Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may utilize some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade, blame or misrepresent the truth or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation Dissimulation is a form of deception in which one conceals the truth. It consists of concealing the truth, or in the case of half-truths, concealing parts of the truth, like inconvenient or secret information. Dissimulation techniques include: camouflage , disguise appearance (altering the model) and dazzle (obfuscate the model). Dissimulation, propaganda As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result, sleight of hand Sleight of hand, also known as prestidigitation or legerdemain (from the French for "lightness of hand"), is the set of techniques used by a magician (or card sharp) to manipulate objects such as cards and coins secretly. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument. Self-deception involves convincing oneself of a truth so that one does not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception.

Deception is a major relational transgression that often leads to feelings of betrayal and distrust between relational partners. Deception violates relational rules and is considered to be a negative violation of expectations. Most people expect friends, relational partners, and even strangers to be truthful most of the time. If people expected most conversations to be untruthful, talking and communicating with others would require distraction and misdirection to acquire reliable information. On a given day, it is likely that most human beings will either deceive or be deceived by another person. A significant amount of deception occurs between romantic and relational partners.^[1]

Types

Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory Interpersonal Deception Theory attempts to explain the manner in which individuals deal with actual or perceived deception on the conscious and subconscious levels while engaged in face-to-face communication. 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 explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.

The five primary forms of deception are:

1. lies A lie is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, protect someone's feelings or to avoid a punishment or repercussion for one's actions. To lie is to state something that one knows to be false or that one does: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
2. equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
3. concealments A lie is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, protect someone's feelings or to avoid a punishment or repercussion for one's actions. To lie is to state something that one knows to be false or that one does: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
4. exaggeration A caricature can refer to a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness.[citation needed] In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
5. understatement Minimisation is a type of deception involving denial coupled with rationalisation in situations where complete denial is implausible. It is the opposite of exaggeration: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.^[1]

Motives

There are three primary motivations for deceptions in close relationships.

• Partner-focused motives: using deception to avoid hurting the partner, helping the partner to enhance or maintain his or her self-esteem Self-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. A person's self-esteem may be reflected in their behaviour, such as in assertiveness, shyness, confidence or caution. Self-esteem can apply, avoid worrying the partner, and protecting the partner's relationship with a third party. Partner-motivated deception can sometimes be viewed as socially polite and relationally beneficial.
• Self-focused motives: using deception to enhance or protect their self-image A person's self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others , but also items that have been learned by that person about himself or herself, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of, wanting to shield themselves from anger Anger is an emotion. The physical effects of anger include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as part of the fight or flight brain response to the perceived threat of harm. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the, embarrassment Embarrassment is an emotional state experienced upon having a socially or professionally unacceptable act or condition witnessed by or revealed to others. Usually some amount of loss of honour or dignity is involved, but how much and the type depends on the embarrassing situation. It is similar to shame, except that shame may be experienced for an, or criticism Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the actions or work of another individual. Criticism can mean merely to evaluate without necessarily finding fault; however, usually the word implies the expression of disapproval. Self-focused deception is generally perceived as a more serious transgression than partner-focused deception because the deceiver is acting for self reasons than for the good of the relationship.
• Relationship-focused motives: using deception to limit relationship harm by avoiding conflict or relational trauma. Relationally motivated deception can be beneficial to a relationship, and other times it can be harmful by further complicating matters.^[1]

Detection

Deception detection between relational partners is extremely difficult, unless a partner tells a blatant or obvious lie or contradicts something the other partner knows to be true. While it is difficult to deceive a partner over a long period of time, deception often occurs in day-to-day conversations between relational partners.^[1] Detecting deception is difficult because there are no known completely reliable indicators of deception. Deception, however, places a significant cognitive load on the deceiver. He or she must recall previous statements so that his or her story remains consistent and believable. As a result, deceivers often leak important information both verbally and nonverbally.

