Investigating the ability to detect deception and the truth with regard to gender

Abstract

The aim of this experiment was to investigate deception detection and truth detection with regard to gender. N=50 DBS students completed a handout containing Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire Revised short version. They were shown video-clips of 12 actors, either telling the truth, faking good or faking bad and told to detect who was truthful and who was deceitful. The clips were projected onto a screen using Windows Media Player. Once the experiment was completed they were thanked and allowed to leave. This was a between subjects design with gender, relationship, confidence in detection and personality as the variables. Once both clips were finished and the handouts were collected, the participants were thanked and allowed to leave. The IV=the video-clips and the DV=accurate ability to detect lies, and accurate ability to detect truth. 2 ANCOVA showed differences between subjects for truth and deceit. Only HypoFinal Year Project2 was supported. Gender does not play a role in deception detection. Future studies should investigate deception ability.