Prior work suggests those who lie prolifically tend to be younger and self-identify as male compared to those who engage in everyday lying, but little research has developed an understanding of prolific lying beyond demographics. Study 1 (N = 775) replicated the prior demographic effects and assessed prolific lying through situation-level (e.g., opportunistic cheating) and individual-level characteristics (e.g., dispositional traits, general communication patterns) for white and big lies. For these two lie types, prolific lying associated with more opportunistic cheating, the use of fewer adjectives, and being high on psychopathy compared to everyday lying. Study 2 (N = 1,022) replicated these results and observed a deception consensus effect reported in other studies: the more that people deceived, the more they believed that others deceived as well. This piece develops a deeper theoretical understanding of prolific lying for white and big lies, combining evidence of situational, dispositional, and communication characteristics.
ArielyD. (2012). The (honest) truth about dishonesty: How we lie to everyone - especially ourselves. HarperCollins.
2.
AshtonM. C.LeeK.de VriesR. E. (2014). The HEXACO honesty-humility, agreeableness, and emotionality factors: A review of research and theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523838
3.
BondC. F.HowardA. R.HutchisonJ. L.MasipJ. (2013). Overlooking the obvious: Incentives to lie. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 35(2), 212–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2013.764302
4.
BoydR. L. (2017). Psychological text analysis in the digital humanities. In Hai-JewS. (Ed.), Data analytics in digital humanities (pp. 161–189). Springer International Publishing.
5.
BoydR. L. (2018). Mental profile mapping: A psychological single-candidate authorship attribution method. PLoS One, 13(7), e0200588. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200588 e0200588.
6.
BoydR. L.SchwartzH. A. (2021). Natural language analysis and the psychology of verbal behavior: The past, present, and future states of the field. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 40(1), 21–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x20967028
7.
DaikuY.SerotaK. B.LevineT. R. (2021). A few prolific liars in Japan: Replication and the effects of Dark Triad personality traits. PLoS One, 16(4), e0249815. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249815 e0249815.
8.
DeAndreaD. C.CarpenterC.ShulmanH.LevineT. R. (2009). The relationship between cheating behavior and sensation-seeking. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(8), 944–947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.07.021
9.
DePauloB. M.KashyD. A.KirkendolS. E.WyerM. M.EpsteinJ. A. (1996). Lying in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 979–995. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.979
10.
DunbarN. E.GangiK.CoveleskiS.AdamsA.BernholdQ.GilesH. (2016). When is it acceptable to lie? Interpersonal and intergroup perspectives on deception. Communication Studies, 67(2), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2016.1146911
11.
FurnhamA.RichardsS. C.PaulhusD. L. (2013). The Dark Triad of Personality: A 10 year review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(3), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12018
12.
GeorgeJ. F.RobbA. (2008). Deception and computer-mediated communication in daily life. Communication Reports, 21(2), 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/08934210802298108
13.
GinoF.SchweitzerM. E.MeadN. L.ArielyD. (2011). Unable to resist temptation: How self-control depletion promotes unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 191–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2011.03.001
14.
HalevyR.ShalviS.VerschuereB. (2014). Being honest about dishonesty: Correlating self-reports and actual lying. Human Communication Research, 40(1), 54–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12019
15.
HancockJ. T.Thom-SantelliJ.RitchieT. (2004). Deception and design: The impact of communication technology on lying behavior [Conference session]. Proceedings of the 2004 CHI Conference, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1145/985692.985709
16.
HartC. L.JonesJ. M.TerrizziJ. A.CurtisD. A. (2019). Development of the lying in everyday situations scale. The American Journal of Psychology, 132(3), 343–352. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.132.3.0343
17.
HartC. L.LemonR.CurtisD. A.GriffithJ. D. (2020). Personality traits associated with various forms of lying. Psychological Studies, 65(3), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-020-00563-x
18.
HauchV.Blandón-GitlinI.MasipJ.SporerS. L. (2015). Are computers effective lie detectors? A meta-analysis of linguistic cues to deception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19(4), 307–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314556539
19.
IrelandM. E.MehlM. (2014). Natural language use as a marker of personality. In HoltgravesT. M. (Ed.), The oxford handbook of language and social psychology (pp. 201–218). Oxford University Press.
20.
JonasonP. K.LyonsM.BaughmanH. M.VernonP. A. (2014). What a tangled web we weave: The Dark Triad traits and deception. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 117–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.038
21.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment, 21(1), 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191113514105
22.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2017). Duplicity among the dark triad: Three faces of deceit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 329–342. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000139
23.
