Deception and Personality 1 Running Head: PERSONALITY AND THE ABILITY TO DECEIVE Symptoms of Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and the Ability to Deceive

This study examines the relationship between the ability to deceive and two personality variables: symptoms of psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Participants (N = 21) viewed 11 pleasant and stressful video clips and attempted to maintain a pleasant/neutral facial expression. Their facial expressions were videotaped and coded for level of nonverbal leakage. Nonverbal leakage scores from the stressful clips were correlated with scores on questionnaire measures of Machiavellianism (Christie, 1970) and symptoms of psychopathy (developed by the author). Ability to deceive was significantly negatively correlated with two symptoms of psychopathy: lack of guilt (r = -.48, p < .01) and willingness to deceive and manipulate (r = -.49, p < .01). Results suggest that a person’s lack of guilt and willingness to deceive and manipulate in everyday life may contribute to that person’s increased ability to deceive. Deception and Personality 3 Symptoms of Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and the Ability to Deceive For most people, lying is a part of everyday life. In one sample of college students, lying occurred in one-third of all social interactions (DePaulo, Kashy, & Kirkendol, 1996). Previous research on lying (or studies on deception, more generally) has tended to focus more closely on how to detect it (e.g., Ekman & Friesen, 1974; Frank & Ekman, 1997). Because deceptive ability varies from person to person, it is of interest to me what can be interpreted as causes or predispositions to varying degrees of deceptiveness. In particular, questions arise as to what personality characteristics lend to such deceptive ability, if any, and whether those possessing a greater deceptive ability have unique attitudes toward everyday life. In an attempt to answer these questions, I examine whether the ability to deceive is related to personality in the present study. Research on Deception There has been extensive research on deception as well as how to measure the ability to deceive. Ekman and Friesen (1974) found that people who attempt to suppress anxiety when lying in one channel (e.g., their voice) end up “leaking” the suppressed emotion in another channel, such as the face or body. These “leaks” are defined as “nonverbal leakage”—signals that betray lying through one’s face or body instead of words alone. Nonverbal leakage is an important clue of deception because most people are relatively unaware of these emotional leaks. Ekman and Friesen (1974) developed a method for studying nonverbal leakage that does not require a contrived lying situation. In their study, beginning female nurses were instructed to conceal their negative affect while watching an unpleasant clip (a hand amputation). Their instructions required participants to convince the interviewer that they were seeing a pleasant rather than a stressful film. Two cameras were set up to record both the face and body of each Deception and Personality 4 participant, and participants were only aware of audio recording. Participants displayed more anxiety during the unpleasant clip measured by the level of nonverbal leakage in both the face and the body. Although the body gave away more clues than the face, clues of nonverbal leakage were still evident in the face. Ekman and Friesen’s (1974) method of displaying video clips and recording facial reactions was designed to parallel the suppression of emotions (usually anxiety or fear of being caught) that participants perform when lying in everyday life. Having participants tell a lie when they really have no reason to fear being caught would not offer an effective parallel because of the lack of genuine emotion likely to be displayed through nonverbal leakage. As well, if the participants are aware that the researcher knows they are lying, they may feel extremely and obviously superficial trying to lie in the first place. Personality Variables Likely to be Related to the Ability to Deceive Symptoms of psychopathy. Robert Hare (1999) developed the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) to measure several key symptoms of psychopathy. He divides symptoms into two categories: interpersonal symptoms and symptoms of social deviance (see Table 1). Interpersonal symptoms, for example, lack of empathy and deceit and manipulation, affect one’s personal relationships with others, whereas social deviance, consisting of symptoms such as impulsivity and lack of responsibility, relate more to the propensity for antisocial behavior. Hare (1999) argues that psychopaths are generally compulsive liars and manipulators. These individuals, out of habit, will lie and manipulate others. Psychopathy is likely related to deception through a number of its symptoms. Table 1. Symptoms of Psychopathy Interpersonal Symptoms Symptoms of Social Deviance Deception and Personality 5 Egocentricity. A tendency to show a narcissistic and inflated self-worth. Lack of remorse or guilt. Having a loss of guilty conscience for one’s actions. Superficiality. Tend to be labeled “fake” or “phony.” Lack of Empathy. Tend to show no concern for the feelings of others. Deceit and Manipulation. Tendency to lie and trick others. Impulsivity. Acting