The Development of Deception Detection Skill: A Longitudinal Study of Same-Sex Friends

Abstract

One member of each of 52 pairs of friends told true and fabricated stories to a partner (the judge) who guessed whether each story was true. This procedure was followed when the friends had known each other for 1 month and again 5 months later. Across all of the pairs, accuracy at detecting deception did not improve over time. However, judges from the emotionally closer pairs did become more accurate at 6 months than they had been at 1 month. The judges from the less-close pairs instead became less inclined to regard the stories as truthful, especially when they actually were truthful. Results of a second study ruled out the alternative interpretation that the closer friends told stories that were more obviously truthful or deceptive at 6 months than they had at 1 month. On indirect measures of deception detection, all of the groups of judges could distinguish the truths from the lies.