Hiding Truth
(An analysis using Communication Theories)
By Jan Inez D. Raya
COMA101- A
Prof. Antonino Salvador de Veyra
March 27, 2008
Hiding Truth
(An analysis using communication theories)
Have you ever been in a situation wherein you are in a conversation with somebody you know but you find yourself doubting what he/she is saying? That there is something that makes you think there is more to the story than what that person is actually telling you?
This was something that happened to my friend and her boyfriend (I used different names):
Michelle promised her boyfriend, Mike, that the both of them would hang out this weekend, maybe watch a movie or go bowling. Then when Saturday came and as Mike was getting ready, he received a quick phone call from Michelle, she had blown him off. She never gave an explanation on why she could not come. She just told him she couldn’t and hung up the phone.
When they saw each other at school on Monday, Mike asked for an explanation, but she simply brushed him off and said, “Something came up, I had to go somewhere”. Mike asked her again, but she just told him what she had said earlier.
Truth:
Why she blew Mike off: Something did come up, Michelle’s High School friend, Jason was in town for the day and he begged her to have dinner with him.
The hurried phone call: Dinner with Jason was at 6:30 and it was already 6:35 and she did not want Mike to get angry for blowing him off and having dinner with another guy.
Interpersonal communication is interactive. When Michelle is asked a question and she answers (especially) indecisively, there is no doubt that she’ll get another question from Mark. She cannot just expect him to take in what she has to say and not do anything about it; Mark would want to know more.
David Buller and Judee Burgoon confer that there are three things a person can or would do if he/she decides not to tell the exact story. They are falsification, concealment and equivocation. (Griffin, Chapter 7)
Lying as defined by Wikipedia (2008), is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement with the intention to deceive, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, or to avoid punishment.
In the communication situation, Michelle wasn’t telling a lie, but her expalantion was not the complete truth either. However , the explanation still defeats the definition of lying mainly because of the fact that her explanation did not completely deviate from her exact reason for canceling the date.
She wasn’t trying to be consciously evasive either. An evasive statement from Michelle, would have been something like, “ I had to do something.” Though still in the context of what she was doing, it gives out less information than what Michelle had given Mike . So, What was Michelle doing then?
Her statement “something came up, I had to go somewhere,” seemingly implies that Michelle was intentionally trying to be secretive about what really happened. Though, partly correct, in
the sense that something did come up, however, it was only a partial picture. She would not want to outright lie to Mike, because they could get into a bigger fight if he found out. The fact that Mike could get angry would have motivated Michelle to be giving part of the story but not it’s entirety. Michelle then must have been showing concealment.
In Mark’s situation, Michelle’s dismissiveness and odd behavior would lead him to suspect that she was lying or hiding something. Mark’s suspicion was further heightened when nonverbal cues came hand in hand with Michelle’s dismissive response. When he asked her questions, Michelle simply gave a safe answer and would not look at him straight in the eye. Aside form that, she tried to change the subject right away. These would obviously trigger a pressumption that there is something that he doesn’t know or she doesn’t want him to know. Being the ‘ignorant’ in the situation, what he would then pressumably do is find out the true story. But how can Mike do that?
Mike would not directly attack Michelle and tell her that she was hiding something. When a person doubts what the other is saying, they would likely avoid direct accusations to hide their suspicions. Mike would instead investigate more. Ask unsuspicious questions that at the same time gives him more ideas to where Michelle really was. This was found to be useful in unraveling deception.
But on the other hand, Mike is oblivious that in a way, he is helping in the creation of the
deception. This points that those invovled in a conversation, both create their own social
realities. It continues as the deceiver reacts to the respondents’ suspicion.
According to Buller and Burgoon, what deceivers and respondents think and do varies according to how well they know and like each other.
The Uncertainty Reduction Theory by Berger states that no matter how close two people
eventually become, they always begin as strangers. The scope of the theory rests on the assertion
that strangers, upon meeting, go through certain steps and checkpoints in order to reduce uncertainty about each other and form an idea of whether one likes or dislikes the other. From the time Mike and Michelle met to when they became a couple, eventually led them to know and like each other very well. As their relationship matured overtime, it allowed Michelle to know and like Mike more and vice versa.
