The Relationship Between Cognition of Lying and the Previous Day's Lies

Abstract

AbstractThe research on the Cognition of Lying Scale, assessing how people think about lying in general, has demonstrated a negative correlation between the cognition of negative aspects of lying score and the number of lies told the previous day. This study reexamined the relationship between the cognition of lying and the number of lies told the previous day after controlling for socially desirable responses. Japanese university students (N = 105) responded to the Cognition of Lying Scale and scales assessing socially desirable responses. The study evaluated the lies told the previous day using the Day Reconstruction Method, in which participants described the previous day's events and details of the lies they told. Two coders classified the lies as self‐oriented or other‐oriented. The results were consistent with the previous study and indicated that the cognition of negative aspects of lying was significantly and negatively related to the total number of lies, both self‐oriented and other‐oriented, after controlling for socially desirable responses.