Liar, liar: Consistent lying decreases belief in the truth

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of lying on belief ratings for autobiographical childhood events. Participants lied by trying to convince the experimenter that likely events had not happened and that unlikely events had happened. Participants consistently lied, consistently told the truth, and alternated lying and truth telling across two sessions. Results showed that consistent false assents increased belief in those false events and that consistent false denials decreased belief in those true events.False denials had a larger influence on belief than did false assents. False assents that were told first were more likely to increase in belief than were false assents told in the second session. False denials decreased belief in the true event regardless of when they were told. These results suggest that lying influences confidence ratings both by increasing belief in a lied-about event and by decreasing belief in a true event. created the details. Memory for cognitive operations, such as searching general knowledge stores, manipulating retrieved memories, elaborating, and imagining, suggests that the memory was internally generated rather than actually experienced. If liars remember the effort they put into fabricating their stories, these false stories may sound familiar; nevertheless, they should recognize that their stories were self-generated. The harder it is to fabricate details, the more likely one is to remember doing so (Otgaar & Baker, 2018). If the generation of the memory is easy, the self-generated source may be forgotten, and an inflation effect could occur.Previous research has identified many factors that affect one's ability to source monitor. Lying is presumed to be difficult and uses many cognitive resources (Langleben et al., 2002), so it should result in creating strong memories for the cognitive processes used to generate the lies. However, if a lie is repeated, the amount of cognitive effort used to lie decreases. Walczyk, Mahoney, Doverspike, and Griffith-Ross (2009) noted that response times were faster for prepared lies than for truthful responses because, after the lie had been practiced, the participants were simply delivering a memorized script.Lying becomes easier with repetition and, under some conditions, can be easier than telling the truth (Hu, Chen, & Fu, 2012). Therefore, as lying gets easier, the source-monitoring task becomes more difficult. Source monitoring will also be more difficult if the memory for the source has faded over time. Polage (2012) found that participants who lied during the same session as the posttest were less likely to increase their belief in the lies than participants who had lied in earlier sessions. It was assumed that memory for creating the lies was stronger for participants who had more recently generated the lies, making the source judgments easier.Based on previous research, it was proposed that false assents would increase belief in the false event. Repetition of the lie might increase its retrievability, inhibit the truth, and decrease sou...

The impact of false denials on forgetting and false memory

“…Recent experimentation has examined whether false denials might act as some form of internal feedback that may affect belief. Although in one of our studies, we did not find evidence for this (Otgaar et al, 2016), Polage (2019) recently found that repeated false denials decreased belief in the truth of events (see also Romeo et al, 2019).…”

“…Specifically, the act of denial might make people less likely to believe that a certain event took place. Although Otgaar and colleagues (2016) did not find evidence for this, Polage (2019) recently showed that repeated denials of FALSE DENIALS AND FALSE MEMORY FORMATION 29 experiences made people decrease their belief in the occurrence of these experiences. Also, Romeo and colleagues (2019) recently showed that feigning memory loss -which can be seen as some form of denial-also reduced belief in the occurrence of an experienced event.…”

“…However, it must be stressed that the denial-induced forgetting effect has been observed with more realistic stimuli such as a virtual reality experience (Romeo et al, 2019). Whether false denials might also adversely affect the production of autobiographical false memories is an empirical question that needs careful examination using false memory paradigms that mimic more the experiences in daily life (e.g., misinformation paradigm; Loftus, 2005; see also Polage, 2019).…”

An experimental investigation of the misinformation effect in crime‐related amnesia claims

“…These deceptive strategies produce different memory outcomes that are also correspondingly placed along a continuum. On the one hand, research has shown that falsely denying certain event‐related details during an interview can eventually lead to forget that those details were previously denied (e.g., Otgaar, Howe, Smeets, & Wang, 2016; Otgaar, Romeo, Howe, & Ramakers, 2018; Polage, 2018). On the other hand, fabricating new information has been shown to increase memory error rates at a later stage (e.g., Van Oorsouw & Giesbrecht, 2008), although it does not seem to undermine the gist of correct recollection (e.g., Ackil & Zaragoza, 2011; Chroback & Zaragoza, 2008).…”

What Happens to Bad Actors in Organizations? A Review of Actor-Centric Outcomes of Negative Behavior

“…For example, actors tend to omit facts when recalling a past transgression that highlights the severity of the transgression and their responsibility (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990;Kearns & Fincham, 2005;Stillwell & Baumeister, 1997). They also tend to selectively recall facts so that prior lies seem closer to the truth (Colwell et al, 2011;Polage, 2017Polage, , 2019 and forget moral rules after engaging in acts that violate them (Shu & Gino, 2012;Shu et al, 2011). Of note, Kouchaki and Gino (2016) found that "unethical amnesia" triggered by earlier unethical action led actors to repeat such action subsequently.…”