Michelle, knowing Mike would anticipate that he’d ask her questions at school on Monday. She knows that she would probably have to find suitable explanations that would sufficiently answer Mike’s questions and at the same time, not give out everything. Because Mike and Michelle are a couple, she has come to know him pretty well. And her basis for what actions she’d do would be based solely on how well she has known Mike.
Mike, on the other hand, because he was having suspicions, would try to observe Michelle’s body movements and behavior when he talks to her. He’d compare her nonverbal cues during the time he’d ask her the questions, to how Michelle was when he knew what she was saying was in fact true. But would eye contact and uneasy body movements be enough to justify that a person is lying? Short answer: Sort of. Remember that a person who rolls his eyes but tells the truth, is still telling the truth.
Clues that tell if a person is lying are not as obvious as Pinocchio’s nose.Yes, it would seem logical that a person who tells a lie is most likely to avoid eye contact and change topics right away, but these are not strong evidences that can prove a person is lying. It is also scientifically
true that humans are poor lie detectors and just by pressumption alone is not enough to conclude
if a person is telling the truth or not.
The detailed version of their conversation goes like this:
( Lunch time, at the canteen, Michelle was copying notes when Mike sat beside her)
Mike: So what did you do last Saturady? Michelle: Something… something came up, I had to go somewhere. (never looking up from her notebook)
Mike: Where? What was it? (Suspicion heightens)
Michelle: Nothing, something just came up. (reaches for her sandwhich but still does not look up)
Mike: Why won’t you tell me then?
Michelle: (senses Mike’s suspicion) Oh, um… it was no big deal. Just a dinner. Nothing really. I’m sorry I cancelled.
Mike: Are you sure there’s nothing I need to know?
Michelle: ( lifts her head up but fails to maintain eye contact) ahhh… ofcourse, you don’t trust
me? (says it rather angrily)
Mike: I just wanted to find out.
Michelle: Nothing of utter importance happened last Saturday. Okay? (forces a reassuring smile)
Mike: okay then. (decides to let it go)
In the detailed conversation, there was clearly a deception. Mike, being the respondent, does not exactly know that. But, he was already suspicious from the get go. However during the flow of the conversation, Mike could not confirm those suspicions.
Planned deception demands mental effort. Michelle was vague in her responses; she redirected herself to doing other things while answering Mike instead of focusing on their conversation alone. And since she noticed that her nonverbal cues could tell her out and the discovery of the truth could threaten their relationship, she intentionally strives to take control of her bodily actions to lessen the signaling of deception. A successful deceiver must deliberately maneuver information in order to create a believable message. (Griffin, Chapter 7)
Deceivers make more strategic moves and leak more nonverbal cues than truth tellers (Propositions of Interpersonal Deception Theory). Michelle, along with her aloof statements, seemed stressed and couldn’t maintain eye contact. Aside from that, she then quickly changes the subject to avoid anymore questions. Stress causes people to act differently, thus, the odd gestures Michelle exhibited.
What motivates a person to deceive? Whether we lie depends on our calculation of the reward/punishment equation, this is called “situational honesty”. As is in Buller and Burgoons’
Proposition of Interpersonal Deception Theory states, Motivation affects strategic activity and leakage. (Paul’s Tips)
The drive to why a person lies or chooses not to tell the whole truth depends on what he/she wants out of life. After all, hiding our intentions can be useful in all aspects of ones life. It may
be to avoid trouble, to gain money or to benefit from something or someone. It depends on the
incentives a person is going after. In Michelle’s case, she did not want to get in trouble with Mike. Blowing him of was one thing, but the reason being it was because of another guy, Mike would surely get pissed off.
Will Mike know the truth? Perhaps. Michelle had been quite conscious of what she was saying and how she was acting. She was giving restrained answers and her body cues were also being intentionally controlled. This might have given Mike the impression that Michelle was in fact, hiding something. Other betraying actions that could give Michelle away (according to Zuckerman, Griffin, Chapter 7) are, increased blinking and enlarged pupils, frequent speech errors, increased speech hesitations, higher voice pitch and increased discrepancies between verbal and non verbal actions. Michelle also exhibited most of those signs.
The idea that what people say is true, is merely an assumption. It’s not only a common assumption, it’s an essential supposition. It’s what some have referred to as the truth bias that operates in society — an unspoken assumption that unless we’re shown some cause to think otherwise, a person normally believes he is being told the truth.
Michelle’s fear of being caught and the calculated activity that goes with that fear are lower than when truth bias is high and vice versa (Griffin, chapter 7). Michelle knows that Mike would ask her when they’d meet. Because Michelle knows that Mike trusts her, she is hoping that Mike has no reason to doubt what she has to say. But during the conversation, Michelle had sensed that
Mike doubted what she was saying. When she sensed the suspicion, Michelle gave out one more detail when she said that it was just a dinner. This was an attempt to further lessen Mike’s suspicion and stop his questioning. Mike’s reaction’s was unexpected to Michelle.
A respondent’s accuracy in spotting deception goes down when interactivity, the respondent’s truth bias, and the deceiver’s communication skill go up (Buller and Burgoon’s Propositions of Interpersonal Deception Theory). Mike, trusting Michelle will start doubting his suspicions as they continue to converse with each other. And Michelle’s reassurance would clearly reduce those suspicions even more.
But even when a truth bias is very believable, when in a conversation, people can still doubt the honesty of the other. In this case Mike did have a suspicion. Buller and Burgoon define suspicion as a “state of doubt or distrust that is without sufficient proof”. As such, it is located somewhere between truth and falsity. What led to the suspicion? Again it was the verbal and nonverbal cues he had observed while he was talking to Michelle. A respondent’s suspicion is apparent in their strategic activity and leakage. (Griffin, Chapter 7)
Of course, Mike would want to put his suspicions to rest. And because his suspicions were not resolved, he took more action. This by way of asking Michelle again of what she was really doing. But Mike needed to be careful. When a person, guilty or not, is accused or confronted, they modify messages to get rid of the doubts. But this intern may make the respondent think that he/she is scheming.
How the deception-suspicion game is played will vary throughout the course of the entire
conversation. A deceiver might expect a respondent to ask certain questions, but when the
unexpected happens, he/she is forced to strategize and think of other ways to go by successfully. The same is with respondents. When they have suspicions, they’d think of ways to learn the truth. However, it may not always go according to plan. Thus, another tactic has to be used.
Michelle knew Mike trusted her, However, Mike still questioned what she was saying. This had forced her to think of other excuses. Michelle thought that Mike would not be very persistent about it, but she was wrong. Mike, on the other hand, thought that Michelle would tell him the truth right away. But she was elusive about it, so he felt like he had to ask her again despite him thinking that there was no need too. Both of them had to rethink their strategies.
Whether a deceiver is successful or not depends entirely on his/ her performance during an interaction. Amateur deceivers tend to be more obvious and are easily caught, unlike seasoned deceivers.
Michelle was vague throughout the entire conversation. As someone curious would do, Mike then tried to pry for answers more. But Michelle only got angry and retorted at him. She then said “nothing of utter importance… “ to fend Mike off. When the conversation was over, Mike just decided to let it go. This intern makes Michelle successful in deceiving Mike. Mike saw Michelle getting angry, thus, forcing him to stop suspecting as well.
Mike’s choosing to let it go may have been because he had been convinced enough by Michelle’s deception or just simply because he knew he’d never get it out of Michelle no matter
how much he’d try. Either way, Michelle was still successful.
Mark was never able to know the whole story. He had chosen to take in and believe everything Michelle had to say.
Thinking of other plausible responses by Michelle was no longer needed as Mike had stopped asking questions. But deception is always a guessing game. If Michelle had chosen to tell the whole truth, it may have been in vain. If she chose to have had a clean slate and told Mike the truth, there was a chance that Mike might have just been okay with it, and then her purpose for trying to deceive Mike would then have been futile. But if she deceived Mike (which she did), he might believe her right way. Which was not the exact case, since it took Mike a while put his suspicions to rest. We will never know what may happen if Michelle had told the truth.
As has been analyzed, interpersonal deception adequately explains and scrutinizes the said communication act. In addition, verbal and nonverbal cues are one of the credible factors that verify the deception of an individual, although, it may not always be that way at certain times.
Furthermore, there will always be a motivation to why a person chooses to deceive. This may be to avoid trouble, to gain something or simply to fool another.
Lastly, in the said communication act, as what has been explained by the said Interpersonal Deception Theory; the reason for the deception was solely for the purpose of staying out of a dilemma.