Deception and its detection is a complex, fluid, and cognitive process that is based on the context of the message exchange. The Interpersonal Deception Theory Interpersonal Deception Theory attempts to explain the manner in which individuals deal with actual or perceived deception on the conscious and subconscious levels while engaged in face-to-face communication. 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 posits that interpersonal deception is a dynamic, iterative process of mutual influence between a sender, who manipulates information to depart from the truth, and a receiver, who attempts to establish the validity of the message.^[2] A deceiver's actions are interrelated to the message receiver's actions. It is during this exchange that the deceiver will reveal verbal and nonverbal information about deceit.^[3] Some research has found that there are some cues that may be correlated with deceptive communication, but scholars frequently disagree about the effectiveness of many of these cues to serve as reliable indicators. Noted deception scholar Aldert Vrij even states that is no nonverbal behavior that is uniquely associated with deception.^[4] As previously stated, a specific behavioral indicator of deception does not exist. There are, however, some nonverbal behaviors that have been found to be correlated with deception. Vrij found that examining a "cluster" of these cues was a significantly more reliable indicator of deception than examining a single cue.^[4]

In terms of perceptions about the significance of deceiving a partner, women and men typically differ in their beliefs about deception. Women view deception as a much more profound relational transgression than men. Additionally, women rate lying in general as a less acceptable behavior than men. Finally, women are much more likely to view any act of lying as significant (regardless of the subject matter) and more likely to report negative emotional reactions to lying.^{[citation needed]}

Truth bias

The truth bias significantly impairs the ability of relational partners to detect deception. In term of deception, a truth bias reflects a tendency to judge more messages as truths than lies, independent of their actual veracity.^[5] When judging message veracity, the truth bias contributes to an overestimate of the actual number of truths relative to the base rate of actual truths. The truth bias is especially strong within close relationships. People are highly inclined to trust the communications of others and are unlikely to question the relational partner unless faced with a major deviation of behavior that forces a reevaluation. When attempting to detect deceit from a familiar person or relational partner, a large amount of information about the partner is brought to mind. This information essentially overwhelms the receiver's cognitive ability to detect and process any cues to deception. It is somewhat easier to detect deception in strangers, when less information about that person is brought to mind.^[6]

Camouflage

The camouflage Camouflage is a method of crypsis—avoidance of observation—that allows an otherwise visible organism or object to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception. Examples include a tiger's stripes, the battledress of a modern soldier and a butterfly camouflaging itself as a leaf. The theory of camouflage covers the of a physical object often works by breaking up the visual boundary of that object. This usually involves colouring the camouflaged object with the same colours as the background against which the object will be hidden. In the realm of deceptive half-truths A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may utilize some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade, blame or misrepresent the truth camouflage is realized by 'hiding' some of the truths.

Example:

• Camouflage Military camouflage became an essential part of modern military tactics after the increase in accuracy and rate of fire of weapons during the 19th century. Until the 20th century, armies tended to use bright colors and bold, impressive designs. These were thought to daunt the enemy, foster unit cohesion, allow easier identification of units in the as a form of visual deception is an essential part of military deception Military deception is an attempt to amplify, or create an artificial fog of war or to mislead the enemy using psychological operations, information warfare and other methods. As a form of strategic use of information , it overlaps with psychological warfare. To the degree that any enemy that falls for the deception will lose confidence when it is.

Disguise appearance

A disguise is an appearance to create the impression of being somebody or something else; for a well-known person this is also called incognito.

Example:

• The fictional Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his forensic science skills to solve difficult cases often disguised himself as somebody else to avoid being recognized.

In a more abstract sense, 'disguise' may refer to the act of disguising the nature of a particular proposal in order to hide an unpopular motivation or effect associated with that proposal. This is a form of political spin In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often, though not always, implies or propaganda As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result. See also: rationalisation and transfer within the techniques of propaganda generation. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result

Example:

• Depicting an act of war as a "peace" mission.

Dazzle

Example:

• The defensive mechanisms of most octopuses The octopus is a cephalopod of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms and like other cephalopods are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms. Most octopuses have no internal or external skeleton, allowing them to squeeze through tight places. Octopuses are highly to eject black ink Ink is a liquid that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill. Thicker inks, in paste form, are used extensively in letterpress and lithographic printing in a large cloud to aid in escape from predators.

Simulation

Simulation consists of exhibiting false information. There are three simulation techniques: mimicry Mimicry is the similarity of one species to another which protects one or both. This similarity can be in appearance, behaviour, sound, scent and even location, with the mimics found in similar places to their models (copying another model), fabrication (making up a new model), and distraction (offering an alternative model)

Mimicry

In the biological world, mimicry involves unconscious deception by similarity to another organism, or to a natural object. Animals for example may deceive predators or prey by visual The visual system is the part of the central nervous system which enables organisms to see, as well as enabling several non-image forming photoresponse functions. It interprets information from visible light to build a representation of the surrounding world. The visual system accomplishes a number of complex tasks, including the reception of, auditory or other means.

