.”
Not exactly a very encouraging thing to learn, but if you want the cold, hard truth from someone -- even a loved one -- your best bet is to communicate face-to-face.
People May Lie More Often in Emails, Instant Messages. HealthDay. Web. 21 Nov. 2011.
http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=659061
Why People Are Better At Lying Online Than Telling A Lie Face-To-Face. ScienceDaily. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090503203738.htm
Bailey Mosier is a freelance journalist living in Orlando, Florida. She received a Masters of Journalism from Arizona State University, played D-I golf, has been editor of a Scottsdale-based golf magazine and currently contributes to GolfChannel.com. She aims to live an active, healthy lifestyle full of sunshine and smiles.
Reviewed November 23, 2011
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith
Add a Comment1 Comments
So true.
My son has been chatting with a woman in Washington state who claims she lost an eye in an unfortunate skating accident, lives all by herself in a cabin in the woods with her 3 legged dog named "Peg." She also claims to have a skin condition in which her skin splits open and she sews it up herself. Of course, she has no relatives. She also claims she's on her way to visit him on the East Coast. She's never sent a picture, claims to have no cell phone, and is staying with people along the way. These people all seem to be missing body parts of one kind or another. My son is 22, has Asperger's, lives with us, and believes every word this woman (?) is saying. What can we do about this, as I strongly suspect he's being duped.
November 24, 2011 - 12:08pmThis Comment