Deception in Romantic Relationships: Subjective Estimates of Success at Deceiving and Attitudes toward Deception

Abstract

Participants (N = 97) completed a questionnaire about deceptive communication in romantic relationships. Responses indicated that people generally believe that they are fairly successful in their efforts to deceive their partners and, moreover, that they believe they are more successful in deceiving their partners than their partners are at deceiving them. Results also suggest that attitudes toward dishonesty in romantic relationships are neither as simple nor straightforward as the costs associated with discovery might lead one to expect. In addition, participants' beliefs about the importance of honesty in romantic relationships and their perceptions regarding their own and their partner's success at deceiving one another predicted their use of certain modes of deception (i.e., falsification), as well as their responses to suspected deception (both how they responded when they suspected their partner may be lying and how they reacted to a partner's suspicions that they had been dishonest).