Fabrication

To make something that in reality is not what it appears to be. For example, in World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland ·, it was common for the Allies In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them. When the term is used in the context of war or armed struggle, such associations may also be called Allied Powers, to use hollow tanks made out of cardboard to fool German reconnaissance Reconnaissance is a mission to obtain information by visual observation or other detection methods, about the activities and resources of an enemy or potential enemy, or about the meteorologic, hydrographic, or geographic characteristics of a particular area planes into thinking a large armor unit was on the move in one area while the real tanks were well hidden and on the move in a location far from the fabricated "dummy" tanks.

Distraction

To get someone's attention from the truth by offering bait or something else more tempting to divert attention away from the object being concealed. For example, a security company publicly announces that it will ship a large gold shipment down one route, while in reality take a different route.

In social research

Some methodologies in social research, especially in psychology Psychology is the scientific study of human or other animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the involve deception. The researchers purposely mislead or misinform the participants about the true nature of the experiment.

In an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s during Milgram's professorship at Yale. Milgram was influenced by the events of the Holocaust to carry out an experiment that would prove the relationship between obedience and authority in 1963 the researchers told participants that they would be participating in a scientific study of memory and learning. In reality the study looked at the participants' willingness to obey commands, even when that involved inflicting pain upon another person.

Use of deception raises many problems of research ethics Research ethics involves the application of fundamental ethical principles to a variety of topics involving scientific research. These include the design and implementation of research involving human experimentation, animal experimentation, various aspects of academic scandal, including scientific misconduct , whistleblowing; regulation of and it is strictly regulated by professional bodies such as the American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the U.S. and is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 152,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students and has an annual budget of around $115m. The American Psychological.

In psychological research

Psychological research often needs to deceive the participants (former term: subjects)as to its actual purpose. The rationale for such deception is that humans are sensitive to how they appear to others (and to themselves) and this self-consciousness might interfere with or distort from how they actually behave outside of a research context (where they would not feel they were being scrutinized). For example, if a psychologist is interested in learning the conditions under which students cheat on tests, directly asking them, "how often do you cheat?," might result in a high percent of "socially desirable" answers and the researcher would in any case be unable to verify the accuracy of these responses. What researchers could learn from this "ask the subject" procedure is what the students "say" they do, not necessarily what they actually do. In general, then, when it is unfeasible or naive to simply ask people directly why or how often they do what they do, researchers turn to the use of deception to distract their participants from the true behavior of interest. So, for example, in a study of cheating, the participants may be told that the study has to do with how intuitive they are and during the process they might be given the opportunity to look at (secretly, they think) another participant's [presumably highly intuitively correct] answers before handing in their own. At the conclusion of this or any research involving deception, all participants must be told of the true nature of the study and why deception was necessary (this is called debriefing). Moreover, it is customary to offer to provide a summary of the results to all participants at the conclusion of the research.

Though commonly used and allowed by the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association, APA.org there has been debate about whether or not the use of deception should be permitted in psychological research experiments Experiment is the step in the scientific method that arbitrates between competing models or hypotheses. Experimentation is also used to test existing theories or new hypotheses in order to support them or disprove them. An experiment or test can be carried out using the scientific method to answer a question or investigate a problem. First an.

Those against deception object to the ethical and methodological issues involved in its use. Dresser (1981) notes that, ethically, researchers are only to use subjects in an experiment after the subject has given informed consent. However, because of its very nature, a researcher conducting a deception experiment cannot reveal its true purpose to the subject, thereby making any consent given by a subject misinformed (p. 3). Baumrind Diana Blumberg Baumrind is a clinical and developmental psychologist (1964), criticizing the use of deception in the Milgram (1963) obedience experiment The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first, argues that deception experiments inappropriately take advantage of the implicit trust and obedience given by the subject when the subject volunteers to participate (p. 421).

From a practical perspective, there are also methodological objections to deception. Ortmann and Hertwig (1998) note that “deception can strongly affect the reputation of individual labs and the profession, thus contaminating the participant pool” (p. 806). If the subjects in the experiment are suspicious of the researcher, they are unlikely to behave as they normally would, and the researcher’s control of the experiment is then compromised (p. 807).

