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Interpersonal Deception Theory

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) studies lying in social interactions. IDT categorizes deception into falsification, concealment, and equivocation. It views deception as an interactive process between a sender and receiver where behaviors are dynamic and multidimensional. IDT claims people are not good at detecting deception and focuses on the relationship between the sender and receiver rather than individually. Deception requires more cognitive resources and deceivers use techniques like vagueness, withdrawal, and matching the receiver's mood to appear innocent.

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Hal Edgar
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170 views

Interpersonal Deception Theory

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) studies lying in social interactions. IDT categorizes deception into falsification, concealment, and equivocation. It views deception as an interactive process between a sender and receiver where behaviors are dynamic and multidimensional. IDT claims people are not good at detecting deception and focuses on the relationship between the sender and receiver rather than individually. Deception requires more cognitive resources and deceivers use techniques like vagueness, withdrawal, and matching the receiver's mood to appear innocent.

Uploaded by

Hal Edgar
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) is basically the study of lying in social interactions.

Now youve got your head wrapped around the topic, I will go into detail. IDT attempts to understand communication through the lines of deception. This theory breaks down deception into 3 categories: Falsification: This is the act of passing off information as true which is infact not true. Just your standard lie. Concealment: : Concealment is the act of hiding a secret. Perhaps not telling the whole truth. I wasnt lying, I just didnt mention it. Equivocation: Dodging the issue. Trying to avoid certain topics when youre engaged in conversation with someone, trying to steer the conversation away from certain topics. Interpersonal deception theory views deception through the theoretical lens of interpersonal communication. As such, it considers deception as an interactive process between a sender and receiver. People adjust their tactics whilst theyre communicating as their understanding changes. We will constantly change our behaviour in response to feedback. In this regard, IDT is not about studying the Deceiver or the Receiver, but the relationship between the two. IDT focuses on the dyadic, relational, and dialogic nature of deceptive communication. Behaviours between the sender and receiver are dynamic, multifunctional, multidimensional, and multimodal. Dyadic communication refers to communication between two people. A dyad is a group of two people between whom messages are sent and received. Relational communication refers to communication in which meaning is created by two people simultaneously filling the roles of both sender and receiver. Dialogic activity refers to the active communicative language of the sender and receiver, each relying upon the other within the exchange. IDT categorises deception as strategic communication. Strategic communication takes focus, is less natural then standard communication. When you are deceiving someone you have a goal, a strategy. It requires more cognitive resources to maintain this deception as a deceiver tries to keep track of what they are saying as well as monitor their own subconscious cues in an attempt to appear natural and genuine. In IDT there are typically 3 goals a deceiver is trying to achieve: Accomplish a task: This may be like trying to get a job you are not qualified for. Establishing or maintaining a relationship: Online daters may put up information thats not entirely true. If you were accused of cheating in a relationship you would likely lie and deny it in an attempt to maintain the relationship. Saving face: If something embarrassing happens you may lie to save face. Also as social creatures we dont like being around someone whos being embarrassed, so we may lie and pretend we didnt notice something embarrassing that happened to someone else. IDT claims that people are not nearly as good at spotting deception as they believe. Someones ability to spot anothers deception depends on the situation in which interaction occurs and the relationship between the sender and receiver. Sender and receiver cognitions and behaviours vary

systematically as deceptive communication contexts vary in: access to social cues, immediacy, relational engagement, conversational demands, and spontaneity. Also, if a deceiver begins a deceptive exchange with an accurate, validated statement, that statement might guide the receiver to believe the rest of the deceiver's story is also true. Ultimately, the sender prepares the receiver to accept his or her information as truth, even if some or part of the dialogue is false. Another risk is when truth tellers come, and someone wrong believes they are lying. If someone is nervous or already of the opinion that they wont be believed, they tend to show the same cues a deceiver might show, lacking eye contact, speaking quickly, fidgeting. Leakage is the subconscious cues you accidently make when youre not concentrating. The more mental tasks required to maintain the deception, the more effort, the more leakage will occur, like stuttering, not looking someone in the eye, forgetting to keep your facts straight. People engaging in deception tend to be vaguer; the less details the mention the less chance they have of being caught out or getting their facts twisted. People also tend to withdraw from those they are deceiving. If they see less of those people it minimises the chance of leakage. People may tend to play down or disassociate themselves. For example if you stayed to long at a party you may say Oh, I didnt want to stay so long but my ride was wouldnt leave. This removes individual choice and is called levelling. Or you can have group references; you know Everyone was staying at the party. Another technique used is modifiers, like downplaying the situation. Oh it wasnt really a party, just a small gathering of a few people. IDT shows that deceivers are in fact better at detecting suspicion than receivers are at detecting deception. This is because the deceiver typically knows more than the reciever. They know they are lying, and so they are already monitoring the other person for cues of rising suspicion. The reciever is working on the understanding of a social contract. You typically assume someone is being honest with you unless they give you a reason not to. This is because its a lot easier to take someones word on something than analysing and filtering everything someone has to say. Deceivers will also tend to change to match the mood of the receiver. If the receiver is shocked or hurt by your deception, you may show sympathy in an attempt to appear innocent. Picking up deception is also difficult because both truth-tellers and deceivers will react the same way went confronted. They will deny the accusation. So in a way the deck is loaded in the favour of the deceiver. So you can see why IDT ibelieves communication is not static. In this context, communication is not static; it is influenced not only by one's own goals, but also by the context of the interaction as it unfolds. The sender's conduct and messages are affected by conduct and messages of the receiver, and vice versa. DePaulo, Ansfield, and Bell question the theoretical status of IDT. They write, "We cannot find the 'why' question in Buller and Burgoon's synthesis. There is no intriguing riddle or puzzle that needs to be solved, and no central explanatory mechanism is ever described."

They fault the propositions for lacking the interconnectedness and predictive power necessary to qualify as a unifying theory. DePaulo also criticize IDT for failing to distinguish between interactive communication, which emphasizes the situational and contextual aspects of communicative exchanges, from interpersonal communication, which emphasizes exchanges in which the sender and receiver make psychological predictions about one another's behaviour based on person-specific prior knowledge. They argue that this conceptual ambiguity limits IDT's explanatory power.

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