Deception as a Derived Function of Language

Abstract

Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species. It has been suggested by some commentators that the primary biological function of human language is to deceive and selfishly manipulate social competitors. However, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical literature in favor of the social bonding hypothesis for language function, the ostensible evidence and arguments for the deception hypothesis have not been fully discussed. The following review analyses the evidence and theoretical arguments from human social behavior, comparative animal behavior, and developmental psychology and suggests that deception shows clear signs of a derived function for language. Furthermore, in addition to being used relatively infrequently across most human and non-human animal contexts, deception appears to be utilized just as often for prosocial and social bonding functions, as it is for antisocial purposes. Future studies should focus on theoretical and experimental investigations which explore interactions between deceptive and honest language use in the context of social bonding.

Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

“…This, paired with recent work showing that listeners can effectively estimate pain intensity from simulated pain cries [29], is consistent with the emerging hypothesis that deceptive voice modulation may be at the origins of selection for humans’ uniquely advanced vocal control abilities [20,65,103]. Indeed, some nonhuman mammals already demonstrate a limited capacity for functional vocal deception [103] and body size exaggeration [75,77,47,20] in agonistic contexts, as well as more voluntary vocal flexibility recently observed in nonhuman primates ([104–106] see also [20] for review). Survival benefits conferred to those able to modulate the expression of primary indexical cues may have given rise to increasingly greater vocal control, paving the way for the evolution of complex speech capabilities [20,103].…”

“…Indeed, some nonhuman mammals already demonstrate a limited capacity for functional vocal deception [103] and body size exaggeration [75,77,47,20] in agonistic contexts, as well as more voluntary vocal flexibility recently observed in nonhuman primates ([104–106] see also [20] for review). Survival benefits conferred to those able to modulate the expression of primary indexical cues may have given rise to increasingly greater vocal control, paving the way for the evolution of complex speech capabilities [20,103].…”

Controlling the Narrative: Euphemistic Language Affects Judgments of Actions while Avoiding Perceptions of Dishonesty

“…Even without this body of evidence, people appear to share the intuition that they can influence the thoughts of others with deceptive language, as evidenced by its widespread use (DePaulo et al, 1996). Some have even posited that the primary function of language is to deceive and manipulate the behaviour of others in a self-serving way (Dawkins & Krebs, 1978;Krebs & Dawkins, 1984;Scott-Phillips, 2006), although evidence seems to point to deception as being a secondary and not primary function of language (Oesch, 2016). Nevertheless, whether for pro-or anti-social purposes, deception is an important part of language use.…”

Understanding Lies Based on Evolutionary Psychology: A Critical Review

“…Although other species are capable of some levels of communication, none of them come close to the signifi cant ability of an adult human to organize phrases from a repertoire spanning an average of ten thousand words (Oesch, 2016). These words can be combined to exaggerate, omit, or invent facts.…”

“…For these purposes, the ability to convince another person can be a tributary of the ability to convince oneself in relation to how to present oneself to other individuals (Hippel & Trivers, 2011). Selfdeception favored, in these terms, part of these mechanisms and language may have optimized them (Dor, 2017;Oesch, 2016).…”