KeatingD. M.TotzkayD. (2019). We do publish (conceptual) replications (sometimes): Publication trends in communication science, 2007–2016. Annals of the International Communication Association, 43(3), 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2019.1632218
24.
KouchakiM.SmithI. H. (2014). The morning morality effect: The influence of time of day on unethical behavior. Psychological Science, 25(1), 95–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613498099
25.
LevineT. R. (2014). Truth-Default Theory (TDT): A theory of human deception and deception detection. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 33(4), 378–392. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x14535916
26.
LevineT. R. (2020). Duped: Truth-default theory and the social science of lying and deception. University of Alabama Press.
27.
LevineT. R.KimR. K.HamelL. M. (2010). People lie for a reason: Three experiments documenting the principle of veracity. Communication Research Reports, 27(4), 271–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2010.496334
28.
LevineT. R.SerotaK. B.CareyF.MesserD. (2013). Teenagers lie a lot: A further investigation into the prevalence of lying. Communication Research Reports, 30(3), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2013.806254
MarkowitzD. M. (2021). Revisiting the relationship between deception and design: A replication and extension of Hancock et al. (2004). Human Communication Research, 48(1), 158–167. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqab019
31.
MarkowitzD. M.HancockJ. T. (2018). Deception in mobile dating conversations. Journal of Communication, 68(3), 547–569. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy019
32.
MarkowitzD. M.KouchakiM.HancockJ. T.GinoF. (2021). The deception spiral: Corporate obfuscation leads to perceptions of immorality and cheating behavior. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 40(2), 277–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x20949594
33.
MarkowitzD. M.LevineT. R. (2021). It’s the situation and your disposition: A test of two honesty hypotheses. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(2), 213–224. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619898976
34.
MarkowitzD. M.SlovicP. (2020a). Social, psychological, and demographic characteristics of dehumanization toward immigrants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(17), 9260–9269. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1921790117
35.
MarkowitzD. M.SlovicP. (2020b). Communicating imperatives requires psychological closeness but creates psychological distance. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(5-6), 598–625. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x20902816
36.
MarkowitzD. M.SongH.TaylorS. H. (2021). Tracing the adoption and effects of open science in communication research. Journal of Communication, 71(5), 739–763. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab030
37.
McCornackS. A.MorrisonK.PaikJ. E.WisnerA. M.ZhuX. (2014). Information manipulation theory 2: A propositional theory of deceptive discourse production. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 33(4), 348–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x14534656
38.
PaulhusD. L. (1991). Measurement and control of response bias. In RobinsonJ. P.ShaverP. R.WrightsmanL. S. (Eds.), Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes (pp. 17–59). Elsevier.
39.
PaulhusD. L.WilliamsK. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00505-6
40.
PennebakerJ. W. (2011). The secret life of pronouns: What our words say about us. Bloomsbury Press.
41.
PennebakerJ. W.BoothR. J.BoydR. L.FrancisM. E. (2015). Linguistic inquiry and word count: LIWC2015. Pennebaker Conglomerates.
42.
PennebakerJ. W.KingL. A. (1999). Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1296–1312. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1296
43.
SerotaK. B.LevineT. R. (2015). A few prolific liars: Variation in the prevalence of lying. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 34(2), 138–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x14528804
44.
SerotaK. B.LevineT. R.BosterF. J. (2010). The prevalence of lying in America: Three studies of self-reported lies. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 2–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01366.x
45.
SerotaK. B.LevineT. R.Docan-MorganT. (2021). Unpacking variation in lie prevalence: Prolific liars, bad lie days, or both?Communication Monographs. 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2021.1985153
46.
ShaferW. E.WangZ. (2018). Machiavellianism, social norms, and taxpayer compliance. Business Ethics: A European Review, 27(1), 42–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12166
47.
TausczikY. R.PennebakerJ. W. (2010). The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29(1), 24–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x09351676
48.
TomaC. L.HancockJ. T. (2010). Looks and lies: The role of physical attractiveness in online dating self-presentation and deception. Communication Research, 37(3), 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650209356437
49.
TomaC. L.HancockJ. T. (2012). What lies beneath: The linguistic traces of deception in online dating profiles. Journal of Communication, 62(1), 78–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01619.x
50.
TurnerR. E.EdgleyC.OlmsteadG. (1975). Information control in conversations: Honesty is not always the best policy. Kansas Journal of Sociology, 11, 69–89.
51.
VeriginB. L.MeijerE. H.BogaardG.VrijA. (2019). Lie prevalence, lie characteristics and strategies of self-reported good liars. PLoS One, 14(12), e0225566. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225566 e0225566.
52.
WeinerM.MehrabianA. (1968). Language within language: Immediacy, a channel in verbal communication. Appleton-Centry-Crofts.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
