Grainger and Andrew King for help with stimulus preparation.

Fifteen college students attempted to deceive a professional polygraph examiner, while 15 others who had nothing to hide also submitted to the examination. The examiner was blind as to whether each subject was deceptive or truthful. Using the skin conductance response (SCR), significant discrimination was made between deceptive and truthful subjects with both “guilty person” and “guilty knowledge” polygraph tests. On both types of test, however, subjects who were not detected were significantly less socialized (Socialization Scale of the California Psychological Inventory) than those who were detected. This reduced susceptibility to detection was mediated by a reduced SCR to deception among low‐socialization subjects. Among innocent subjects the highly socialized were more responsive electrodermally throughout the test, leading some of them to be misclassified as deceptive on at least one test. Implications of the results for both detection of deception and the construct of socialization are discussed.

No abstract

We tested the hypothesis that the social act of moving through space with others-collective directional movement-is associated with greater levels of group cohesion compared to static activities. We asked participants to imagine participating in activities as part of a same-sex group and found that imagining going on a journey is associated with higher levels of expected cohesion compared to imagining attending a meeting (Study 1) or an event (Study 2). Study 3 replicates the main effect using different manipulations and finds that it persists regardless of whether the imagined group were friends or strangers. Two further studies employed real-world tasks and show that the effect is not a consequence of goal ascription (Study 4) or synchrony/exertion (Study 5). We argue that the link between this activity and cohesion is a consequence of its ubiquity in social ecologies and the interdependence and shared common fate of those engaged in it.