“Can You Remember What Was in Your Pocket When You Were Stung by a Bee?”: Eliciting Cues to Deception by Asking the Unanticipated

In this paper we focused on children's deception (10-12 years, Experiment 1), and adult's ability detect deception in children (Experiment 2). The self-presentational perspective (DePaulo, 1992) suggests that both liars and truth tellers will try to act in a convincing manner to be assessed as truth tellers. By asking unanticipated questions we put the liars in the following dilemma: If they did not answer they would risk being considered avoidant and, thus, run the risk of being discredited. On the other hand, if they did answer they would risk failing to act like a truth teller, and thereby run the risk of being discredited. In Experiment 1 we predicted, and found, that liars' attempt to actively create an honest impression (answer) overruled their attempt to passively imitate truth tellers (not answering). Specifically, liars (vs truth tellers) were more willing to answer the unanticipated questions. Experiment 2 showed that adult observers had difficulty when discriminating between lying and truth-telling children (overall accuracy rate: 57%). Lie-catchers who had been exposed to children answering unanticipated questions did not outperform lie-catchers who had watched children answering anticipated questions. Our successful attempt to elicit a diagnostic cue to deception (willingness to answer unanticipated questions) is placed within the new line of research aimed at increasing lie-catchers' ability to detect deception.