Intuition Does Not Lie: The Effect of Individual Differences on the Ability to Accurately Detect Deception.

Abstract

Deception detection ability is an area that is not short of research, yet there is currently no definitive explanation for why some people are better than others at spotting a liar. This study surrounds individual differences in deception detection ability of high-stakes lies, and focuses on emotional intelligence level, susceptibility to emotional contagion and facial emotion recognition ability as variables. As these individual differences are all related to emotion-processing, and due to the often emotional nature of high-stakes lies, it is hypothesised that a relationship will be found between deception detection ability and each of these variables. Participants (n=60) completed the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test [SSEIT] (Schutte et al., 1998), the Emotional Contagion Scale (Doherty, 1997), and Ekman and Friesen’s (1976) Pictures of Facial Affect test, before viewing ten video clips of real life footage of individuals making televised pleas for the safe return of their relative or significant other. Participants were asked to make a veracity judgement of the appealer in each clip. The data was analysed through a standard multiple regression, though no statistically significant results were found to indicate relationships between the variables, conflicting with previous research. Further research is required to gain a greater insight in to each of these variables, though this study has provided a new insight in to the research area surrounding emotional contagion.