Deception in humans : a review of theories.

• Main Author: Yeh, Vincent Jin-Peng.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology::Applied psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/48819
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Deception is a common occurrence in our living world. Certain species of plants and animals use deception to maximise their survival chances. However, it is the study of human deceit that is of key interest to researchers in the field of deception, particularly lie-detection. The ability to detect lies is especially important to professionals working in the forensic setting. Researchers are constantly exploring ways to improve our ability to detect deceit. Despite the availability of various lie-detection techniques and literature on lie-detection studies, the theoretical basis underlying human deceit is still not clearly established. Hence, this review seeks to provide an overview of the existing theories of deception. The discussion of each theory will cover the following aspects: (a) description of the theory; (b) theory’s contribution to lie detection; (c) empirical evidence for the theory (i.e. experiments); and (d) critique of the theory. In addition, current perspective on theories of deception and future directions in the field of deception studies are also discussed.