Those who do not object to the use of deception note that there is always a constant struggle in balancing “the need for conducting research that may solve social problems and the necessity for preserving the dignity and rights of the research participant” (Christensen, 1988, p. 670). They also note that, in some cases, using deception is the only way to obtain certain kinds of information, and that prohibiting all deception in research would “have the egregious consequence of preventing researchers from carrying out a wide range of important studies” (Kimmel, 1998, p. 805).

Additionally, findings suggest that deception is not harmful to subjects. Christensen’s (1988) review of the literature found “that research participants do not perceive that they are harmed and do not seem to mind being misled” (p. 668). Furthermore, those participating in experiments involving deception “reported having enjoyed the experience more and perceived more educational benefit” than those who participated in non-deceptive experiments (p. 668).

Lastly, it has also been suggested that an unpleasant treatment used in a deception study or the unpleasant implications of the outcome of a deception study may be the underlying reason that a study using deception is perceived as unethical in nature, rather than the actual deception itself (Broder, 1998, p. 806; Christensen, 1988, p. 671).

See also

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Guerrero, L., Anderson, P., Afifi, W. (2007). Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
2. ^ Buller & Burgoon, 1996
3. ^ Burgoon & Qin, 2006
4. ^ ^{a b} Vrij, 2008
5. ^ Burgoon, Blair, and Strom, 2008
6. ^ Millar and Millar, 1995

References

• American Psychological Association – Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. (2002). Retrieved February 7, 2008, from APA.org
• Association, A. P. (2003). Ethics: Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Retrieved February 18, 2008, from APA Online
• Bassett, Rodney L.. & Basinger, David, & Livermore, Paul. (1992, December). Lying in the Laboratory: Deception in Human Research from a Psychological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives. ASA3.org
• Baumrind, D. (1964). Some thoughts on ethics of research: After reading Milgram's “Behavioral Study of Obedience.” American Psychologist, 19(6), 421-423. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from the PsycINFO database.
• Bröder, A. (1998). Deception can be acceptable. American Psychologist, 53(7), 805-806. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from the PsycINFO database.
• Cohen, Fred. (2006). Frauds, Spies, and Lies and How to Defeat Them. ASP Press. ISBN 1-878109-36-7.
• Behrens, Roy R. (2002). False colors: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage. Bobolink Books. ISBN 0-9713244-0-9.
• Behrens, Roy R. (2009). Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage. Bobolink Books. ISBN 978-0-9713244-6-6.
• Bennett, W Lance; Entman, Robert M The Politics of Misinformation
• Blechman, Hardy and Newman, Alex (2004). DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material. DPM Ltd. ISBN 0-9543404-0-X.
• Christensen, L. (1988). Deception in psychological research: When is its use justified? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14(4), 664-675.
• Dresser, R. S. (1981). Deception research and the HHS final regulations. IRB: Ethics and Human Research, 3(4), 3-4. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from the JSTOR database.
• Edelman, Murray Constructing the political spectacle 1988
• Kimmel, A. J. (1998). In defense of deception. American Psychologist, 53(7), 803-805. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from the PsychINFO database.
• Latimer, Jon. (2001). Deception in War. John Murray. ISBN 978-0719556050.
• Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378. Retrieved February 25, 2008 from the PsycARTICLES database.
• Ortmann, A. & Hertwig, R. (1998). The question remains: Is deception acceptable? American Psychologist, 53(7), 806-807. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from the PsychINFO database.
• Shaughnessy, J. J., Zechmeister, E. B., & Zechmeister, J. S. (2006). Research Methods in Psychology Seventh Edition. Boston: McGraw Hill.
• Bruce Schneier, Secrets and Lies
• Robert Wright The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage, 1995. ISBN 0-679-76399-6

Further reading

• Mitchell, Robert W.; Thompson, Nicholas S., eds., Deception. Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit. New York: State University of New York Press.
• Scientists Pick Out Human Lie Detectors, MSNBC.com/Associated Press

Categories: Deception | Communication | Human behavior

See Also:

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Category:Sympathetic Nervous System: Blogs
• Animal: Blogs
• Pons: Blogs
• Alcoholic Beverage: Answers
• Animal: Answers
• Attention: Answers
• Gland
• Acute Stress: Answers
• Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal Axis: Shopping

Most Popular Pages:

• Home
• Category:Sympathetic Nervous System: Blogs
• Eustress
• Category:Sympathetic Nervous System: Images
• Attention: Answers
• Gland
• Acute Stress Reaction
• Pons: Blogs
• Coping (Psychology)
• Alcoholic Beverage: Answers

Related 'Deception' Searches: