Cold-Blooded Lie Catchers?

: An Investigation of Psychopathy, Emotional Processing, and Deception Detection

Sarah M. Sinclair, B.A. (Hons) & Kristine A. Peace, Ph.D. Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine emotional processing, psychopathic traits, and deception detection abilities as a function of emotional valence. Research has suggested that veracity judgments may be influenced by the characteristics of the judge. For example, psychopaths lack emotionality, empathy, and score high on measures of callousness and interpersonal deception. Related to these characteristics, we speculated that psychopaths may not be distracted by the emotionality of a report and may rely on different verbal cues to deception when making veracity judgments. Undergraduate participants (N = 251) were assessed for levels of psychopathy and emotional empathy, and completed a deception detection task involving narratives of emotional events (positive, negative, neutral). While overall accuracy was close to chance (47.6%), participants were much more accurate in determining the veracity of truthful (61.24%) relative to fabricated (33.74%) narratives. Further, accuracy between j d b t judgments of narratives th t were emotional i nature t f ti that ti l in t (negative and positive narratives; 46.43%) was lower than neutral narratives (50.30%). These findings suggested that an emotive truth bias may have prevented judges from using valid cues to deception because they were distracted by the emotional content of the report. Psychopathy, while not related to accuracy in detecting deception, was associated with differential use of cues. Specifically, psychopathy was associated with the utilization of cues directly connected to the structure of the report (i.e., uneven flow, hesitations, repetitions) and not those related to the personal or emotional experience (i.e., amount of stress, emotional details). Implications for deception detection in forensic settings are discussed.

Method
Participants
Undergraduate psychology students (N = 251) Mean age = 20.43 years (SD = 4.04) 77 males (30.7%) and 174 females (69.3%)

Results: Accuracy Rates

Overall mean accuracy across all narratives was 47.58% (SD = 14.03%). Accuracy was broken down into percentages for correct identification of truthful (M = 61.24%; SD = 23.35%) and fabricated (M = 33.74%; SD = 18.44%) reports
60 55

Discussion
Overall accuracy was close to the level of chance as seen in previous studies. Participants were muc h more accurate in determining the veracity of truthful (61.24%) relative to fabricated (33.74%) narratives. Partial support was obtained for an emotive truth bias, where accuracy rates between neutral & emotional conditions were significantly different. Although the existence of an emotive truth bias is still speculative the implications of its speculative, existence are important in the understanding of deception detection and its application in forensic contexts. Contrary to our expectations, psychopathy and emotional empathy were not correlated to measures of accuracy. However, levels of emotional processing were related to what cues were utilized for veracity judgments. Limitations in the measures used to assess emotional processing may be related to ceiling effects. Despite findings that cue use is related to accuracy (e.g., Ekman & OS lli OSullivan, 1991) our results did not indicate that participants 1991), lt t i di t th t ti i t who utilized more cues displayed enhanced deception detection accuracy. Overall cue use did differ across emotional conditions (with the most cues being used for emotionally negative narratives), but cue use was unrelated to accuracy. The differential utilization of cues suggests that this should correspond with variations in accuracy for detecting deception. While this was not evidenced in the present study, future research should address accuracy using more sensitive p p measures of these constructs to perhaps reveal more subtle or obscured relationships. Psychopathy was associated with the utilization of cues that are directly connected to the structure of the report and not to the individuals experience of the event. This relationship may be due to the lack of empathic processing (Blair et al., 2005) and grandiosity (Hare, 1996) that is characteristic of psychopaths. In other words, they may not be able to identify with the experiences of others therefore they are forced to rely on alternative cues to deception. On the other hand, higher levels of empathic processing were associated with reliance on cues connected to the individuals experience of the event.

Measures
Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI)
Accuracy(%)

Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (QMEE) Credibility Assessment Questionnaire (CAQ) Emotional Narrative Stimuli 12 total, 6 real/false, 4 positive/negative/neutral

50
50.3

45
44.8

48.1

46.4

40 35 30 Positive Negative Neutral Emotional

Procedure
Online testing paradigm where all questionnaires and stimuli were presented. Participants completed the YPI and QMEE, and were then presented with 12 narratives that were counterbalanced according to veracity and emotionality. The CAQ was completed following each narrative, asking participants to judge the veracity of the report and indicate which commonly used cues to deception (e.g., amount of emotional detail, coherence, hesitations, repetitions; see Vrij, 2008) they used to make their judgments

EmotionalCondition
Neutralv.Positive:t(252)=2.79,p <.01;Neutralv.Emotional:t(252)=2.25,p <.05

Results: Individual Differences

No significant differences were found between all measures of accuracy and emotional empathy (QMEE). No significant differences were found between all measures of accuracy and Psychopathy (YPI).

Introduction
In the absence of finding a single reliable cue to deception (DePaulo et al., 2003), recent studies have focused on individual differences in ability to detect deception. Psychopaths contain a cluster of interpersonal and affective traits that are associated with deception, interpersonal manipulation, and lack emotional and empathic processing abilities (Patrick, 2007). Only one study to date has examined the role of psychopathy in deception detection and failed to find any significant relationships (Hare Forth & Hart 1989) Despite these (Hare, Forth, Hart, 1989). results, we believed that there may be more subtle mediating factors that influence the relationship between psychopathy and deception detection. As a result, we included the role of emotionality (e.g., psychopathy, emotional empathy, and emotional stimuli) in our deception detection paradigm to determine if emotionality influences judgment accuracy. Based on the ideas proposed by Campbell and Porter (2002), individuals who are interpersonally agreeable and emotionally compassionate are often distracted by the emotionality of the event and may not rely on valid cues to deception. That is, they are less likely to judge emotional narratives as fabricated, regardless of their veracity. For example, Peace, Porter, and Almon (2009) found that participants engaged in a positive response (or truth) bias when asked to judge the veracity of allegations of sexual assault, indicating that allegations were more often truthful than deceptive. This partiality may be denoted as an emotive truth bias. In relation to psychopaths, who inherently lack emotionality, empathy, and are high on measures of callousness, it is reasonable to suggest this emotive truth bias would not exist. In essence, those who score high on p y p y y y p , , y y measures of psychopathy may rely on more valid verbal cues to deception or, at a minimum, are not distracted by the emotionality of a report. Based on these arguments and extant research, it was hypothesized that high scores on a measure of psychopathy would be related to an increased ability to judge the credibility of truthful and deceptive narratives. In particular, we predicted that higher levels of psychopathy would be associated with enhanced accuracy at detecting deception in emotional reports, relative to those who may be distracted by the emotionality of a report (low levels of psychopathy). Levels of emotional empathy were predicted to be inversely related to detection accuracy for emotional reports. Finally, no direct predictions with respect to cue utilization and psychopathy or emotional empathy were made due to the lack of research in this area.

Results: Cue Utilization

Psychopathy: Higher scores were related to greater reliance on these cues: hesitations, uneven flow, & repetitions. Emotional empathy: Scores were positively correlated with greater use of cues such as: uneven flow, amount of detail, sensory details, self-related emotional details, & reported levels of stress
30 25

N u m b ero fC u es

20 15 10 5 0 Positive Negative Neutral

18.3 16.0 15.1

Contact Information:
Kristine A. Peace, Ph.D. Experimental Forensic Psychology Department of Psychology Grant MacEwan College 10700 104 Avenue Edmonton, AB, Canada T5J 4S2 PeaceK@macewan.ca or Sarah.Sinclair@capitalhealth.ca (780) 633-3651

EmotionalCondition
Allweresignificantlydifferentfromeachother:F(2,249)=41.23,p <.001