Taxing the brain to uncover lying? Meta-analyzing the effect of imposing cognitive load on the reaction-time costs of lying.

Abstract

Lying typically requires greater mental effort than telling the truth. Imposing cognitive load may improve lie detection by limiting the cognitive resources needed to lie effectively, thereby increasing the difference in speed between truths and lies. We test this hypothesis meta-analytically. Across 21 studies using response-time (RT) paradigms (11 unpublished; total N = 792), we consistently found that truth-telling was faster than lying, but found no evidence that imposing cognitive load increased that difference (Control, d = 1.45; Load, d = 1.28). Instead, load significantly decreased the lie-truth RT difference by increasing the RT of truths, g = −.18, p = .027. Our findings therefore suggest that imposing cognitive load does not necessarily improve RT-based lie detection, and may actually worsen it by taxing the mental system and thus impeding people's ability to easily-and thus quickly-tell the truth.

When honest people cheat, and cheaters are honest: Cognitive control processes override our moral default

“…This is in line with the social intuitionist theory that argues that honesty is driven by moral intuitions, shaped by culture and social norms, and does not require deliberate cognitive control processes (Haidt, 2001). The hypothesis that cheating rather than honesty is a complex cognitive function demanding cognitive effort, is supported by research showing that people react faster when asked to tell the truth as compared to lying (for meta-analyses, see Suchotzki, Verschuere, Van Bockstaele, Ben-Shakhar, & Crombez, 2017;Verschuere, Köbis, Bereby-Meyer, Rand, & Shalvi, 2018). Cheating requiring cognitive capacity is also supported by findings that people cheat less when taxed by a cognitively demanding memory task as compared to a less taxing task (van't Veer, Stel, & Van Beest, 2014).…”

“…Research supporting the "Will" hypothesis (Gino et al, 2011;Mead et al, 2009;Welsh & Ordonez, 2014) suggests cognitive control is needed to be honest. In direct opposition to this, another stream of research has accumulated evidence in favor of the "Grace" hypothesis (for meta-analyses, see Suchotzki, Verschuere, Van Bockstaele, Ben-Shakhar, & Crombez, 2017;Verschuere, Köbis, Bereby-Meyer, Rand, & Shalvi, 2018;Carparo, 2017;Spence et al, 2001;Greene & Paxton, 2009) advocating that cognitive control is required for dishonesty.…”

Intuitive Honesty Versus Dishonesty: Meta-Analytic Evidence

“…We focused on experiments with a manipulation of intuition and compared those with a control condition—to increase comparability we did not include studies that compared, for example, a control condition with a deliberation condition (such as Wang, Zhong, & Murnighan, 2014). In line with previous researchers who have studied intuitive decision making (Rand, 2016; Verschuere et al, 2018), we classified existing methods of intuition manipulation into five categories:…”

“…This is the logic underlying the prominent cognitive theory that regards truth telling as the more automatic, dominant response and lying as a complex cognitive function that imposes greater demand on cognitive skills (Vrij, Fisher, Mann, & Leal, 2006). Indeed, people react faster when instructed to tell the truth compared with a lie (for meta-analyses, see Suchotzki, Verschuere, Van Bockstaele, Ben-Shakhar, & Crombez, 2017; Verschuere, Köbis, Bereby-Meyer, Rand, & Shalvi, 2018); and when instructed to lie, people exhibit heightened activity in the control regions of the brain (Spence et al, 2001). Lying, accordingly, requires cognitive capacity.…”

The language of lies: a preregistered direct replication of Suchotzki and Gamer (2018; Experiment 2)

“…That lie-truth differences in RTs are smaller in a foreign than in the native language have applied as well as theoretical implications. Imposing cognitive load may not always have the intended effect of increasing lie-truth differences (see also Verschuere, Köbis, Bereby-Meyer, Rand, & Shalvi, 2018). These findings fuel the concern that cognitive load techniques can backfire, making truthtellers look more as liars, and warn that recommending to implement cognitive load techniques in practice may have been premature.…”