based on a need for immediate satisfaction with no concern for consequences. Need for excitement. Urge to live “on the edge.” Lack of Responsibility. Indifferent to commitment and job performance. Early Behavior Problems. Persistent lying or cruelty to animals. Adult Antisocial Behavior. Tendency to view the expectations of life as unreasonable. Perhaps most important to deception is the tendency to lie to and trick others, which, accompanied by an enjoyment of manipulating others (DePaulo, Kashy, & Kirkendol, 1996), might result in a lifetime of practice deceiving others. According to Hare (1999), manipulation and lying are natural talents for a psychopath. When caught in a lie, “they are seldom perplexed or embarrassed—they simply change their stories or attempt to reword the facts so that they appear to be consistent with the lie. The results are a series of contradictory statements and a thoroughly confused listener” (Hare, 1999, p. 46). Hare (1999) recounts many anecdotes of successful manipulation by psychopaths. Genene Jones was convicted of murdering two infants and was also a suspect in more than a dozen other murders. Because she was a nurse, she had the ability to administer “life-threatening drugs to neonates in an intensive care unit in order to put herself in the role of hero by bringing them back from the ‘brink of death’” (Hare, 1999, p. 47). On one occasion when she was confronted with an inconsistency, Jones reports thinking, Deception and Personality 6 “My mouth got me into this...and my mouth’s going to get me out of it” (Hare, 1999, p. 47). In general, Hare (1999) concluded that Jones “showed a remarkable ability to manipulate the truth to suit her own purposes” (Hare, 1999, p. 47). Many psychopaths also have pride because of their capacity to lie and manipulate others so easily. For example, one woman, scoring high on Hare’s measure of psychopathy, was asked if she lied easily. She laughed, saying “I’m the best. I’m really good at it, I think because I sometimes admit to something bad about myself. They’d think, well, if she’s admitting to that she must be telling the truth about the rest” (Hare, 1999, p. 47). Through this example, it is clear that psychopaths not only lie easily, but they also have the capacity to convince others that their lies are true. Besides practice, there are other reasons why symptoms of psychopathy would make someone better at deceiving others. Someone who lacked empathy, remorse, or guilt, would not feel the injury they caused by lying or would not feel bad about having caused it. Likewise, superficiality might lead to an increased ability to deceive because, on its face, superficiality involves holding one’s true self inside. In summary, several symptoms of psychopathy (lack of empathy, superficiality, lack of remorse or guilt, and willingness to manipulate and deceive) would contribute to increased skill at deception. Machiavellianism. According to Geis and Moon (1981), people who hold a Machiavellian perspective are expected to be smooth liars. Machiavelli may not have promoted lying per se, but he did encourage appearing “virtuous” in public while carrying out whatever is required in order to achieve a certain goal or end, no matter how immoral the means. If a lie would happen to serve one’s purpose instead of telling the truth, the lie would be preferred in order to meet that goal or purpose. Geis and Moon (1981) found that participants scoring high Deception and Personality 7 on Christie’s (1970) measure of Machiavellianism (called “high Machs”) were more believed than low Machs when lying about a theft. Geis and Moon (1981) designed their study to create a realistic situation in which participants were able to make a decision whether to lie or not lie. Participants were placed in groups with three same-sex confederates: one partner and an opposing team of two other confederates. Each team chose whether to cooperate or compete in a prisoner’s dilemma game involving a gain or loss of money depending on the choice of the other team. When the opposing team left the room to discuss their decision, the confederate partner took money out of the opposing team’s pile and put it in their pile, encouraging the participant to deny the theft if caught. When confronted with the theft, the participant had the choice to lie or tell the truth. Videotapes of the participants’ faces were judged by other participants on the ability of the participants to deceive the other team when they were confronted about the theft. Results indicated that high Machs were more willing and able deceivers than low Machs. Hypothesis Given the previous research suggesting a close association between deception and the personality variables Machiavellianism and symptoms of psychopathy, I expect there to be a negative correlation between nonverbal leakage participants elicit while watching unpleasant video clips and measures of these two personality variables: symptoms of psychopathy and Machiavellianism. To test this hypothesis, participants will view eleven total pleasant and stressful video clips and will attempt to maintain a pleasant/neutral facial expression throughout the sequence. Their facial expressions will be videotaped and coded for level of nonverbal leakage and will be later compared to their answers from the Symptoms of Psychopathy and Mach IV scales.